Hoomans

Anne Libera is an author, writer, comedy professor and researcher. She created the Comedy Studies program at Columbia College Chicago.

Nate DuFort is a writer, producer, and director who splits his time between Detroit and Chicago. Mr. Dufort is a consultant for The Second City, having previously served as Producer, Producing Director, and Producing Artistic Director there, overseeing projects in cooperation between the iconic comedy theater and the Lyric Opera of Chicago or Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, managing the partnership at sea between Second City and Norwegian Cruise Line and taking part in the annual Gilda’s Club of Chicago fundraiser Night of a Thousand Noogies. Nate served on the Board of Directors for Planet Ant Theatre in Hamtramck, Michigan and as the Director of the Planet Ant Film & Video Festival. He currently produces the podcast My Neighbors Are Dead available at myneighborsaredead.com.  

Danielle Feinberg is a storyteller using light as her narrative tool. With over 2 decades of experience at Pixar Animation Studios, Ms. Feinberg inspires younger generations of all genders and communities to become artists through technology. Her work can be admired in Academy Award nominated movies, like Coco and Brave.  

Dave Hoover is a Code crafter formally trained in psychology and family therapy, Mr. Hoover is a software developer using the Ethereum blockchain and co-author of the book "Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman". He also co-founded the dev bootcamp, to enable anyone to learn software development skills in a matter of weeks.  

Artistic Director of "500 Clown"—a physical theater company that uses clown and humor to get the audience's active attention—Adrian Danzig has performed at The Goodman theater, The Steppenwolf, The Second City, Berkeley Rep, and much more. A Brooklyn native, Adrian is an actor, director, teacher and alumnus of The School of the Art Institute Chicago, and also studied clown with world-famous physical theater performers like Philippe Gaulier and Dominique Jando. Through his work, Mr. Danzig aims to explore with the audience how the body can display and elaborate the full range of human emotions, from joy and happiness and particularly to fear and anger, with his company producing shows like "500 Clown MacBeth" or "500 Clown Frankenstein".  

Lisa Wagner-Carollo is an agent of social change. Through theater, social justice, and spirituality, for almost 30 years she has been making an effort to reach marginalized communities through art. As founding director of the Still Point Theater Collective, Ms. Wagner-Carollo works with adults with developmental disabilities, currently and formerly incarcerated women, and senior citizens both on and off stage to become a catalyst of systemic change. As a performer Lisa is on stage with Haunted by God, her solo show performed around the world and based on the life of Dorothy Day. Her most recent book is Above, Along, Inside, and Through: Poems, Prayers, and Reflections.  

Okamura-san is the CEO of Grounding, an independent video-game company based in Japan and currently developing the virtual reality sequel to one of SEGA's most successful and bizarre games ever: Space Channel 5, a visionary music game first released in the late 90s where Ulala, a space news reporter in the 25th century, saves humanity by defeating evil aliens through dance moves and singing, sometimes even helped by Michael Jackson as Space Michael. As one of the few executive women and entrepreneurs in a male-dominated videogames industry, before founding her own company Okamura-san worked on many legendary SEGA games and developers like Tetsuya Mizuguchi's REZ, a musical shooter inspired by Kandinskji's work as a painter.  

Currently the "Executive Director of Insights and Applied Improvisation" at the iconic theater The Second City, Kelly Leonard is an improviser who doesn't perform on stage. He applies the constructive principles behind improvisational theater in business and everyday life. He studies ways to improve business models and culture by navigating uncertainty, with failure as the base for success. Kelly condensed his 3 decades of experience at The Second City and conjoined behavioral studies at the University of Chicago in his book, co-authored with Tom Yorton, titled "Yes And" and his podcast "Getting to Yes And".  

Dr. Luca Badetti tries to embrace both abilities and inabilities, arguing that this is the best way to become a more complete and connected human being: by encountering disability. Professor at Loyola and DePaul University, as Director of Community Life at L'Arche holding a PhD in Disability Studies, in his TED talk Luca shares powerful stories from his live-in experience with persons with and without intellectual disabilities, inviting everyone to befriend and accept their own perceived limitations to stimulate human growth.  

Gourmet chef and porn star with a military background, Jack Vidra is a model working in the adult entertainment industry nominated as Best Newcomer for the 2017 Grabby Awards, celebrating the adult erotic video industry. Featured in movies from hothouse and tyrant studios, Jack has recently published an essay titled ‘Do something that scares you’, where he shares his pat h from joining the Marine Corps to becoming a chef and then an adult worker; a process that guided him to discover a better and more accept himself, able to appreciate the differences that make each one of us unique, physically and emotionally. His strength does not come just from the body, but through the body, it lets the soul grow and improve.  

David Dewane is an architect and journalist working to create a better world through design and social change serving as Community Director of Archeworks, and formerly as the editor in chief for Impact Design Hub, both dedicated to expanding the role of design in society in order to create better social environments. Mr. Dewane also founded the Mouse Book Club, a project that thanks to a successful kickstarter campaign, aims to replace a commuter's smartphone with classic novels, speeches, essays, and poetry through phone-sized, 48 pages long books to enrich minds by sharing meaningful literature.  

Jonathan Mayo is an artist and creator behind Cleaning Closets, an oral history project that collects and shares true coming out stories from both sides of the closet door, both from the perspective of LGBTQ people as well as the family and friends they come out to. Mr. Mayo's goal sharing all the points of view so they can help us find common ground and make the coming out process easier for everyone involved. Through stage plays, a web series, photos, and a film documentary, Jonathan hosts panels in schools around the country to reach out with honesty and courage a diverse crowd spanning around all ages, genders, ethnicities, and sexual orientations to work as a catalyst towards a more empathic coming out process. You can read, listen, and watch all the stories he collected on cleaningclosets.org  

Ms. Halpern mentored comedy legends like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, and Cecily Strong—while building a comedy empire with her iO Theater, home of 'The Harold' (the improv format she created with Del Close).  

Using videogames as an artistic medium. Jason Rohrer is an independent game artist and creator of the videogames "One Hour One Life", "Immortality", and "Passage"—currently part of the New York MoMA permanent collection.  

Cathy Pearl is one of the few experts in the rising field of designing computers with a voice, working in the San Francisco Bay Area for over two decades and experimenting to create a more natural, conversational way to interact with the devices that help us connect every day. Her book "Designing Voice User Interfaces", published by O'Reilly, is recognized as one of the main texts on the subject by her colleagues who design smart chatbots and general assistants used daily by millions of people.  

Prof. Dominic A. Pacyga is a historian and researcher who analyzes the city of Chicago not just as an urban conglomerate, but as the collective and diverse story of settlers, immigrants, and locals who built it through their flesh and turned it into the "most American city". Teaching for over four decades, at Columbia College and the University of Chicago, his book—published by the University of Chicago Press— and titled "Chicago: A Biography" is a vivid portrait of the quintessential skyscraper jungle. His work as an author appeals both academics and individuals, with the exploration of the "city of neighborhoods".  

David Pasquesi is one of the most experienced improvisers currently performing on stage, focused on exploring the moment together with the audience, and not just performing for the audience. His Chicago and New York based show Tj&Dave—with his stage partner TJ Jagodowski—surprises hundreds every week not just because it’s funny, but for its honest search and discovery of connections that just a moment earlier did not exist. From The Second City to Hollywood, as an actor Dave has performed for theatre, commercials, movies, and TV shows including Groundhog Day, God of Carnage, Strangers with Candy, Veep, Curb your Enthusiasm, At Home with Amy Sedaris, and many different films directed by Harold Ramis. He was also part of the original group developing The Harold, the first long form improvisation conceived by Del Close as a self-enclosed structure in the ’80s and still performed at Charna Halpern’s iO Theater Chicago. His recently published book, co-authored with Tj Jagodowski and Pam Victor, is Improvisatio