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Drama Bios
Amy Cornelius is a born and raised Chicagoian. She is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago and has her BA in Theatre Arts. Amy has been teaching children's art classes for over 6 years with the Mt. Prospect Park District Studio. Here, she created a new class for the Park District called "Little Thespians" in which kids (age 5-7) spend a week crafting a short production from start to finish. Amy loves working with kids and is always amazed by their incredible imaginations. She is very proud to work with Metropolis. After working for three years in the Box Office, Amy joined the Education Department in January 2011. Amy has worked with The Neofuturists, 20% Theatre Company and The About Face Theatre. She is very interested in creating original work for the stage and loves the camaraderie of working with kids and professionals alike to create art.
Dana Dardai is a composer, instrumentalist, and stage performer who strives to combine the precision and focus of classical music and ballet with the wild chaos of clown theatre. She has a B.A. in Music Therapy, and is proficient with violin, viola, accordion, guitar, piano, and voice. In Chicago, she has performed both as an actor and musician with various companies, including The Neo-Futurists, New Leaf Theatre, Stockyards Theater Project, Filament Theater, and the Eleffant Foot clown troupe. As an ensemble member with Striding Lion Performance Group, Dana has collaborated on Birdsongs, a concept album and live performance, as well as other multi-disciplinary projects. Dana also teaches performing arts at various theaters and schools throughout the Chicago area.
Marlene Flood is an equity singer-actress from Chicago. Marlene’s regional theatre credits include: Dialogues Of The Carmelites (Lyric Opera of Chicago); The Taming Of The Shrew and Sunday In The Park With George (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); Fosca in Passion (Jeff Citation Award, Porchlight Music Theatre). She has also performed at Theatre At The Center, Light Opera Works, Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre, Court Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Pheasant Run Theatre and National Jewish Theatre.
Other favorite roles include: Eva Peron, Evita; Fanny Brice, Funny Girl; Lady Thiang, The King and I; Agnes, I Do, I Do. Marlene also created the original character roles for the musicals, The American Girls Revue and Circle of Friends, and sang with the show’s lyricist, Gretchen Cryer, to record the CD’s for both shows.
Marlene has taught workshops in voice and voice-over, acting, and character movement and conducts the Bethany Union Children’s Choir. She holds a BA in Theatre Performance, a BA in Vocal Performance and a Masters Degree in Vocal Music Performance. Marlene is honored to be a part of the teaching staff at Metropolis School of The Performing Arts.
April-Dawn Gladu From 1999 -2007 she was an Associate Artist for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater (OST) where she performed, taught, directed and wrote world premieres, classic adaptations and Theater For Young Audiences. She is particularly proud of her adaptations of The Jungle Book and The Secret Garden, which have had dozens of productions throughout the USA, Canada, the U.K., New Zealand, India, Bosnia and Kenya.
She also spent seven years writing and directing shows and special events for Walt Disney Entertainment, where she has worked with people as exciting as Christopher Reeve, John Ritter and Drew Carey. Her largest show had over 2,000 participants! Since 2004 her show The Perfectly Princess Tea Party has been playing 5 days a week at the Grand Floridian Resort to sold out crowds and her show Cinderella’s Princess Court closed in 2006 after over 1000 performances at the World of Disney Store in NYC.
Before moving to Orlando she worked for Women’s Project & Productions in New York City and developed new plays for companies such as Ensemble Studio Theatre, Pulse Ensemble Theatre and Six Figures Theatre Company.
Sarah Rose Graber graduated from Northwestern University’s Theatre Program and received her acting certificate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Sarah was the 2004 Circumnavigator Travel Around the World Grant Scholar and traveled to Britain, South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina studying theatre for social change and its educational role. She has taught classes and directed shows for youth at Metropolis Performing Arts Center, Northlight Theatre, Adventure Stage Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival (Stages, Sights, and Sounds), National High School Institute Theatre (Cherub) Program at Northwestern University, ARTS Berwyn, Village Players, and numerous residencies at schools in the Chicago land area.
Steve Leaver is the Executive Artistic Director for Imagination Theater, a 45 year old educational social issues theater company based in Chicago, which he has been working at since December of 1997. Currently he oversees all of the programming and managing aspects of the theater.
In addition to Imagination Theater, Mr. Leaver teaches acting courses and serves as the Head of the Drama Department for the School of Performing Arts at the Metropolis Performing Arts Center in Arlington Heights IL, which he has been doing since 2002.
Mr. Leaver currently serves as the Children’s Theater Representative on the board of directors for the Illinois Theatre Association, a position which he has held since 2008. As a part of the Illinois Theatre Association, Mr. Leaver assists in the planning of the Theatre in Our Schools conference held annually at Northwestern University.
Mr. Leaver holds a BS in theater from Illinois State University.
Sarah Wade is honored, excited and proud to be the Department Chair of Musical Theatre here at the Metropolis. She believes what SOPA stands for is so important. Participation in the arts teaches students life skills such as analyzing, communicating, self-assessing and possibility-thinking. Before joining the SOPA team, Sarah taught theatre and music in the public schools for five years in both middle and high school, and directed plays and musicals for both levels as well. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Education and a minor in English from Northern Illinois University. Her emphasis in the English minor was History of Theatre and Classical literature. She also studied the English Renaissance and Shakespeare at Oxford University, Oriel College with Dr. Glen Black. Sarah received her M.A in Directing from the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University. Along with these degrees, she has extensive specialized training from a number of professional coaches. She is a Meisner trained actor who studied under Kathryn Gatley and has trained with both Michael Kachingwe in the Arthur Lessac vocal technique and Christine Adaire in the Linklater vocal technique. Her movement training is in the Lloyd Williamson technique. Her theatre history mentor was Christopher Jones (Chicago Tribune theatre critic and Depaul Administrative Staff.) She studied improvisational acting at Second City’s Players Workshop with Eric Foresberg and has trained with numerous Chicago Directors such as Steve Scott of the Goodman Theatre and Jason Loewith of the Next Theatre.
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contactus
Box Office
Mon–Sat: 12-6
Sun: open 1 hour before showtime (closed if no show)
847.577.2121
Education Office
Mon-Fri 10-6
Sat 9-3
847.577.5982 x221
Contact Education
Group Discounts
847.577.5982 x241
Contact Group Discounts
Friends of Metropolis
Contact Development
847.818.6393
Contact Development
Address
111 W. Campbell St.
Arlington Heights, Il 60005
Map to Metropolis
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