Education Team

Merissa has worked as a curriculum writer and arts educator for over 24 years. She spent the past decade doing freelance work with organizations such as CISC, Ingenuity, Columbia College, Girls in the Game, Sky Arts and the Loft Academy, LA. She started her career as a Teaching Artist through the Arts Bridge program at UCLA, where she earned a BA and MA in Theatre. After serving as an educator and teacher trainer in the Peace Corps, Thailand, she relocated to Chicago from her home state of California. Her first job in Chicago was as a curriculum writer and teaching artist for Silk Road Rising. She served a term on the ITA board as the Theater for Young Audiences Representative, helping plan several Theater in our Schools conferences and is currently a proud Board Member of Edgewater Singers and Playmakers Lab. Merissa also served as the Education Director at Adventure Stage Chicago for 6 seasons, helping bring theater and creative writing to middle school students all over Chicago. She is the co-founder of the Chicago Arts Educator Forum and a proud member of the Arts Ed Chi collective.  In her free time, she is a mosaic artist and loves to travel and make art with her two kids. She’s always striving to embody the quote by Lou Holtz: “I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

Elizabeth is an actor and teaching artist in Chicago. As a teaching artist she has been proud to work with such great companies as Lifeline Theatre, Free Street Theatre, Dream Big Performing Arts Workshop, Pegasus Players, Lakeside Shakespeare Theatre, Gorilla Tango, and LaSalle Language Academy. As an actor she has performed with Chicago theatres such as Lakeside Shakespeare, Drury Lane Water Tower, Metropolis, and Porchlight Theatre. She has also appeared in several KidsSeries shows at Lifeline, among them Dooby Dooby Moo, Half Magic, and Giggle Giggle Quack.

Ashli’s Recent credits include: Native Son (Lifeline Theatre), IS GOD IS (Red Orchid), Notes from the Field (Timeline), Stew (Shattered Globe), Detroit 67 (The Theatre School). Ashli recently received their BFA in Acting and African Diaspora from DePaul University. Her focus is work rooted in anti imperialist agendas but most importantly, the decolonization of all bodies through the encouragement of free movement and play.

Liam Collier (he/him) is an activist and theatre maker, specializing in ensemble-based modes of creation. Born and raised in New York, Liam moved to Chicago in 2017 to pursue his passion for immersive theatre and arts education. From 2018 through 2023, Liam worked at the Goodman Theatre, serving as the Community Programs and Special Projects manager and a lead teaching artist of the Goodman’s multigeneration InterGens ensemble. He continues to teach storytelling through the Goodman’s GeNarrations program at Willye B. White park. These days, you’ll also find him leading K-12 experiences at the Art Institute of Chicago, devising exciting new adaptations with Lifeline Theatre’s in-school residencies, and supporting adults experiencing memory loss with Renewal Memory Care. Recent theatre credits include QuaranStream Theatre Festival (Producer), iBuddy (Stage Manager, Totally Human), and Three West: An Immersive Staged Reading (Playwright, self-produced).

Ashley Laverty (she/her) is a theatre maker originally from Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the founding Artistic Director of Kerfuffle, a theatre and dance company for children ages 0-6 that shares plays in nontraditional theatre spaces like libraries, parks, and museums. She has over 10 years of teaching artist experience, specializing in drama in the early childhood classroom. In Chicago, Ashley is proud to be a teaching artist with Lifeline Theatre, Imagine Performing Arts, Writer’s Theater and The Stage School. She holds an MFA in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University.

Jose Dominguez Magdaleno (they, he, el) is a multi-disciplinary Chicago based artist, educator, and facilitator from New Jersey. Jose’s passion lies within the intersection of art, education, and activism to explore themes and topics of race, ethnicity, queerness, and (dis)abilities. His work resonates his own identity as a queer, visually impaired, Mexican-American/Latinx person (the order varies depending on the day). They’re a freelance teaching artists working for Creative Root in The Theatre School and Northlight Theatre Company. They’re also drag artists. Jose holds a double major in BFA Theatre Arts and BA Latin American and Latino Studies from DePaul University. 

Mechelle is co-artistic director of The Yard, a company member with TimeLine Theatre, and a founding member of The Hypocrites. She works as an actor, director, teaching artist and serves as Director of Education at Raven Theatre. Mechelle is a Non-Equity Jeff Award recipient for Actress in Principal Role-Play for her performance in Machinal with The Hypocrites and received a nomination for Actress in Principal Role-Play for Stage Door with Griffin Theatre. As a lead teaching artist, Moe has worked for many organizations including Lookingglass, Court, Lifeline, TimeLine and Raven Theatre. She has directed and devised numerous works at Senn Arts and with The Yard including Milk like Sugar, The 4th Grader’s Present an Unnamed Love Suicide, Our America: Ghetto Life 101: Remorse (which she also adapted), and Metamorphoses, which were selected for the 2014 and 2015 Illinois High School Theatre Festivals. As well as the docu-drama Broken Text, an original work by Mechelle based on her interviews with men recently released from incarceration and living in a transitional facility. Mechelle graduated with honors from the University of Illinois Chicago with both a bachelors in Theater as well as Anthropology.

Joshua is an actor and teaching artist in Chicago. Joshua chose to stay here in Chicago after graduating from The Theatre School at DePaul University, with his MFA in acting. With almost a decade of experience performing both on stage and screen he has worked with many theaters here in Chicago including Remy Bumppo, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and The Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has also previously worked with Lifeline Theatre on their production of Jane Eyre [2014]. He is currently working on Ernani at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Alyssa is a director, facilitator, applied theatre artist, and cultural strategist dedicated to dreaming and practicing the world we want to live in. Alyssa has worked professionally as a teaching artist throughout Chicago & its suburbs for 14 years! She has taught storytelling, acting, collaboration, health education, conflict resolution, literacy, and social-emotional learning to humans of all ages. As a justice-oriented artist focused on devised and new plays, Director and Co-Creator credits include We Could Be: The Future of Sex Ed (About Face Theatre), You Can’t Cover the Sky with Your Hand (Pivot Arts), Meeting Our Desires (Night Out in the Parks), Epic Tales from the Land of Melanin (Free Street Theater; Latinx Theatre Commons’ International TYA Festival), and Expectation (For Youth Inquiry). Alyssa is also an Intimacy Director and has helped shape productions at Theo Ubique, Haven, Metropolis, The Gift, and Raven Theatre. She is a proud Curator of Swarm Artist Residency. Alyssa can be found studying drumming and dance at La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón, reading picture books about queer and BIPOC joy, and laughing really loudly. Trust youth!

John hustles as an educator, actor, scenic designer and painter in Chicago. He has worked with Lifeline Theatre for over a decade and also teaches with Changing Worlds. He won the 2015 Non-Equity Jeff Award for Best Scenic Design for Byhalia, Mississippi (New Colony and Definition). Some acting credits include: American Dead (Northwestern); The Nutcracker, Miami Tour (House); El Grito del Bronx(Collaboraction/Teatro Vista/Goodman); Our Bad Magnet (Mary Arrchie); and To Kill a Mockingbird, Understudy (Steppenwolf). He is a company member with Collaboraction and an artistic associate with WildClaw and The Yard.