Meredith Boe, Development Coordinator

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​Meredith Boe is a writer, editor, and critic whose work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Review of Books, After Hours, and Chicago Stage Standard, among other publications. She's worked in book publishing and marketing and now hopes to focus more on grant writing for nonprofit arts organizations. Aside from working as a full-time freelancer and volunteering with child literacy programs, she sometimes writes poems on a typewriter around Chicago with the poetry-on-demand group, Poems While You Wait. She first began a love affair with Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in middle school.

Kevin Johnson, Artistic Associate

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​Kevin Johnson a Chicago actor and writer, as well as a teaching artist and director with EDGE of Orion. As an ensemble member with Unrehearsed Shakespeare, Kevin has portrayed roles such as Edgar in Coriolanus, Brutus in Julius Caesar. His award-winning original verse-play, The Tragedy of Johnny & Lisa, a Shakespearean adaptation of The Room, has seen several staged readings and one production in recent years. Kevin is also an alum of the CYS Ensemble many times over, having performed in Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, Uneasy Lies the Head, Othello, and King Lear. 

Jeremy Ohringer, Principal Guest Artist

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​Jeremy Ohringer is a Chicago-based is a director and teaching artist. He holds an MFA in Theatre Directing from Boston University, where his projects included Horizon Line (Inspired by Homer's Odyssey), Angels In America: Perestroika, and Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. Chicago directing credits include: Milkwhite (The Kinematics), Sad Songs For Bad People (Co-Director, Rough House Theater), Salve Regina: A Coming of Gay Story (Center on Halsted/Ringwald Theater), Who Rowed Across Oceans (Lost Compass/Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and a new adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening with Fearless Theater.

​As a Teaching Artist, he has been with CYS from the very beginning, and served as the first "director" and co-developer of the CYSE program. Jeremy also works as a teaching artist with Steppenwolf, Writers Theatre, and Open Books, among others.

Manon Spadaro | Founding Artistic Director

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​Before founding Chicago Youth Shakespeare in 2013, Manon Spadaro was a theatre arts instructor and director for over 20 years. She served on faculty at Lake Forest Country Day School, Francis W. Parker School, Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, and Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, among others.

Manon studied acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts at Circle in the Square, and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theatre from Northwestern University. She has directed somewhere upwards of 50 productions, including dozens of Shakespeare plays with young artists ages 13-24 years old. ​​

Josh Zambrano | Director of Community Engagement

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​Josh Zambrano is an alum of the CYS program and went on to graduate from Colorado College with a Bachelor of Arts in Organismal Biology and Ecology (OBE).  While his degree may be in science, his heart has always been in the theatre and working with youth. After graduating, he worked as a tutor/mentor and site coordinator for Driven & Empowered Youth, Inc, a program aimed at providing free tutoring resources and summer programs to students in under-resourced CPS high schools on Chicago's northwest side.
Josh is a working actor and current ensemble member of Visión Latino Theater Company and Counter Collective, two theater companies whose missions are geared towards enacting positive change in the theater community of Chicago and telling the stories of those who are less likely to be heard. Josh is also an instructor in the Theatre department at ChiArts, teaching acting techniques to first-year students.

Teaching Artists

CYS is fortunate to work with a number of outstanding Chicago area teaching artists and theatre professionals. Visit CYS Teaching Artists to learn more.