Christopher Bohan has been with the department of theater at Case Western Reserve University since 2012. He teaches acting and improvisation to the undergraduates, and acting and audition technique to MFA students. For the department, he directs undergraduate productions, and along with Angelina Herin, he is the co-director of undergraduate recruitment.

For the undergraduate program, Chris has directed Electra, Uncle Vanya, The Bald Soprano, and Proof, as well as a virtual production of Bus Stop. In 2021, along with undergrads and several MFA alums, Chris played Bernard Nightengale in the inaugural production of the Maltz Performing Arts Center’s production of Arcadia.

Currently, Chris is doing research on the intersections of improvisation and cognitive behavioral therapy with Dr. Amy Przeworski from the CWRU Department of Psychology. Project DRAMA is funded by the CWRU Expanding Horizons and The National Endowment for the Arts.

In addition to his work with the theater department at CWRU, Chris works as a teacher and professional actor in the Cleveland area. In 2024, he starred as Mr. Bennet and Charlotte Lucas in the Cleveland Play House production of Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice, and has supporting roles in two films released that year: Unsinkable: The Untold Story and Lost and Found in Cleveland.

Chris has been teaching the Michael Chekhov technique with the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium since 2015, and was recently named to the board of the organization and became a lead teacher with the program. GLMCC offers a certification program in the Michael Chekhov technique to actors and theater educators.

He graduated from Lehigh University in 1994 with a BA in theatre and economics. He received his MFA in Performance from The Hilberry Theatre at Wayne State University in 2007. He is a founding member of Cleveland’s longest running improvisational comedy company, Something Dada, and was a regular performer until 2003. Chris is a proud member of the Actor’s Equity Association (AEA), and SAG-AFTRA. He lives in University Heights, Ohio with his wife and two children.

Darryl Lewis is an accomplished performer and educator whose career spans opera, musical theater, and dramatic stage performance. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Voice for the MFA in Acting program at Case Western Reserve University in collaboration with Cleveland Play House, where he provides graduate-level vocal instruction to emerging professional actors. His work contributes directly to the program’s mission of developing world-class artists through rigorous conservatory training and performance opportunities, including a culminating showcase presentation each December.

A two-time graduate of Kent State University, Mr. Lewis holds both a Master of Music in Vocal Performance and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from The D’Angelo School of Music at Mercyhurst University. In recognition of his performance excellence, he was named BroadwayWorld.com’s Equity Actor of the Year in 2011. He received first place in the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) regional competition held at Cleveland State University.

A proud member of Actors’ Equity Association since 2008 and a candidate for induction into the Screen Actors Guild, Mr. Lewis has performed across a wide range of regional and international venues. His theatrical credits include roles with Great Lakes Theater (notably as Mr. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol), as well as performances with Karamu House, Dobama Theatre, Beck Center for the Arts, Cain Park, Rabbit Run Theater, and the Rome Opera Festival in Italy. His baritone voice has also been featured with companies such as Chautauqua Opera and Michigan Opera Theater, and he has performed the national anthem for both the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Guardians.

In all of his work, as performer, educator, and mentor, Mr. Lewis remains committed to artistic excellence, vocal health, and the transformative power of live performance.

Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (The Merry Wives of Windsor); Great Lakes Theater / Idaho Shakespeare Festival / Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival (The Merry Wives of Windsor); American Players Theatre (The Merry Wives of Windsor); Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); Island Shakespeare Festival (Othello, King Lear); Arabian Shakespeare Festival (Macbeth); University of Utah ATP (Love’s Labor’s Lost); directed as well as adapted OSF School Visit Program touring performances; devised and directed an OSF Green Show called “Give It Up for Elizabethan-ness” ; directed OSF staged readings and has both acted and directed multiple times in OSF’s The Black Swan Lab for new play development. Other directing credits include: Southern Oregon University, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Oregon Repertory Theater, Kern Shakespeare Festival and OSF’s Daedalus Project AIDS Benefit (multiple times); “Sweetly Writ”, at the Hult Center in Eugene, OR, a collaboration between OSF and the University of Oregon to celebrate UofO’s Shakespeare First Folio Exhibition. Devised and directed Romeo and Juliet for Eugene Symphony’s 50 piece orchestra combining Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and Sergei Prokofiev’s music of the same name.

Eliza Ladd Schwarz is a director, choreographer, movement designer, performer, stage writer, and song maker from NYC. She has collaborated with Israel Horovitz, Adam Rapp, Karen O, Peter Amster, Eleanor Holdridge, Don Carrier, Benny Sato Ambush, Jonathan Epstein, Greg Leaming, Andrei Malaev Babel, Jessie Jou, James Dean Palmer, and Leigh Fondakowski. Select productions, as movement designer/choreographer: The Liar, The Learned Ladies, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Nora, As you like It, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Antigone, Oedipus, How I Learned to Drive, Everybody, Drunken City, Reckless, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Sense and Sensibility, Middletown, Casa Cushman, Stick Fly, and Men On Boats.

Eliza brings a wealth of knowledge to the collaborative process, including in the realms of movement for the actor, historical dance, Le Coq, Grotowski, Shakespeare, the Viewpoints, contemporary composition, contemplative practice, object work, intimacy coordination, Moment Work, devising, clown, Capoeira, Ashaya Yoga, Developmental Movement Technique, and ensemble development.

After ten years teaching at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory MFA, Eliza is thrilled to be entering her third year on the faculty at CWRU/Cleveland Playhouse MFA, where she teaches MFA Movement, Devising Original Theater, and Acting. Through the Glennan Fellowship she has developed a new curriculum, Live Sound Action: Learning at the Crossroads of Theatrical Training, and Spiritual Practice (THTR351 Spring 2026) - an articulation of her performance research which integrates physical and musical storytelling with contemporary spiritual exploration.

Eliza has created original multi-disciplinary work in NYC at PS 122, Dixon Place, Movement Research, the Knitting Factory, Joyce Soho, and United Solo, and performed at La Mama, the Kitchen, NY Theater Workshop, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, as well as in Massachusetts with Shakespeare and Company. Notable recent projects include original works of ensemble music theatre Selfie of the Ancients and Tigers Above, Tigers Below, both curated by New Music New College Foundation; Agridulce/Bittersweet, an Andrew W. Mellon funded bi-lingual community project; Work/Play/Work, a theatrical ensemble zoom response to the 2020 call for social justice; and her solo works Gravity and Levity, Autobiography of the Human Species, both presented by Sarasota Contemporary Dance. In 2025 Eliza directed Men On Boats at CWRU.

Eliza won the Audience Encore Award for her ensemble musical Elephants and Gold, produced at the Boulder Fringe and the Berkshire Fringe, and wrote and performed On Est Déshabillé, a comedy about death produced at the United Solo Theatre Festival and The Berkshire Fringe. Eliza is the recipient of a Franklin Furnace Emerging Artist Award for her original performance work, a Puffin Foundation Grant in support of her Live Sound Action theater training, and an Andrew W Mellon Foundation Grant for “Devised Theater and Collaboration for Social Engagement.”

Currently Eliza is initiating two new devised pieces: a solo work titled Conjoined (the knotted rope) about a figure in a particular mind/body predicament, and an ensemble piece, Amidst All This: A Eulogy for the Earth, digging into the world surrounding precious natural resources and the prospect of facing climate change and disaster. Eliza is touring her workshop Digging Deep, The Body as Palimpsest, a pop-up contemporary memorial/ceremony/performance.

Eliza holds a BA in Comparative Religion from Harvard University and an MFA in Theater: Contemporary Performance from Naropa University.

elizaladd.com

Jerrold Scott is a director, actor, and speech consultant who has served on the CWRU faculty since 2000. He was appointed chair of the Department of Theater in 2015 and served until 2023. In 2017 he was appointed the Katharine Bakeless Nason Professor in Theater and Drama. Jerrold teaches speech and phonetics, dialects, and classical acting technique in the MFA program, and directs in the ensemble productions. He continues to work occasionally as an actor, and recently completed his PhD in History at CWRU, focusing on the life of 19thcentury theater critic and soldier Adam Badeau.

As a director, he has helmed shows up and down the East Coast and Midwest. His local credits include Season’s Greetings, Hay Fever, She Stoops to Conquer, The Philadelphia Story, Present Laughter, Heartbreak House, and The Real Thing for the MFA acting program; Arcadia, The Rocky Horror Show, Urinetown, and The Glass Menagerie at the CWRU Department of Theater; and Polish Joke, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and A Doll’s House at the Beck Center for the Arts.

Jerrold also works as a speech, text and dialect coach, and served as the resident dialect coach at Cleveland Play House for over a decade. He has also coached locally at Great Lakes Theatre Festival and Dobama Theatre, and regionally at The Studio Theatre, Wooly Mammoth Theatre, and Round House Theatre in Washington and at CATCO in Columbus.

David made his feature film debut in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. His television credits include guest appearances on Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter, House, and Manhunt. Recent film/TV roles include Netflix’s Shirley (opposite Academy Award winner Regina King and nominee Lucas Hedges), The Mayor of Kingstown, and the LeBron James biopic Shooting Stars for Peacock.

He has worked with a number of Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy Award-winning actors including Tom Hanks, Robert DeNiro, Taraji P. Henson, Jon Hamm, and Helen Hunt. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity Association (AEA).

His stage credits include South Coast Repertory, Chautauqua Theatre Company, None Too Fragile, and Dobama. Most recently, he appeared in A Doll’s House Pt.2 at the Beck Center and Rajiv Joseph's Describe the Night for Ensemble Theatre. David has an MFA in Acting and Directing from California State University, Long Beach, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Evansville.

Kenya Woods, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, holds more than 30 years of experience in dance performance, choreography, teaching, and leadership. She holds a degree in Dance from Tennessee State University and is trained in Classical Ballet. Dr. Diane McIntyre, Madame Darvash, and Lynn Simonson are powerhouses in the dance community who have influenced her teaching style.

She is certified in the Lester Horton Pedagogy, the official technique taught at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Theatrical Choreography and Directorial credits include: Cabaret (The Maltz/CWRU MFA and Undergraduate Program), Everybody (CWRU MFA Program), Blood At the Root (CWRU Undergraduate Program), A Son Is Given (The Hanna Theater), Rent (Cain Park), The Bubbly Brown Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin and Passing Strange (Karamu House), The Little Mermaid, Scrooge: The Musical, Brooklyn: The Musical and Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Near West Theatre Co-Director/Choreographer), Through Her Eyes, The Absolutely Amazing and True Adventures of Miss Joan Southgate and Ya Mama! (Cleveland Public Theater, New York International Fringe, and Hollywood Fringe), Once on This Island (Playhouse Square, CSA Theater Elite), and Bunnicula (Cleveland Play House). Kenya is currently a faculty teacher of Dance at Case Western Reserve University for students in the MFA Theater Program. She continues to teach dance to students of all ages and lead programs that help cultivate technique, artistry, body awareness, empowerment, and appreciation for dance