After Graduation

For nearly a century, the School of Theatre Arts has graduate some of the theatre industry's most successful, well-respected artists.

Our alumni include Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe winners and nominees. Among our graduates are countless performers, directors, playwrights, stage managers and designers who make their living as artists every day.

Our deep alumni network propells graduating students into the theatre field. Below is an abbreviated list of a handful of notable alumni.

Alumni Spotlight

• Sarah Bockel, BFA Music Theatre '10 played Nellie on the first national tour of Beautiful. Other credits include Floyd Collins for BoHo Theatres, Violet (Violet u/s) for Bailiwick Chicago!; The Rose of Stambul with Chicago Folks Operetta; Johnny Boy's Graduation with the makers of Tony n' Tina's Wedding; and Hello Dolly at Post Playhouse in Fort Robinson, NE. Favorite past roles include Fosca in Passion at IWU.
• Evan Kasprzak, BFA Music Theatre '10 has performed on Broadway in Disney's Newsies and Cats. He was the third-place finalist in Season 5 of So You Think You Can Dance. 
• Kevin Schuering, BFA Music Theatre '09 appeared in Miss Saigon as Ast. Commissar/Ensemble at Ogunquit Playhouse; Disney's Aladdin, Male Swing (3 tracks) at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; The King and I at Dutch Apple; "The King and I" and Bway Palm among many others.
• Bryonha Parham, BFA Music Theatre '07 appeared on Broadway in Prince of Broadway, The Book of Mormon, After Midnight, Porgy & Bess and Ragtime.
• Brian Bogin, BFA Theatre Design & Technology '99  is a proud AEA Stage Manager who worked on War Horse at Lincoln Center Theatre. Other Broadway credits include The People in the Picture, Elf, Rent, Good Vibrations, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera (Broadway and tour); Spamalot (tour), Wicked (Chicago), Urinetown (tour) and White Christmas (Boston). 
• Melanie Keller, BFA Acting '97 won the 2012 Best Actress Jeff Award for East of Berlin & The Russian Play at Signal Ensemble Theatre. She was the 2007-08 Chicago Fellow at the Stratford Festival of Canada, where she appeared in Caesar and Cleopatra, Love's Labour's Lost and R omeo and Juliet. She was an artistic associate of First Folio Theatre and has made mulitple television appearances on Chicago Fire.
• Heather Olt, BFA Music Theatre '96 appeared in Brigadoon, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Godspell, Pippin, Will Rogers' Follies, South Pacific, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Big in New York City before moving to Los Angeles. Film/TV credits include Up All Night, The Mentalist, American Horror Story, Chuck, Dexter, Eagleheart, Journeyman, Nip/Tuck and the award-winning short Groom's Cake.
• Christine Moore, BFA Theatre '95  appeared in HBO's True Blood and Disney's Jessie. She had a recurring role on MADtv impersonating Christina Aguilera, among others, and additionally apperaed in Hawthorne, That '70s Show, Two and Half Men, The Bad Girl's Guide, 24, Just Shoot Me, Friends, Suddenly Susan. Stage credits include Annie, Cinderella and Big River. 
• Penny Ayn Maas, BFA Music Theatre '87: Credits include Cabaret [Broadway, Roundabout Revival, 1998]; Kit Kat Girl; Fraulein Kost; and Swingtime Canteen [Off-Broadway, Original Off-Broadway Production, 1995]. Additional appearances in Damn Yankees [Broadway, Broadway Revival, 1994] Betty/Hi-Tone; and Crazy for You [Broadway, Original Broadway Production, 1992]. She is on the faculty of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX.
• Bill Damaschke, BFA Music Theatre '86 is a Tony Award-winning producer whose many credits include Moulin Rouge! The Musical, The Prom and Shrek the Musical.
• Mariann Mayberry, BFA Theatre '86 was an original ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. While at Steppenwolf, she was nominated for a Jeff Award for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Play for Time of My Life, and again for Actress in a Principal Role in a Play for Hysteria, directed by John Malkovich. She originated the role of Karen Weston in Tracy Letts' multi-award-winning August: Osage Country - Steppenwolf/Broadway/London's West End. Other credits include Time to Burn, Space, A Fair Country, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Pain and the Itch, Love Song, The Diary of Anne Frank, all for Steppenwolf; The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, The Odyssey, and Mirror of the Invisible World at the Goodman Theatre; How I Learned to Drive at Northlight Theater and Alliance Theatre; Metamorphoses, Argonautika, and The Master and Margarita at the Lookingglass Theatre. Mariann passed away in 2017.
• Larry Neumann Jr., BFA Theatre '81 appeared as Ed Mosher in the 2012 revival of The Iceman Cometh at the Goodman Theatre. Other appearances at the Goodman include The Skin of Our Teeth. He played Branch Rickey in Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting at Lookingglass Theatre Company, where he also appeared in They All Fall Down: The Richard Nickel Story and The Shaggs: Philosophy of the Worl...d. Favorite Chicago productions include A Moon for the Misbegotten (Jeff Award) and The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe at First Folio Theatre; The Puppetmaster of Lodz (Jeff Award) at Writers' Theatre; The Cider House Rules and Hitting for the Cycle (Jeff Award) at Famous Door Theatre and Underneath the Lintel at Noble Fool Theatricals. Film credits include The Merry Gentleman, Stranger than Fiction and Stir of Echoes.
• Kevin Dunn, BA Theatre '77: Kevin's many TV and film roles include the Transformer franchise, Nixon, Dave, Hot Shots!, Mad Love, The Beach Boys: An American Family, The Path to 9/11, Live Free or Die, and Gridiron Gang. He appeared on ABC's Samantha Who? starring Christine Applegate. 
• Frankie R. Faison, BA Theatre '71 earned a Tony and a Drama Desk Award nomination for the original Broadway production of Fences. His many TV credits include The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy and The Wire. Faison has appeared in numerous films including Coming to America, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon, True Colors, Freejack and Prey. He earned an honorary doctorate from IWU in 2002 and recently appeared as John Carthan in the film Till.
• Richard Jenkins, Drama '69 appeared in more than 60 feature films. He won the Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series for his role in Olive Kitteride and was nominated for an Academy Award for The Visitor. In 2023, he was recently nominated for a Golden Globe award for his role as Lionel Dahmer in the Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
• Harlan Hogan, BA Theatre '68 is a voice-over actor and author. You may have heard his voice in radio and TV commercials for companies such as Kraft, Cadillac, Ameritech, McDonald's, and Budweiser. His voice is also heard on educational films, movie trailers, and recorded books.
• James Sutorius, BA Theatre '67 played Laertes at the Vivian Beaumont opposite Sam Waterston's Hamlet, and alongside a rising cast of stars that included Jane Alexander, Mandy Patinkin, George Hearn, John Heard.  Following that in 1978 appeared  in The November People at the Billy Rose Theatre. James was cast to star in the world premiere of a play by Arthur Laurents, who penned The Way We Were and Gypsy. Titled 2 Lives, the play ran through April 12, 2003 at Boston's Lyric Stage Company, and had a September run at Lincoln Center.