hypatia theatre company  

Hypatia develops new plays from the moment of inspiration to the Chicago stage debut, involving the playwright in every step of the process. The work that captivates and motivates us provides challenging roles for women both on and off stage. The founders of Hypatia Theatre Company found ourselves driven to this cause when we acknowledged that for women there is a shocking dearth of thick, well-written characters on the stage and substantial positions behind the scenes.  Our process assists the playwright by encouraging ongoing review of the work and full collaboration with the actors and designers.  The ultimate objective of each play’s journey with Hypatia Theatre Company is a fully realized production that offers the audience a meaningful and cathartic theatre-going experience.

Erica L. Weiss
artistic director

Erica is the founding Artistic Director of Hypatia Theatre Company. She was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, and came to Chicago via a B.F.A. in Theatre Studies from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Hypatia Theatre began as a collaboration between Erica and co-founder/playwright Caitlin Parrish when she directed the mid-west premiere of Parrish’s award winning The View From Tall. For HTC, Erica has directed the world premieres of Red Georgia Clay, Florida Styx, and a workshop of Angels \/ Angles for in collaboration with the Rhinoceros Theatre Festival, and was the producer and lead dramaturg for Hypatia’s first new play SYMPOSIUM. Erica has worked with American Theater Company (assistant to the artistic director Damon Kiely, assistant director for the mid-west premiere of Kid-Simple by Jordan Harrison) Speaking Ring Theatre Company, Dianmante Productions, Darknight Theatrical Productions, Northlight Theatre (assistant director to Dexter Bullard for the mid-west premiere of Grace, by Craig Wright) and Chicago Dramatists. Up next, Erica will direct Hypatia’s Chicago premiere of Lost Love by Peter Papadopoulos at Stage Left Theatre in November 2007. When Erica is not doing Hypatia things, she is a freelance director and new play dramaturg. In her spare time, Erica likes to watch television and practice selective cultural and intellectual snobbery.

K, Michael Renehan
managing director

K. Michael Renehan graduated from Boston University in 2005 with a BFA in Theatre Arts. Playwrighting, directing, fiction writing, design, dramaturgy, and theatre management are among his vocations. He assisted Nicolas Martin and Christopher Durang in a production of Laughing Wild at the Huntington Theatre Company. With the Huntington, Michael also served as a literary management intern for two years. Chicago credits include a reading festival with Polarity Ensemble, and directing a reading of A Love Plot Truly by Drew Dir for Hypatia. This summer, he will direct a production of the same play. Outside the rehearsal room, Michael tends the garden that is the Hypatia dream and hopes to grow the small company over the next several years. He has written three full-length plays, and is currently writing a novel about his experiences surrounding hurricane Katrina called The Love and Disaster Travelogue.

Caitlin Montanye Parrish
literary manager

Caitlin Montanye Parrish, a Florida barrier island native, is a founding member and the literary manager of Hypatia Theatre Company. Since starting a playwriting career at age 18 with The View From Tall, winner of the national Young Playwrights Festival, her work has been viewed Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre, regionally at Portland Stage in Maine, and locally at PROP THTR, Chicago Dramatists, DePaul University, The Athenaeum Theatre, and the Around the Coyote Festival. She recently completed the Florida Styx trilogy, a cycle of neo-Southern Gothic plays, two of which premiered with Hypatia Theatre. She is currently writing a musical with Elizabeth Breen, Angels \/ Angles, based on the life, work, and influence of Lewis Carroll. She is also about to begin work on an adaptation of Medea, entitled Purdah, which will examine women in Islam, and the United States’ relationship with Iran. Her day jobs have included teaching literacy and storytelling to elementary school students, working as a wake attendant, and care-giving to stroke victims and dementia patients. She has written a play for every family member except her father, and hopes to write that soon. She looks forward to developing a captivating theatre of the sublime.

Elizabeth Breen
director of communications

Elizabeth is an actor, singer, part-time designer, sometime composer, and all-time dilettante. Elizabeth most recently designed the costumes for K. Michael Renehan’s production of Drew Dir’s A Love Plot, Truly. Elizabeth has acted as an ensemble member at Hypatia's 2007 Symposium and in the independent film Sublet directed by Melissa Strand. Elizabeth co-wrote and starred in the independent film The Aesthetically Challenged Yet Somehow Pleasing Beauty Pageant which took home the Best Comedy and Audience Choice Award at the Homegrown Film Festival. (You can see it on youtube). Elizabeth spent last summer composing music for the first half of Caitlin Montanye Parrish's Angels’ Angles (working title) and painting offensive tattoos onto actors as the Makeup Artist for Florida Styx. You can see Elizabeth this November in the role of Mitzi in HTC’s production of Peter Papadopoulos's Lost Love. Elizabeth is the Director of Communications and Ensemble Liaison for Hypatia Theatre Company. And don't you forget it.

Brent T. Barnes

Brent T. Barnes recently joined the ensemble of Hypatia Theatre Company in Chicago. Recent Chicago credits: Romeo and Juliet with Theatre Classics, The Christmas Schooner at The Bailiwick, and the first workshop of Angels \/ Angles for Hypatia Theatre Company. Regional Theatre credits: six seasons with the Utah Shakespearean Festival, A Christmas Carol at McCarter Theatre, and the U.S. premiere of The Parfumerie by Miklós László at Summer Studio Theatre Company in Urbana, IL. This summer he will travel to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland with RoaN Productions’ Grasmere, and this fall he will appear in Peter Papadopoulos’ premiere of Lost Love with Hypatia Theatre Company. Brent is a graduate of the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Illinois, with a Master of Fine Arts in Acting.

Drew Dir

Drew Dir graduates from the University of Chicago in 2007 with a B.A. in English, which he presently deploys for playwrighting purposes. Work produced on the South Side includes a one-act about the Fisher Space Pen, a full-legnth play about gun-toting ghosts, a 27 page essay on "wonder" in The Winter's Tale, an ensemble peice about decapitation titled Heads You Lose, and various sundry short peices featuring velociraptors. This summer HTC will produce his play A Love Plot, Truly, which he composed for SYMPOSIUM 2007. You can also see Drew's writing performed this summer in Collaboration's Sketchbook at the Steppenwolf Garage. A proud member of the 19th Generation of Off-Off-Campus, Drew is interested in storytelling, embodiment, textuality, and ghosts--separately and interactively. Drew rides his bicycle frequently and recklessly, and he has enthusiastically agreed to an alliance with HTC in their endeavors to make good art for the twenty-first century stage.

Amber Friendly
communications associate

A Chicagoland native, Amber is proud to be a part of Hypatia Theatre Company.  Since graduating from the undergraduate program at the Theatre School at DePaul University, Amber has been busy exploring Chicago theatre. She most recently played Yelena in the Chicago premiere of Chekhov’s the Wood Demon with Library Theatre. Other recent productions include Symposium '07 with Hypatia and Crime and Punishment with Empiric Theatre Works.  Amber is looking forward to rubbing shoulders and minds with everyone at Hypatia. After all, it is an extremely good-looking bunch of people.

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Joan McGrath is proud to join the Hypatia Theatre team with whom she first connected for the stunning 2006 production of Florida Styx. As an actor, Joan has recently appeared in The Oldest Profession (Bailiwick Repertory Theatre), Women On Fire (Merely Players), Since Africa (u/s Chicago Dramatists), Necessary Targets (St. Sebastian Players) and The Madman and the Nun (experimentaltheatrechicago). Other favorite roles include Eleanor in The Lion in Winter, Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barbara in Social Security, Miss Lynch in Grease, and Penny in You Can't Take is With You." A Northwestern University Theatre graduate, she spent two decades on Chicago radio and TV ("The Joan McGrath Show," WGN Radio; "Gamut," WMAQ-TV; "Dimensions," WSNS-TV; Illinois State Lottery). She currently heads a corporate spokesperson/ executive communications firm.

Amanda is a 2005 graduate of Boston University where she earned her BFA in Theatre Arts. In 2006 Amanda made her Chicago debut with Polarity Theatre Ensemble as Ismene in Antigone, followed by an unlikely turn as Alice in the Alice in Wonderland at Bowen Park Theatre in Waukeegan. Recently, Amanda appeared in Hypatia Theatre Company's first SYMPOSIUM of new works and directed Polarity Ensemble Theatre's new play festival winner, This Woman is Alone by William Rumbler. Past roles include Bessie Glass in See More Glass, an ensemble adaptation of J.S. Salinger's short stories, Nelly Windrod in The Rimers of Eldritch and Portia in The Author's Voice. Marking her third full length play, Amanda has started writing her second unauthorized, and likely illegal, adaptation of a work of fiction for the stage, this time Victor Pelevin's Helmet of Horror. Amanda is thrilled to have in Hypatia Theatre Company a home base for her meandering interest in theatre and art.

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Kathryn Peterson

Kathryn Peterson has now designed three shows for Hypatia Theatre, where she is a recent company member. Recent designs include It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (American Theater Company, four years running), Florida Styx (Hypatia Theatre Company), Hamlet (The Building Stage), and Red Georgia Clay (Hypatia Theatre Company). Her designs have been seen from Texas to Michigan in a wide array of venues. She is also proud to be a part of the multiple Emmy-Award winning lighting team for The Oprah Winfrey Show. Up next, she will be the lighting designer for Hypatia's Lost Love, coming November 2007.

Susan Wingerter is honored to have been a part of the infancy, adolescence and maturity of A Love Plot Truly...and she expects Drew to parent of many more lovely plays to come. Love Plot is her first production with Hypatia and she is also a proud company member. She can also sometimes be seen in a show or two with her other theatre pals over at Blindfaith Theatre.

Zach is a former advertising executive from Seattle who is in the process of buying back his soul through a lengthy penance in theatre. A theatre artist by compulsion and a Director by choice, Zach has held staff positions at Annex Theatre (Concessions Manager, Marketing Director, Producer of the Oyster Series of Developmental Works) Theater Schmeater (Managing Director), and Victory Gardens Theater (Interim Education Director). Zach has assisted for Julianne Ehre, Dexter Bullard, Carlos Murillo and Andrea J. Dymond. Zach has directed for Annex Theatre, Last in Line Productions, Hypatia Theatre Company and Victory Gardens. Zach is a graduate of the Theatre Studies program at DePaul University and a proud member of Hypatia Theater Company.