BRIAN J. GILL (Director/Fight Choreographer) is an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts. UW-Parkside Theatre directing credits include Meteor Shower, As You Like It, Book of Days, Hedda Gabler, A Streetcar Named Desire, Midnight and Moll Flanders, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, The Thanksgiving Play, and Book of Days. As a member of the adjunct faculty of the College of Lake County, Professor Gill directed Crimes of the Heart, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, She Kills Monsters, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Chicago acting credits include Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Victory Gardens, Drury Lane Oakbrook, and Remy Bumppo. Milwaukee acting credits include Next Act Theatre, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Renaissance Theaterworks, First Stage and Milwaukee Repertory. Regionally, Brian has performed with the Illinois and Texas Shakespeare Festivals, Southwest Shakespeare Company, Theatre at the Center, Allenberry Playhouse, and the historic Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. Internationally, he has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre where he trained as a member of the first International Artistic Fellowship. He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, and the Society of American Fight Directors where he holds the rank of Advanced Actor-Combatant.

TAYLOR IRELAND (Assistant Director) is a senior Theatre Arts major with a concentration in Stage Management. Recent UW-Parkside credits include Meteor Shower (Head Electrician), The Laramie Project Stage Manager), Spring Awakening (Spotlight Operator), The Aliens (Stage Manager), As You Like It (Assistant Stage Manager) and The Wolves (Assistant Stage Manager). Taylor was also the Stage Manager for The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fair(l)y (Stoopid) Tales at Cyclopedic Ensemble, The Diviners, James and the Giant Peach, and Oedipus at State Fair Community College. Taylor was Assistant Stage Manager for The Old Man and The Old Moon and As You Like It at Door Shakespeare.

JENNA SPEER (Stage Manager) is a senior Theatre Arts major with a concentration in Musical Theatre and a transfer student from State Fair Community College (Sedalia, MO). Her credits include The Little Mermaid (Arista) at the Racine Theatre Guild and Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience (Grande) with Cyclopedic Ensemble. Recent credits include Meteor Shower (Corky), The Laramie Project (Asst. Stage Manager), The Aliens (Assistant Stage Manager), The Wolves (#2), Indecent (U/S The Ingenue), and Spring Awakening (Thea) at UW-Parkside.

JODY SEKAS (Scenic Designer/Props Designer/Technical Director) is a production/scenic designer for theatre & film, whose recent designs include the Off-Broadway debut of Boswell, and the upcoming feature film What Happened to Dorothy Bell. In 2021 he won the KCACTF National Scene Design award for his design of Stupid F##king Bird. He has worked for such venues as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, First Stage Children’s Theatre, Door Shakespeare, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, Dell’Arte International, Rochester Civic Theatre, Omaha Theatre Company for Young People, The Western Stage, and on the films The Music Inside, Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes, FLEA, and The Wine of Summer. He taught Scenography for Theatre, Film, & Dance at Humboldt State University in northern California; Scenic/Lighting Design & Technology at UW-Eau Claire and was the resident scenic & lighting designer for the Sioux Falls Playhouse in South Dakota. He is now in his eleventh year at UW-Parkside as Associate Professor of Scenic Design & Technology and is a core professor in the Digital Design & Fabrication program. See examples of his work at www.d4production.com.

KALYN DIERCKS (Costume Designer) is a senior Theatre Arts major with concentrations in Design & Technology and Acting. Recent credits at UW-Parkside include Spring Awakening (Assistant Costume Designer/Assistant Intimacy Director), Reasons to be Pretty (Intimacy Director), and The Aliens (Wardrobe Supervisor). This past summer, Kalyn worked for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival as a costume apprentice on Much Ado About Nothing, Winter’s Tale, King Lear, One Man Two Guvnors, and Comedy of Errors. She has also appeared in UW-Parkside’s productions of The Laramie Project (Ensemble), The Wolves (Soccer Mom, U/S #8, #11), Indecent (U/S The Middle), and The Penelopiad (Maid/Naiad Mother)

PETR WILLIAM (Lighting Designer) is a junior Theatre Arts major with a concentration in Design and Technology. Past credits include The Flood (Director), Meteor Shower (Projections Designer), The Laramie Project (Asst. Lighting Designer), Spring Awakening (Ensemble, Moritz cover, Head Electrician), Hir (Stage Manager), Reasons to be Pretty (Lighting Designer), The Wolves (Assistant Lighting Designer), She Kills Monsters (Head Electrician), Circle Mirror Transformation (Lighting Designer), and The Mad Ones (Adam U/S).

KEVIN GRAY (Sound Designer/Composer) is UW-Parkside’s Sound Manager and Instructor, working with both the Theatre Arts and Music departments to produce art and events on campus. Kevin received a BA in Sound Design with a minor in Music Composition from Michigan Technological University. Design credits include The Aliens, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Cinderella, and Stupid F##king Bird, for which he received a national award.

SAM CARLSON (Assistant Sound Designer) is a senior Theatre Arts major with a concentration in Musical Theatre. Previous credits include The Aliens (Evan), Spring Awakening (Asst. Stage Manager) and The Laramie Project (Ensemble) at UW-Parkside, and Lions in Illyria (Andrew/Sebastian), Into the Woods (Jack), and As You Like It (Silvius), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] (Sound Board Operator) and Play On! (Sound Board Operator) at the College of Lake County.

MICHELLE CATALAN (Hair and Makeup Designer) is a senior with a major in Psychology and a minor in Theatre Arts. She works as a Costume Shop Assistant and has served on costume construction crew for a number of UW-Parkside productions, including Meteor Shower (Asst. Costume Design), Stupid F##king Bird, The Glass Menagerie, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Penelopiad, Indecent, She Kills Monsters, The Wolves, and As You Like It. Most recently she was an understudy for the Fresh Ink production of The Flood.

ALYSSA RITACCA (Assistant Props) is a sophomore Theatre Arts major. Recent credits at UW-Parkside include The Flood (Nahmuh), Meteor Shower (U/S Corky), Spring Awakening (Ensemble, Adult Woman Cover), The Wolves (U/S #7, #14, #25). She has been involved in multiple productions at Children’s Theater Academy (CTA) in Kenosha, such as Frozen (Sven), Moana (Moana), and Newsies (Ensemble) and designed props for CTA’s production of Newsies and scenery for their production of Seussical.

MAGGIE JAY (Charge Artist) is a junior Theatre Arts major with concentrations in Acting and Design & Technology. She recently worked as a Painter at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and will spend the summer of 2024 at the Texas Shakespeare Festival as a Scenic Artist. Previous credits at UW-Parkside include Meteor Shower (Charge Artist), The Wolves (Scenic Charge Artist), The Laramie Project (Ensemble/ Reggie Fluty), Reasons to be Pretty (Steph), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Narrator), and Circle Mirror Transformation (Theresa). Additional credits include The Aliens (Assistant Sound Designer).

ALISON PINCHARD (Assistant Charge Artist) is a junior with a major in English, a concentration in Film and Cultural Studies, and a minor in Theatre Arts. Previous credits include Burn: The Musical (U/S Rose & Tracy), As You Like It (Props Crew), Spring Awakening (Ensemble, Anna cover) and The Flood (Stage Manager) at UW-Parkside.

ALI LACSON (Assistant Scenic Designer) is a third-year Theatre Arts major with a concentration in Design & Technology. Her prior credits include Story Book Club (Camera Operator, Deck Crew), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Scenic Designer, Costume Designer (Scene 3)), Lions in Illyria (Deck Crew), and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] (Deck Crew) at the College of Lake County, and The Laramie Project (Props Artisan) and Meteor Shower (Props Artisan, Deck Crew) at UW-Parkside.

RACHAEL SWARTZ (Intimacy Director) teaches musical theatre, voice, movement, and on-camera acting at UW-Parkside and during the summer serves on the Acting and Musical Theatre faculty at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Rachael is a proud union member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Some of her recent regional performance credits include: The 39 Steps (Annabella/Pamela/Margaret), The Sound of Music (Mother Abbess), and Romeo and Juliet (Nurse). Recent on-camera credits include work with the Travel Channel, ID, Oxygen and TV One. She holds an undergraduate degree from Baldwin Wallace University and her MFA in Theatre Performance from The University of Southern Mississippi.