Joan Ellison has been praised for her “vocal prowess....[and] organic grasp of the classic songs” by Michael Feinstein. As the restorer of Judy Garland’s orchestral arrangements for the Garland Heirs Trust, she brings musical authenticity and a life-long love for Judy to the stage.

Recent concerts include her solo concert Get Happy! A Judy Garland Celebration with symphonies coast-to-coast; a recreation of Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert hosted by Judy’s daughter, Lorna Luft, with Joan and Broadway divas Debbie Gravitte and Karen Mason; and performances of her theatrical concert, Love Finds Judy Garland. Her work was recently featured as part of #PBSForTheArts and on Detroit Public Television.

Premiering in September 2023, her new symphonic concert, It’s Magic! Joan Ellison Swings in High Fidelity, celebrates the most dazzling singers, songwriters, and arrangers of the mid-twentieth century. She earned an M.M.T. and a B. Mus. in Voice from Oberlin Conservatory, and serves as Teacher of Popular Voice at The Cleveland Institute of Music. Ellison’s graduates have performed on and Off-Broadway, in London’s West End, in bands and national tours, in film and television, and can be heard on solo albums in many genres. joanellison.com

Off-Broadway productions include world premieres of Selma ’65 (LaMaMa), Steve & Idi (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), and Cycling Past The Matterhorn (Clurman Theatre). Regional world premieres include Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Soprano, David Grimm’s adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, Lauren Gunderson’sThe Revolutionists (Cincinnati Playhouse), NNPN Rolling World Premieres of Lauren Gunderson’s Miss Bennett: Christmas at Pemberley and I and You, Meg Maroshnik’s Fickle: A Fancy French Farce, and Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl in the World (Theatre J). She has directed twenty-four of Shakespeare’s plays, some of them multiple times including her most recent Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Upcoming projects include the Jane Eyre at the Alley Theatre, and Lend Me A Soprano at Olney Theatre. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama, and is a professor and Chairs the Drama Department at The Catholic University of America.

Professor McGee is a member of Actors’ Equity and has been coaching voice and acting at Case Western Reserve University and directing productions at Eldred Theater since 1988. She received her vocal training from internationally known voice specialist Arthur Lessac and his master teachers; she also trained in the Linklater voice technique at Shakespeare & Company and with Kristin Linklater. She has studied Shakespearean text, voice, movement and acting at Shakespeare & Co. and with London's Royal National Theatre Studio. Professor McGee has also studied Fitzmaurice voice technique with Catherine Fitzmaurice and the "International Phonetic Alphabet Pillows Technique" with Linklater Master Teacher Louis Colaianni. Beth was the on-site dialect coach for the Cinemax television series, Quarry. She regularly voice and dialect coaches Cleveland area productions, and productions with the CWRU/CPH MFA Acting Program and CWRU’s Eldred Theater. In 2007, she earned a certificate for participating in over 300 hours of workshops at the Roy Hart Theater Centre Internationale in Maléragues, France where she has also taught workshops with Roy Hart Master Teachers Ivan Midderigh and Marie Paule Marthe.

Eliza Ladd Schwarz is a performer, director, stage writer, song maker, and choreographer from NYC. She is thrilled to join the faculty at CWRU / Cleveland Playhouse MFA after 10 years teaching at the FSU / Asolo Conservatory. Previously Eliza taught at Marymount Manhattan College, Kingsborough Community College, the Terry Schreiber Acting Conservatory, Naropa University, and at Shakespeare and Company.

In NYC, Eliza has created original multi-disciplinary work at PS 122, Dixon Place, Movement Research, the Knitting Factory, and Joyce Soho, and performed at La Mama, the Kitchen, NY Theater Workshop, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, as well as with Shakespeare and Company in MA.

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 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.”

In Sarasota FL she created and performed Selfie of the Ancients and Tigers Above and Tigers Below at New Music New College, O Let Me Just Be the Greek Whore that I Am at the Sarasolo Festival, Dali +Picasso at the Dali Museum (in Collaboration with Sarasota Contemporary Dance), and the solo works Autobiography of the Human Species and Gravity and Levity at Sarasota Contemporary Dance. Notable recent works include Work / Play / Work, a theatrical ensemble zoom response to the 2020 call for social justice, and Agridulce / Bittersweet, a bilingual community collaboration.

In addition to extensive training in Clown, Improvisation, Primitive Voice, Developmental Movement, and Shakespeare, and as a percussionist, singer and actor, Eliza is a Licensed Ashaya™ Yoga teacher, as well as a certified Body Dynamics™ educator of Movement for the Actor. She holds a BA in Comparative Religion from Harvard University and an MFA in Theater: Contemporary Performance from Naropa University.

In addition to serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the department, Professor Ullom teaches theatre history, dramaturgy, and Introduction to Theater (not to mention his summer class on Superheroes and on James Bond). His research interests have focused on contemporary American theatre, especially new play development in the regional theatre circuit and on Broadway. His first book The Humana Festival: A History of New Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008) charts the growth of the nation’s leading new play festival and its ability to endure economic, administrative, and artistic challenges. He also has published his work internationally in numerous journals, including Theatre History Studies, Contemporary Drama, Theatre Topics, Studies in Musical Theatre, Theatre Journal and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Ullom coauthored a new translation of Lope de Vega’s La Doma Boba (The Lady Simpleton) and also contributed a chapter to Angels in the American Theater: Patrons, Patronage, and Philanthropy (edited by Robert A. Schanke). His second book, America’s First Regional Theatre is a history of the Cleveland Play House (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and he is currently working on his third book.

Professor Ullom’s research interests were informed directly by his experience in professional theatre. He served in the literary department of Actors Theatre of Louisville during its twentieth-anniversary Humana Festival, allowing him to work many great playwrights and theatre artists including Tony Kushner, John Patrick Shanley, David Henry Hwang, Craig Lucas, Anne Bogart, Naomi Wallace, and Dominic Dromgoole. While completing his doctoral studies at University of Illinois, he also worked as interim literary manager and conducted various research projects for Actors Theatre (including work for Bogart’s Cabin Fever). He was the Theatre History Consultant for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis from 2003-2006, and he served as an advising partner for Xunesis (Chicago), a company of artists and scientists creating passion for science through theatre, film and media. He has also dramaturged numerous productions at Cleveland Play House.

Professor Ullom’s books are available on Amazon.

David made his feature film debut opposite Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. His television credits include guest appearances on Grey’s Anatomy, Dexter, House, and Manhunt: Deadly Games. He most recently filmed the Netflix film Shirley (opposite Academy Award winner Regina King and nominee Lucas Hedges), the Paramount Plus series The Mayor of Kingstown and, for Peacock TV, the LeBron James-produced biopic Shooting Stars.

He has performed opposite a number of Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy Award-winning actors including Jon Hamm, Taraji P. Henson, Helen Hunt and Martin Landau. 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. In Fall of 2022, he will appear in Rajiv Joseph's Describe the Night, for Ensemble Theatre. Prior to joining the faculty at CWRU, David taught at California State University, Long Beach, where he received his MFA in Acting and Directing. He has 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 certified in Lester Horton Pedagogy, the official technique taught at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Her additional dance credits include Dance New Amsterdam and North Coast Ballet Theater. Madame Darvash, Dr. Diane McIntyre and Lynn Simonson have influenced her teaching style as well.

She has worked nationally and internationally at regional dance companies, universities and school systems as an educator, performer, and choreographer. In Spring 2022, Ms. Woods was a Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities Department at Case Western Reserve University.

She continues to teach dance to students of all ages and lead programs that help cultivate technique, artistry, body awareness and empowerment and appreciation for dance.