George Keating – Director of the Theatre Arts Division
(he/him) is a longtime member of Actors’ Equity Association. He holds a B.F.A. in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. He is the Studio Artistic Director at The Theatre School and an Adjunct Professor of Performance. He most recently directed The Boys in the Band and Journey’s End at TTS. George is co-founder of Theatrebam Chicago and co-creator of the award-winning hit show Schoolhouse Rock Live!. He appeared in SRL! in Chicago, on tour and off-Broadway. George was honored to train in kabuki with Shozo Sato, Royal Treasure of Japan, culminating in a performance in the world premiere Kabuki Lady Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. George received the inaugural Angela Lansbury Award for Best Supporting Actor at the International Mystery Writers’ Festival. He appears on Chicago’s many stages such as: Paramount, Goodman, Northlight, Chicago Shakespeare and Court. Notable roles: Officer William Murdoch, Titanic; Baptista Minola, The Taming of the Shrew; Felix Ungar, The Odd Couple; George Banks, Mary Poppins; Thenardier, Les Miserables; The Baron, Grand Hotel and Gould in Grey Gardens. At NHSI, he has served as Core Faculty since the year 2000 and has directed numerous productions: The Serpent, The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Other Shore, Strider, Find Hakamadare!, The Scarecrow, The Handmaid’s Tale, A Dream Play, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings and Animal Farm.
Emily Ritger – Associate Director
(she/her) is a director, playwright, and arts administrator based in Chicago. As a teacher and director developing new work, she has worked for American Theatre Company, Redmoon, Cleveland Public Theatre, Northlight Theatre, ChiArts, The National High School Institute, and Carthage College. Ritger’s training includes ensemble based work, Viola Spolin Theatre Games, Viewpoints, Puppetry, Contact Improv, experimental writing, and various forms of music. She is the founder of The Midwives, an artistic development company serving makers of different disciplines across the country. Her current projects include: Behaymas, a collaboration with playwright Aliza Bartfield–three humans and one animal blur the lines of domesticity and societal constructions of family; The Women Like a River Falling From the Sky, a collaboration with Claribel Gross and Mekala Sridhar inspired by Isabel Allende’s The Stories of Eva Luna–the piece is an irrational response to Allende and her characters; and The WI Collection, a work of poetry celebrating rural America, its voice, land, dialect, and sense of community. Emily received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, a BS in Theatre and Philosophy from the University of Evansville, and has trained at La MaMa Umbria in Italy and Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theatre Game Center.
Jordan Wallace – Residence Hall Director
(any pronouns) Jordan Wallace is excited to join the Cherubs team this summer as the Residence Hall Director for the Theatre Arts Division. Jordan has taught and led workshops with organizations such as Congo Square Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and the Actor’s Training Center. Jordan leans toward curating work that focuses on the world, community, and the self. They are passionate about creating spaces where young artists feel empowered, supported, and inspired to take creative risks.
Izzi King – Assistant Residence Hall Director
(she/her) Izzi is absolutely stoked to be joining the Cherubs Faculty as Assistant Dorm Director this year! When not working at Cherubs, Izzi runs a theatre group with their bestie Zoé Soteres called Sub Rosa Theatre Collective. She is also working towards her certification in Intimacy Coordination. Izzi acts, directs, makes colorful spreadsheets and is an advocate for anti-capitalist theatre making. See more at izzi-king.com
Grace Herman – Assistant to the Division Directors
Grace Herman is a director, dramaturg, and teaching artist from Tamarindo, Costa Rica, currently based in Chicago, IL. In May she graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a B.A. in Theatre and a minor in Business Management. Recent directing credits include Azazel’s Gift, In AOC We Trust, and Cafecito (LUC Underground Theatre) and assistant directing credits include Notes From the Field and The Old Man and The Old Moon (Loyola Theatre). She worked as a Faculty Associate at Cherubs last summer and loved it so much she had to come back!
Jen Smith – Production Manager & Stage Management Faculty
(she/her) is happy to continue her working relationship with the Cherub program after teaching Stage Management last summer. Jen was very familiar with the program after working side by side with the Cherubs while she was the Production Manager for Northwestern’s Wirtz Center a number of years ago. Since Northwestern, Jen has worked with DePaul’s Theatre School where she graduated as a Stage Manager/Production Manager. Jen has long working relationships at many Chicago theatres including Lookingglass (Production Manager), Chicago Shakespeare (Director of Production) and The Goodman Theatre (Asst. Prod. Mgr.). Jen warmed up for a bit and worked with Arizona Theatre Company, producing in both Tucson and Phoenix but returned to the Midwest to work with Milwaukee Repertory Theatre as General Manager. Jen is currently back in the freelance world and most recently was the interim Production Manager for University of Illinois Chicago. She is also the Production Manager for Haymarket Opera Company. When not a thespian, Jen works with glass. You can follow her at jensmithglass on Instragram.
Rose Geovanes – Assistant Production Manager
(they/them) is thrilled to return this summer as the Assistant Production Manager! Last year, they served as a Faculty Associate for Cherubs and are excited to be part of the team once again. Rose is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Theatre at Illinois State University, with a concentration in stage management. Their recent stage management credits include Frankenstein, Honey Bee Baby, and The Prom. They are also working toward certification as a stage intimacy coordinator. Rose looks forward to helping create another incredible season with the Cherubs community!
Judy Kagel – Design Faculty & Lighting Designer
(she/they) Judy Kagel is a New York based Lighting Designer with a passion for new works. Judy has assisted Broadway designers on major new musicals Off-Broadway and regionally. Their designs have been seen at The WP Theater, The Wild Project, Dixon Place, The Tank, Access Theater, Arts on Site, LPAC Rough Draft Festival, and NY Fringe Festival, among others. Judy also works extensively as a theater educator. They are a lighting professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and started a pilot, in class, theater design program at Mount Vernon’s Deznel Washington School for the Arts. Judy is also a console trainer and guest artist in a number of high school theater departments. Judy is thrilled to be returning to Cherubs for a third Summer. When not working, you can find Judy at their local farmer’s market, planning their next trip around the world, or attempting a new dish in the kitchen. For more of their work visit JudyAKagel.com.
Dinah Berkeley – Core Instructor
(they/them) Dinah Berkeley is stoked to be returning to Cherubs for a second summer! They are a multi-disciplinary artist and educator whose work has been witnessed globally on stages, in living rooms, on zoom and in the streets, from San Francisco California to Edinburgh Scotland, NYC to Patagonia. Favorite Chicago performances include playing Ronald Reagan As A Demon As A Drag Queen in a workshop production of Everything Devoured by Katherine Gwynn and Hold Onto Your Butts a 3-person-parody of the cult classic film Jurassic Park. They directed and performed in SALTY which won Best New Short Film of 2022 at the Seattle Film Festival, and you can read their plays on newplayexchange.com. From performing, to directing to writing to teaching, to plain ol’ living, Dinah loves centering play in all that they do. Their work often includes puppetry, clowning, mime, and a healthy dose of absurdity. In their free time they love to play their guitar, sing, dance, bike, hike, rock climb, camp, backpack, garden, swim in lakes, rivers and oceans, read in a hammock, cuddle a big dog, bake a pie, laugh with friends, do things that challenge them, and write poetry.
Tim Giles – Core Instructor
(he/him) is an actor, director, and educator. He is thrilled to be returning for his second summer with the Cherubs. He holds a BFA from Rutgers University and an MFA from the University of South Carolina. He is deeply invested in constructing educational environments that encourage students’ creativity and which invite them to investigate what is possible in theater. Most recently he has taught at Pomona College where he also co-directed The Play That Goes Wrong. Recent and upcoming work includes directing a staged reading of Lauren Ferebee’s play Wild Eden, sound designing David Bridel’s new play Trickster, and receiving his certification in Teaching Clown from The Clown School.
Destiny Strothers – Core Instructor
(she/her) Destiny Strothers is thrilled to be teaching at Cherubs this summer! This past June, she performed as a featured soloist in The Black Aura: A Celebration of Black Liberation with Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited program. Recent opera debuts include Belinda in Dido & Aeneas (Chicago Summer Opera) and abroad as Zerlina and Poppea in scenes from Don Giovanni (InterHarmony Music Festival) and L’incoronazione di Poppea (Musica nelle Marche) in Italy. Theatre credits include The Homeless Monologues (Goodman Theatre), New Faces Sing Broadway 1947 (Porchlight Theatre), and Breath, Boom (Eclipse Theatre), receiving Black Theatre Alliance Award nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Play and Most Promising Actress. She has also worked with Erasing the Distance, Chicago Dramatists, Albany Park Theatre Project, Silk Road Rising, The Hypocrites, The Annoyance, The New Coordinates, Pegasus Theatre, Chicago Children’s Theatre, Jackalope’s Living Newspaper Festival and American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Festival. Ms. Strothers is a graduate of the ACADEMY at Black Box Acting. She earned her M.M. in Voice
Performance at DePaul University and her B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from the University of Illinois at Chicago, magna cum laude with honors and distinction.
Michael Osinski – Core Instructor
(he/him) Michael Osinski is returning for his tenth summer at Cherubs, where he has directed three times and taught acting, performance theory, directing, Viewpoints, and queer theatre. He is a director, deviser, and educator from Syracuse, New York, with ties to the Chicago and Philadelphia areas. He just finished three years as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre & Performance at St. Lawrence University, where he directed The Laramie Project and taught acting, theatre appreciation, solo performance, and queer theatre and film. He has also taught at various universities in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area – Arcadia, Rowan, Rider, and Temple. His favorite directing credits include Red Lodge, Montana, a tribute to the work of David Lynch set in an abandoned school locker room (Philadelphia Fringe Festival); The Celebrity Guide to Mental Health and Wellness, an interactive shape-shifting self-help seminar (Philadelphia SoLow Fest); Moth by Declan Greene, a story about the aftermath of a school bullying incident (Azuka Theatre); and The Dollhouse Project, a devised 1950s-infused take on Ibsen’s classic play (Arcadia University). He is currently working on an interactive solo show about the state of higher ed in America (hopefully coming to a fringe festival near you). He is a graduate of the MFA Directing program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. And he’s been co-producing a music podcast called This
One Goes to 11 for the past 3 1/2 years. You can learn more about him at www.Michael-Osinski.com.
Iris Sowlat – Core Instructor
(she/her) is a director whose work focuses on socially relevant themes (such as queerness, feminism, and disability) told through an unexpected lens, to create moments of revelation for the characters and the audience. She spent six years in Chicago (2015-2021), where she directed and produced in the city’s vibrant non-Equity theater community. Favorite directing credits included Romeo and Juliet (Accidental Shakespeare Co., digital), Joan of Arc and Underworld Anthem (Prop Theatre’s Rhino Fest), and Narratives of Achromatopsia (Chicago Fringe Festival). She has also directed 20+ staged readings, workshops, and short plays for festivals, and produced nine theater festivals, which gave a platform to other directors and playwrights. She spent the last three years earning her MFA in Directing at University of Massachusetts Amherst (to graduate in May 2024), where she directed Lauren Gunderson’s Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight and Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando. She has taught Fundamentals of Acting for three years at University of Massachusetts and has also taught at Interlochen Fine Arts Camp and the Skokie park District.
Brennan Roach – Core Instructor
(he/him) is a theatre artist and educator currently based in Chicago, IL. He has collaborated with numerous theatre institutions as well as high school and university programs across the United States and Europe as an actor, director, teacher, and movement designer. He has trained with many global artists and theatre companies including SITI Company, The Syndicate, and will be training this summer with the Suzuki Company of Toga in Japan. Brennan is the Director of the theatre program at Jones College Prep in the heart of downtown Chicago. He is passionate about helping young people find and give voice to their stories through the creation and performance of original work. He received his BFA from The Boston Conservatory, his MA from Northeastern Illinois University and his MAT from Rockford University, IL
Dustin Valenta – Core Instructor
(he/him) Dustin Valenta is a Chicago-based actor and creator, excited for his first summer at Cherubs! He was born in Vermont and grew up in Minnesota. As a traveling yoga teacher, Dustin spent four years living all over the world from Australia to Italy, and he is the 2019 USA Yoga National Champion. Education: MFA DePaul University, The School at Steppenwolf and the Stella Adler Physical Theatre training program. Select Theatre: The Regulars (Bentertainment), Briefly Breathless (Wondrous Strange), The Cabinet (Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival), Inanimate (Theater Wit), Mesmerized (Chicago Children’s Theatre), The Secret Lives of Coats (Red Eye Theatre, Minneapolis) The History of Invulnerability (Six Points Theatre, St. Paul), The Feast: An Intimate Tempest (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre). Film: Ponderosa, Beyond Belief. TV: Crisis. Dustin is represented by the great team at DDO, and shares a home in Uptown with his beautiful partner.
Alex Rodriguez – Core Instructor
(he/him) is ecstatic to be returning to Cherubs! Alex is a Chicago based actor, teaching artist and theatre maker. Recent projects include Short Shakespeare! Romeo & Juliet (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) and The Lifespan of a Fact (TimeLine Theatre Company). At the heart of Alex’s artistic ethos lie curiosity and collaboration. He believes in the power of personal inquiry and communal exploration to nurture artists’ growth and well-being. In the classroom, Alex encourages creative impulse and ensemble-driven composition building as students strengthen their relationship with their instruments. Passionate about cultivating a vibrant and inclusive artistic community, Alex is dedicated to offering tools to young actors as they forge their artistic identities.
Zack Fine – Directing Faculty
(he/him) is an actor, director, playwright, and teacher originally from Chicago. He helmed the world premiere production of the first ever Spanish translation of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (El Bien Del Pais) which ran for two years in Mexico City at the Teatro Helenico and Foro Shakespeare and was nominated for numerous Premios (awards) in Best Production and Best Direction. His work as a director and writer has been developed by Long Wharf Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Public, MCC, Playmakers Rep, The Acting Company, Wheelhouse, Bedlam, Fiasco, Spymonkey, The Guthrie, and Space On Ryder Farm. As an actor, he has worked on and off Broadway and in many regional theatres nationwide. He teaches at NYU and is a founding member of the Fiasco Conservatory.
Sarah Mayhew – Directing Faculty
(she/her) Sarah Mayhew is an actor, director, and educator based in Birmingham, AL. She earned her MFA in Performance & Pedagogy from Texas Tech University and her BA in Musical Theatre from Birmingham-Southern College—Forward, ever! Currently, Mayhew works at Birmingham Children’s Theatre, where she performs, directs, and teaches classes. She also performs as a Standardized Patient at the UAB School of Medicine, creating simulated patient encounters to train future doctors. Recent performance credits include The Wizard of Oz (The Wizard/Flying Monkey) and Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story (Mrs. Fezziwig/Cratchit) at Birmingham Children’s Theatre, and Assassins (Squeaky Fromme) at Virginia Samford Theatre. Recent directing credits include The Three Little Kittens at Birmingham Children’s Theatre, and The Secretaries at Texas Tech University. You can catch her vocal performance as CIND-Y in upcoming podcast The Lost City, produced by Tell Me Something Studios. Mayhew is excited to return to Cherubs for another summer of making art with incredible people!
Manna-Symone Middlebrooks – Directing Faculty
(she/her) Manna-Symone is a Chicago-based theatre director and producer. She is so excited to be back directing at Cherubs this summer! Before moving to Chicago, she lived in Washington, DC, working as a Casting Associate for The Folger Theatre. Recent Northwestern directing credits include – The Tempest, sandblasted, Precious Little, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. She also served as an Associate/Assistant Director at Manhattan Theatre Club, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare, The Folger, Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and Shakespeare Theatre Company. Manna-Symone is an alum of American University (BA in Theatre and Literature) and The British American Drama Academy.
Jeremy Ohringer – Directing Faculty
(he/him) is a Chicago-based theatre-maker and educator. He is an Adjunct Professor of Theatre Studies at DePaul University and a guest director at North Central College. He loves collaborating on new works, devised pieces, and radically updating classics. Directing credits include Briefly Breathless which was presented as part of Steppenwolf’s LookOut series, Ride the Cyclone, Tristan and Iseult, Constellations, and The Importance of Being (North Central College), Stupid F#@%ing Bird, Monica, and The Moors (DePaul University), Angels in America: Perestroika, Mother Courage and Her Children (Boston University), Who Walked All Night (Rhino Fest) Sad Songs For Bad People (Rough House Theater), and Who Rowed Across Oceans (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). He is a Teaching Artist at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He is also the recipient of the Cunningham Commission of Youth theatre at DePaul University as well as the SPARK Artist in Residence Grant at Filament Theatre. He is a graduate of Skidmore College and holds an MFA in directing from Boston University. This is his fourth summer as a directing faculty member at Cherubs!
Claribel Gross – Directing Faculty
(she/her) is a theater maker and teaching artist currently living in Chicago. She loves experimental, collaborative theater projects and working with artists who are curious and unafraid. As a director, performer, teaching artists and arts administrator Claribel has worked in communities in the United States, Latin America and Europe. Claribel is a founding member of The Midwives Artistic Collective, whose mission is to nurture the public creative spirit. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA in Theater from the University of Minnesota.
Kerstin Vaughn – Directing Faculty
(she/her) is thrilled to be returning to Cherubs for the third time this summer. Currently, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio where she teaches courses in acting, directing, and history and advises student-led productions. In addition to teaching, she works as a stage director and intimacy choreographer. She often travels out of state for work, and has directed/taught in Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, and Illinois. As a director and teacher, Kerstin is committed to creating safe
and joyful spaces for theatrical collaboration. Most recent credits include Boeing Boeing (intimacy choreographer and vocal coach), Native Gardens (director), and Legacy of Light (director).
Oskar Westbridge – Directing Faculty
(they/them) Oskar Westbridge is a director and teaching artist living in Chicago. This past spring they assistant directed Galileo at Trap Door Theater. Other recent directing credits include R.U.R and Frankenstein as a guest artist at Triton College, Knights of the Group Project for Improv Playhouse’s TYA program, and a staged-reading of Dirt Girls for Pocket Theater VR’s “Pocket Playfest.” They are a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University, where they earned their BFA in Theater Arts with a double major in Psychology; and a proud alumni of Director’s Lab North 2024. This will be Oskar’s fourth summer working at Cherubs, but their first summer directing a production for the program. They are very excited.
