Staff
Program Coordinator
Lisa Fay -
Lisa Fay is an award winning performer, teacher and creator of movement based theatre. Since 1991 her composition and performance work has included collaboration with artist Jeff Glassman. Her work has been presented throughout the United States in theatres, universities and on public television. Since 1999 she has coordinated the INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre program and served as the program’s ensemble director. Among many endeavors as an artist and cultural worker, Ms. Fay has served as a multi-arts panelist for the Illinois Arts Council and on focus groups for the Cultural Workers Conference, also for the Illinois Arts Council, and currently she is serving on the Urbana Public Arts Task Force.
Assistant Program
Coordinator and Instructor
J.W. Morrissette - J.W.
received his B.F.A. in acting from Otterbein College in Westerville, OH. While
attending Otterbein, he worked for Stuart Howard and Associates Casting in New
York interning as a casting assistant for many Broadway productions and
television commercials. He completed both his M.F.A. in Acting and M.A. in Theatre History at the University of Illinois. J.W. directs and acts professionally when time
allows and he has spent the last nine summers directing at Interlochen Arts
Camp in Interlochen, MI.
Instructors
Marilyn Best -
Marilyn Best received her BA from Duke University and has done graduate
work in education at the University of Washington. Most of her professional life
has been focused on issues of social justice/social change and especially on
interpersonal violence. For ten years she served as the Director of Education
for A Woman's Fund, a local social service agency with domestic violence and
sexual assault programs. She assisted in bringing an interactive theater-based
child abuse prevention program to the community through the Child Abuse Prevention
Program (CAPP). Previous work at UIUC includes working in the Office of Women's
Programs where she coordinated the CARE (Campus Acquaintance Rape Education)
program, served as an advocate for students and helped establish the Dating Abuse
Project. While working with the Office of Women's Programs, she also had the
opportunity to work with students using theater as an educational tool, and worked
with some of the original students of INNER VOICES.
Thom Miller - Thom has had two plays (untitled/love/affair and The Audition) make their world premieres at the Pittsburgh New Works Play Festival. He also directed untitled/love/affair for Parkland College's Weekend of One-Acts. His first play, Three, won the Christian H. Moe Award and his screenplay, The Rhythm Divine was a quarter finalist in The Writer's Network Screenplay Contest. He is an Irene Ryan nominee for his portrayal of Louis Ironson in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.
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Technical
Production & Assistance
Kevin Reader - Technical/Production Manager. Kevin recieved his BA as a double major in Anthropology and Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2005. Kevin is an energetic twenty something who enjoys singing in the shower, ice cream and sleeping in. He is currently an MA student in the Theatre History program at UIUC. His past experiences reflect bouts in archaeology, collections management in museums, and qualitative analysis in rural community studies.
Kevin can be found working as an event planner for the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies. Kevin is currently performer as an improviser with a comedy troupe named Spicy Clamato. Kevin has also acted in a variety of forms from the most dramatic of dramas to the silliest of murder mysteries, but his true passions include overanalyzing old school movies from the Undergrad Library and sports socks.
Mina Sohaj
– Assistant/Production Manager. Mina is an international student from Serbia. After receiving her B.A. at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, she came to the United States to pursue further education. Currently she is a first year MA student in Theatre History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mina is interested in theatre education, political theatre and contemporary forms, and one day hopes to have her own theatre company. She also loves going to the circus and eating too much chocolate and honestly believes that art can change the world.
Consultants
Jerry Obidumpka, Ph.D. (Community Health Education, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Post doctorate in International Health Education, University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign)
Rakhi Sen, Ph.D. (Counseling
Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2001). Clinical Counselor,
International Programming Chair, Practicum Coordinator, resource
person for Inner Voices Social Issues Theatre Group.
Some of Rakhi's interests
include the use of stories and metaphor
in therapy, spirituality issues, role and nature of counseling in
non-Western cultures. Reading, movies, and interesting
conversations. Mom's home cooking.
