“Challenging, curious, free of artifice and utterly disarming.”

~Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

Words have power.  They can raise us up, or beat us down.  They shape our existence.  I direct plays because I believe that words can unfasten us from the places we get stuck.  I was raised in a trailer park and didn't see a professional play until I was 18.  I was an addict and a criminal.  The theatre inspired me to sober up and instilled in me a belief that a better world was possible.  For 17 years I've been directing and producing plays because I believe that this is how we save the world: by dreaming up a better one.  I also teach.  And I fight racism and misogyny every where they rear their ugly heads.  

I like plays that confound me.  I like good jokes.  I’m a sucker for big and impossible.  

As a director, I work on new works and classics.  In both realms I believe that it is our job as creators to follow the story.  There is no greater joy than listening to an audience listen to a good play.  

As a youth, the semiotics of theatre were foreign to me so I created a company that made work for everyone.  For nine years I was the artistic director of Chicago's Red Tape Theatre, an experimental company that is still going strong today.  Our mission was to smash the barrier between the audience and the artist; a goal I still strive for to this day.  

l left Chicago to pursue a Masters Degree from Brown/Trinity.  And have since been directing, teaching, and producing in New York.  I teach at Fordham, NYU, and the Professional Performing Arts School.  I am a Drama League Fellow, a Manhattan Theatre Club Fellow, an SDC Observer, a Peter Kaplan Fellow,  and the recipient of a Joseph Jefferson award for Best Direction.  I've worked from coast to coast and every where I go I strive to inspire rebellion and fantasy.