Join Halcyon Theatre Saturday, August 4, 2:30pm at The Greenhouse for a panel discussion on "Dreaming a New Theatre."  This Free event is part of the Alcyone Festival 2012.

Panelists include:
Danny Bernardo
Deb Clapp 
Neal Dandade
Reginald Edmund
Minita Gandhi
Marc Pinate
Elaine Romero

About the Panelists:

Danny Bernardo

Danny is a Chicago-based actor, writer, and director. His eclectic skill set has allowed him to work on a diverse range of projects over the years and he is passionate about multicultural casting, collaborative theatre, and arts education. Some companies he's had the great fortune to work with include About Face, Victory Gardens, Lifeline, Silk Road, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Collaboraction, Emerald City, Rasaka, Porchlight Music Theatre, and Bailiwick Chicago, where he is Social Media Manager, Resident Playwright, and Collective Member.  He has also spent several years on faculty with After School Matters/Gallery 37, The Chicago Academy for the Arts, and Metropolis Performing Arts Center: School of the Arts. Danny has studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Second City Chicago, and is a proud graduate of Columbia College Chicago (BA in Directing) and the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts. As a writer, he is the creator of the series Boystown (which appears exclusively on the GoPride network) and the new play Mahal, about a Filipino American Family, which will premiere at Bailiwick Chicago in June 2013.

Deb Clapp

Deb is Executive Director of The League of Chicago Theaters, which serve a membership of more than 200 theaters, a rich and varied theater community ranging from storefront, non-union theaters with budgets under $10,000 to major cultural centers with multi-million dollar shows.

Neal Dandade

Neal Dandade has lived in Chicago since 2006. He has trained and performed at the Annoyance, Second City, and iO theaters. He was also a member of Stir Friday Night, Chicago’s Premier Asian American comedy group. He is currently an understudy for the Second City National Touring Company and received his MFA in the Writing for Screen and Stage program at Northwestern University. In Summer 2011, Neal was a writing intern at The Daily Show and the Colbert Report as part of Comedy Central’s Summer School Internship

Reginald Edmund

Reginald Edmund, is a resident playwright of Chicago Dramatists, he was previously a 2009-2010, 2010-2011 Many Voices Fellow playwright. Originally from Houston, Texas, he served Artistic Director for the Silver House Theatre, as well as the founder and producer for the Silver House Playwrights Festival and the Houston Urban Theatre Series. Reggie was the inaugural recipient of the  Kennedy Center Fellowship at Soul Mountain Retreat as well as the 2009 National Runner-up for the Lorraine Hansberryand Rosa Parks Playwriting Award.
Minita Gandhi

Minita Gandhi

Born in Mumbai, India, raised near San Francisco, Minita has been seen on The Chicago Code (FOX),and as the title role in the upcoming Hindu mythological film, Parvati's Golden Skin. She has performed with Tony award-winning director Mary Zimmerman's "The Arabian Nights," and has played at Chicago's Lookingglass Theater, The Gift, First FolioTheater, Silk Road Rising, Theatre Seven and Halcyon.

Marc Pinate

Marc David Pinate is theatre artist committed to creating performance on the edge. Through the mediums of theatre, spoken word, music and movement Marc collides the political with the abstract and pop culture with the spiritual to construct a new reality. As an actor he has worked with the Magic Theatre, Campo Santo, and Teatro Vision in the SF-Bay Area and Su Teatro in Denver. He is a National Slam Poetry champion and was front man for the poetry-music group, Grito Serpentino. His directing experience includes founding Los Del Pueblo Actors’ Lab and the Hybrid Performance Experiment. Marc is currently pursing an MFA in Directing at DePaul University’s Theatre School in Chicago.

Elaine Romero

Elaine Romero is a 2011/2012 member of the Goodman Theatre’s Playwright’s Unit for which she is writing a full-length version of A Work of Art. Graveyard of Empires is the first in a trilogy Elaine is writing about the U.S. at war. A Work of Art is the second piece of the trilogy. She has won over $125,000 for her plays, which have been presented at the Goodman Theatre, Alley Theatre, Newtown Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. Recent commissions include Goodman Theatre, Centerstage, American Theatre Company, InterAct Theatre Company (The Dalai Lama is Not Welcome Here), and Kitchen Dog Theater Company. Her plays include Walk into the Sea(Sloan Foundation/Magic Theatre, Sundance Playwrights Retreat),!Curanderas! Serpents of the Clouds, Before Death Comes for the Archbishop (TCG Pew National Theatre Artist in Residency grant),Sun, Stone and Shadows (Arkansas Repertory Theatre), Alicia(Zachary Scott Theatre), Something Rare and Wonderful (Alley Theatre), Xochi: Jaguar Princess (Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), Revolutions (Manhattan Theatre Source; in Spanish at the Panama National Theatre), Ponzi (Kitchen Dog Theater)—Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, A Work of Art (short version, American Theatre Company), and Barrio Hollywood, which received its Spanish World Premiere at Aurora Theatre and was published by Samuel French in English and Spanish. Her play Wetback is in development with Teatro Vista. Elaine taught in the RTVF Department at Northwestern University. She has adapted Revolutionsfor the screen for a film production company in Spain, and is currently revising a film that will be produced in Mexico.