Meet Your Instructors

Isabella Karina Coelho has worked as theater maker and arts educator all over Chicago. She has created original programming and directed student performance work with the Chicago Music and Acting Academy, The Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, Creative Root at The Theatre School at DePaul University, Raven Theatre, Filament Theatre, and more. Isabella has served as a resident teaching artist at Free Street Theater since 2013 where she helms the Park Kids program as well having created capsule programming with the Chicago Park District and The Boys and Girls Club of West Pullman. She also leads the Teen Cohort at Downstage Arts, a free program for high school juniors and seniors preparing to pursue performing arts in higher education. As a performer, she has worked with Nashville Children’s Theatre, Broadway in Chicago, Lifeline Theatre, Raven Theatre, Commission Theatre, Cock and Bull Theatre, Filament Theatre, and Birch House Immersive. Isabella is a graduate of the Theatre School at DePaul University.

Claribel Gross is a theater maker and teaching artist. She has training and experience in devising, Theatre of the Oppressed, theater for young audiences and experimental writing and performing. As a performer, director, teaching artist and arts administrator Claribel has worked with Penumbra theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, English speaking Theater of Rome, Pillsbury House Theater, Olympia Family Theater, Hamline University, Aurora University and the National High School Institute. In her own work Claribel explores her multilingual, multi-cultural upbringing and is dreaming about building a bilingual traveling show for communities in Central America. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from the University of Minnesota.

Jarrett King is an actor, writer, and educator based in Chicago. He has held a variety of administrative and educational positions with several Chicago organizations, including Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Silk Road Rising, Vagabond School of the Arts, Auditorium Theater, Hearts to Art, Unsilence, Bravo Performing Arts Academy, Chicago Public Schools, and American Theater Company, where he oversaw the in-school residency program American Mosaic. He is an adjunct professor of theatre at Loyola University, teaching courses in acting, teaching artistry, and theatre appreciation. Throughout 2020 and 2021 he directed Black Teen Lives Matter with Silk Road Rising, a four-part virtual showcase of plays written by Black teens. He is the associate artistic director at Penfold Theatre Company in Austin, Texas, where his play A War of the Worlds, premiered in summer 2022. As a performer, Jarrett most recently appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. He has nearly two decades’ worth of credits performing in professional theaters and in film and television. His new play exploring the life of Henry Box Brown is currently in development. (he/him)

Kevin Long is an associate professor of theatre at Harper College, co-author of the book Bring on the Bard, the recipient of the Illinois Theatre Association’s 2012 Award for Excellence in College Theatre Teaching, and an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. He was nominated for the 2015 Tony Award® for Excellence in Theatre Education, and was the recipient of the 2017 Motorola Solutions Foundation Endowed Award for Teaching Excellence. Kevin has worked professionally in various equity and summer stock theatres in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, and Illinois. He has been teaching acting and theater classes for over twenty-five years, and has directed over sixty productions. He frequently presents his workshop “Shakespeare Whispers in Your Ear,” which explores the language and theater of Shakespeare through the use of the First Folio. Kevin holds an MA in speech and performing arts from Northeastern Illinois University.

Emily Ritger is a director, playwright, and arts administrator based in Chicago. As a teacher, she has worked for Chicago Shakespeare Theater, American Theatre Company, Redmoon, Cleveland Public Theatre, Northlight Theatre, ChiArts, The National High School Institute, and Carthage College. Emily’s training includes ensemble-based work, Viola Spolin Theatre Games, Viewpoints, Puppetry, Contact Improv, experimental writing, and various forms of music. She is the founder of The Midwives, an artistic development company serving makers of different disciplines across the country. Her current projects include: a collaboration with playwright Aliza Bartfield called Behaymas, in which three humans and one animal blur the lines of domesticity and societal constructions of family; The Women Like a River Falling from the Sky, a collaboration with Claribel Gross and Mekala Sridhar, and inspired by Isabel Allende’s The Stories of Eva Luna, creates an irrational response to Allende and her characters; and The WI Collection, a work of poetry celebrating rural America—its voice, land, dialect, and sense of community. Emily received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, a BS in theatre and philosophy from the University of Evansville, and has trained at La MaMa Umbria in Italy and Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theatre Game Center.

Alex Benito Rodriguez is a Chicago-based actor, mover, and maker with a focus in physical storytelling and devised theater practices. As a teaching artist Alex has worked with Raven Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Asolo Repertory Theatre, and The Cherubs at Northwestern University. Within the classroom, Alex relies on structures that support creative impulse, compassionate listening, personal inquiry, and ensemble-driven composition building. He holds his BFA from The University of Illinois at Chicago and his MFA from The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. (he/him)

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