Our Staff

 

Sharon Evans (Artistic Director) is one of the founders of Live Bait Theater. Her plays include Candyland, The Hypochondriac, Portrait of a Shiksa, Girls! Girls! Girls!! Live On Stage! Totally Rude!, Freud, Dora, and the Wolfman, Starving Artists, The Tall Ships, Blind Tasting and Escape. Her adapted work included Memento Mori, from the medical writing of Dr. F Gonzalez–Crussi and Us and Them, which was adapted from original writing by police officers and teens. She has taught at Chicago Dramatists and has guest-lectured at the School of the Art Institute, Loyola University, and Columbia College.

Four of her plays have been awarded developmental support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Evans holds a degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her play The Tall Ships, which opened at Live Bait in September 1999, was cited first runner-up for the American Theater Critics Association Osborn Award for new work. Her play, Blind Tasting, opened in May 2003 and enjoyed a successful six-month run at Live Bait Theater as well as a Jeff Citation award for Best New Work. Most recently she directed Nicole Hollander’s solo shows, Plastic Surgery or a Really Good Haircut? in 2006 and Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial. Her new play Escape, inspired by Chicago female Police Officers in the sex crimes unit, premiered in 2007.

 

 

 

 

John Ragir (Executive Director) is one of the founders of Live Bait Theater and has produced Live Bait's productions and oversees the company's advertising and long-range planning. Ragir wrote and produced Wally's Demon for the Chicago Playwrights' Center as well as for the Byrdcliffe Theatre Festival in Woodstock, New York, and La Svengali for Live Bait. His directing credits include Michele Fitzsimmons's Sirens, What's This In My Coke? Poetic Justice (co-directed with Glenda Starr Kelley and published by the Playboy Foundation), and Junkfood. He is program manager of Live Bait Theater's Bait, Hook, and Link and has done programs at

the Uptown and Galewood-MontClaire Branches of the Chicago Public Library, Gallery 37, Blaine Middle School, and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. He has served on the Board of the League of Chicago Theatres and is on the Board of Anshe Emet Synagogue. He holds a M.B.A. from New York University.

 

 

 

 

Ashley Nelson (Managing Director) is a recent graduate of Auburn University in Alabama with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Stage Management. Stage management credits include: A Play about a Squirrel, Skin in Flames, and Omniscience at Stage Left Theatre, Nicole Hollander's Tales of Aging Gracefully; From Planet Denial at the Chicago Cultural Center. Prior to this position she served as a Live Bait house and box staff member and casting coordinator for Heat Wave.

 

Box and House Staff

Bergen Anderson, Mary Brewster, Catriona Johnson, Brina Lord,
Ian McLaren, Josh Waller

 
Board of Directors

President - Donna Bennett
Treasurer - James Blake
Secretary - Edward Thomas-Herrera
Members - Geoffrey Bushor, Joe Plummer
Legal Representation

Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, Winston & Strawn
Live Bait is generously supported by...

The Alphawood Foundation, City Arts II, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Driehaus Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Family Foundation, The James Kemper Foundation, The Woods Foundation, The Meyer and Norma Ragir Foundation, The Maurice R. and Meta G. Gross Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts.

...And by the following individuals

Maine Lobster:
1000 clams and up

Lisa Axlerod
Donna Bennett
James Blake and Kelly Morgan
Lisa Conley
Phillip Davis
Karen Grigorian
Alan and Joan Kifferson
Gordon and Michelle Loux
Vicki Quade
Nancy Stockmeyer
Craig Sullivan

Ahi Tuna:
500-999 clams

Greg Albiero
Gloria Coco
Bill Fodor
Gary Gassman
Elizabeth Hein
Garnett Kilberg Cohen
Christine Lofquist
Ann Purky
Robert Ragir
Susan Schiro
Barb Tenuta
Lisa Vincenzo

King Salmon:
200-499 clams

Doug Artus
Edwin Bell
Jill Carvalho
John DePopolis
Anne and John Gearen
Jim and Lois Hobart
Carrie Kaufman
Gina Lair
Phil and Donna Lebowitz
Jennie Nass
Marina Rodriguez
Ann Schorr

Rainbow Trout:
50-199 clams

Tom Bachtell
Jenny Blume

 



Amy Chandler
Phyllis Emond
Stephanie Guerrero
Lois Hauselman

Terese Herbig
Joel Klaff
Anne Kreeger
Jan Mathes
Louisa McPharlin
Katherine Mell
Barbara Metz
Glenn Palmer
Carrie Ruzicka
Emily Siegler
Scott and Martha Stiller
Rick Sullivan

For the Halibut:
1-49 clams

Beverly Bartel
Jay Becker
Gail Botwin
Geoffrey Bushor
Janet Cohen
Nancy Cole
David Dean
Michael Donovan
Tom Erdman
Chuck Finnelsten
Richard Fox
Nina Gaspich
Steve Hickson
George Hroziench
Aaron Johnson
Robert Klein Engler
Donna Lebovitz
Lisa Mayer
Karen Meifert
Brigid Murphy
Mike Nicholson
Nancy Ozawa
Pam Ring
Jeff Schiff
Meghan Schromen
Ed Sung
Katherine Tersgo
David Vandenack
Jerome Winer