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Haia R'nana B'chiri [ASL Coordinator / Teaching Artist / Social Media Associate] is a PhD student at UC San Diego (Department of Theatre and Dance) and holds a BA in Theater Arts and Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation from Brandeis University. She has been involved in theatre on and off stage for the past 15 years, including as a teaching artist with Black Box Studios in NJ, and the Cherubs program at Northwestern. Haia was awarded the John Edward Hill Memorial Prize and the Herbert and Sandra Fisher Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Creative Arts and is a Phi Beta Kappa junior year inductee. She is passionate about highlighting voices that have been largely kept out of the canon and making theatre more accessible. Recent projects include Eurydice (Director), Fefu and Her Friends (Emma/ASL consultant), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), Circle Mirror Transformation (Theresa), an experimental production of Peer Gynt (Solveig/Aase) devoted to accessibility, a reading of John Proctor is the Villain (Shelby), and The Emassey (Playwright/Eve/Choreographer) at Brandeis University; Everybody (Assistant Director/Teaching Artist) with the Northwestern High School Institute; Uncle Vanya and Trojan Women (Dramaturg) with UCSD; and Cymbeline (Director) and Much Ado About Nothing (Don Pedro) with the CYS Alumni Players. |
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Hannah Blau, [In-Schools and HR Coordinator / Teaching Artist] is a graduate of University of Manchester with a BA Hon in Drama, where she produced original research on theatre education’s role in the social and emotional development of high school aged young adults. At Manchester, she directed Twilight:LA, 1992 by Anna Deveare Smith over Zoom. She has also served as designer for Enron by Lucy Prebble and choreographer for Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik. Hannah began working with CYS as an intern in 2018 during CYS’s first anthological production, Uneasy Lies The Head, and returned to intern for a second summer on Twelfth Night, during which she planned and taught theatre workshops as a lead instructor. After working on Twelfth Night, Hannah co-founded the CYS Alumni Players in Fall 2019, for which she co-directed their first play, The Merchant of Venice, and their first radio play, Much Ado About Nothing. Apart from her work with Chicago Youth Shakespeare, Hannah has worked with The Viola Project, Rivendell Theatre, The Artistic Home, and Citadel Theatre. Hannah has loved participating in CYSAP projects as an actor, director, and producer, and is committed to CYS’s work, and to helping actors of all ages work together with purpose and joy. |
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Ryan Borgdorff, [Associate Managing Director / Director of Audience Services / Teaching Artist] is a longtime Chicago Youth Shakespeare alumnus and intern, having first joined the company as a student in summer 2015’s production of Julius Caesar. Since then, he has worked on most CYS projects as an intern and artistic apprentice while he was obtaining his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, where he graduated in 2020 after completing majors in Theatre, Political Science, and Secondary Education, along with a minor in U.S. History and a Professional Educator License in teaching History, Political Science and Theatre/Drama. In Fall of 2019, Ryan co-founded the CYS Alumni Players (CYSAP) as a way to allow program alumni to stay in touch and also continue performing Shakespeare, together. He currently serves as CYSAP’s director of communications and liaison to CYS. Ryan remains as dedicated as ever to the work of empowering young people to claim their ability to change the world for the better, just by doing the things that they are passionate about. |
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Kevin Johnson, [Artistic Programs Associate / Teaching Artist / Fight Choreographer] is a Chicago-based actor, teacher, playwright, and musician. He has served as the fight choreographer for CYS productions since 2018, and composed and performed original music for productions of Twelfth Night and Macbeth, and joined the staff of the CYS Alumni Players in 2020. Kevin has performed throughout Chicago with The Unrehearsed Shakespeare Company, and can be heard playing with his folk-rock band, The Rosehill Collective. Kevin is also a playwright and author of the award-winning original play, The Tragedy of Johnny and Lisa (a Shakespearean adaptation of Tommy Weiseau’s The Room). |
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Jeremy Ohringer {Principal Guest Artist] 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, Jeremy 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. |
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Ruby Soleil Perez, [Development Associate] is an actor, producer, cultural consultant, and stage combatant of Mexican descent. She was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from the University of Michigan with a BFA in Acting. She is among the first in her family to earn a college degree. In addition to performance, Ruby is a teaching artist, community organizer and fundraiser, who has organized protests in her local communities, facilitated theatre workshops with incarcerated individuals as well as high school students. |
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Manon Spadaro, [Founding Artistic Director] was a theatre arts instructor and director for over 20 years before founding Chicago Youth Shakespeare in 2013, serving 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. |
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Elissa Wolf, [Teaching Artist, Learning Resources Coordinator] is a Chicago based actor and teaching artist with an MA in Shakespeare and Creativity from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-Upon-Avon. She completed her dissertation under the supervision of Tiffany Stern. In August she gave a presentation based on her dissertation at the Wooden O Symposium at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Additionally, she's performed in many of Shakespeare's plays, including Shakespeare on the Sound's recent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elissa first worked with CYS last season as a teaching artist and learning resources coordinator for the CYS Ensemble's 2022 production of Macbeth. |
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Josh Zambrano [Director of Community Engagement / Teaching Artist] is an alum of the CYS program, with a Bachelor of Arts in Organismal Biology and Ecology (OBE) from Colorado College. 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. |
In addition to those listed above, CYS is fortunate to work with a number of outstanding visiting artists and theatre professional artists from across the Chicago area and beyond. Learn more.