WildClaw Theatre grins with sinister delight as we unveil the five malevolent spirits charged with conjuring this year’s pieces onto our stage. Gaze in terror as you behold… the directors of Deathscribe 2015:
Leigh Barrett (TOO MANY TEETH) has been a producer, designer and manager active in new play development in Chicago since landing here in 1989. She is Artistic Director of Babes With Blades Theatre Company, where she directed the world premieres of the screwball swashbuckler The Double, detective noir Bo Thomas and the Case of the Sky Pirates, and most recently the western drama Patchwork Drifter. She has also directed readings for Chicago Dramatists, Strangeloop Theatre, City Lit, Inch Worm Playreading Series, and for Babes With Blades Fighting Words series. This is her first time playing with WildClaw Theatre.
Elly Green (IMAGINARY FIEND) recently directed After Miss Julie by Patrick Marber (Strawdog Theatre) and The Woman Before by Roland Schimmelpfennig (Trap Door Theatre). Current/upcoming projects include No More Sad Things by Hansol Jung for Sideshow Theatre, and The Distance by Deborah Bruce for Haven Theatre. Other Chicago directing credits: Happy (Redtwist Theatre), Unwilling and Hostile Instruments (Theatre Seven), Rabbit (Stage Left Theatre – Jeff Nominated, Best Director) and The Tomkat Project (Playground Theatre & NY Fringe). Elly was the assistant director on Henry V (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) and Proof (Court Theatre). Her UK directing credits include: Our Country’s Good, My Balloon Beats Your Astronaut, Beyond Therapy, About Tommy, Copenhagen, Skylight, The Beach and The Zoo Story. She also spent a year at the Royal National Theatre as a staff director on Oedipus, Mrs. Affleck and Her Naked Skin. Elly has an MFA in theatre directing from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Melanie Keller (BAD THINGS HAPPEN HERE) is super thrilled to be working with WildClaw for the first time. She most recently directed the Jeff Recommended production of The Drowning Girls at Signal Ensemble. A member of Signal, she appeared as an actor in East of Berlin and The Russian Play for which she won a Jeff Award for Best Actress, The Weir (Jeff Nomination Best Supporting Actress), She Stoops to Conquer and Much Ado about Nothing. She is also an artistic associate with First Folio Theatre where her credits include Salvage, The Merchant of Venice, The Turn of the Screw and Private Lives. Recent work includes Feathers & Teeth at The Goodman and Tom Jones at Northlight Theatre. Regional work includes Twelfth Night at both Lakeside Shakespeare and the Michigan Shakespeare Festival. Other credits include Hamlet and King John (Chicago Shakespeare), and productions with Peninsula Players, Shakespeare Project of Chicago and Strawdog among others. She trained at RADA and was a Chicago Fellow at the Stratford Festival of Canada.
Breahan Eve Pautsch (BACK IN BABY’S ARMS) is excited to be working with Wildclaw Theatre for the first time. She earned her BA in Theatre and English at UW-Madison, and has been working in Chicago as an actor and director since 2003. As a director, she has worked with many companies around town including Akvavit Theatre, Raven Theatre, Hobo Junction Productions, Broken Nose Theatre, the International Voices Project, Full Voice Productions and mudgeonsoul. She is proud to be a company member of Akvavit Theatre (where she serves as Literary Manager and Director of Development) and an ensemble member at mudgeonsoul productions.
Sara Sevigny (EARWIGS) is a Chicago-based actor, singer, improviser, writer, and director of “festivals” or “one night only events”. This is her return to Deathscribe as a director, where she was triumphant last year directing Noah Simon and Corrbette Pasko in Christopher M. Walsh’s winning piece, “Fracture Zone.” A proud member of the Actor’s Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, you can check our her credits on her website. Sara currently resides as an ensemble member and playwright with The Factory Theater in Chicago. She loves travel, overly dramatic karaoke, writing with her comedy partner Corrbette Pasko, and fighting zombies.