Karin Shook (Co-Founder/Artistic Director) has directed over twenty productions that have been seen in theatres, parks, and festivals in Chicago, Minneapolis, Ontario, and London.  As the Artistic Director of Tripaway Theatre, she spent several summers directing open-air productions of Shakespeare, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeo and Juliet.  Her work with Tripaway also includes directing, co-translating and adapting Moliere’s Les Précieuses ridicules into Coquettes! Girls of Some Intelligence and co-adapting Aristophanes’ The Acharnians: One Man’s Private Peace During the Compassionately Conservative Bombing Campaign on Canada, the Adventures that Befell Him Thereafter, and What Jesus and The Tooth Fairy Had to Say About it All.  

She was director and cast member of Tripaway’s ensemble-created commedia dell’arte production of Commedia Divino e Profano, or Scourge of the Doom Pies! and also directed the original historical drama On the Eve of His Execution: A Play About Thomas Paine. Other directing credits include Wendy McLeod's Boxes for Collaboraction’s Sketchbook ‘04, Women and Wallace for BackStage Theater, and two productions (one in Chicago, one in London) of Pinter’s The Lover. She recently directed AIDS: A Presentation by Ricky Cates, Jr., Third Grade for Sketchbook '07 at the Steppenwolf Garage, and co-directed Birth last fall as part of the BOLD (Birth on Labor Day) events here in Chicago. In May, she will be directing The Lurker Radio Hour for Sketchbook ’08 at the Steppenwolf Garage.

Karin has puppeteered with Redmoon, acted with Strawdog, created and taught a writing program at Players Workshop, served as an artist mentor for the Steppenwolf Arts Exchange Program, and was selected as a finalist for both the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors and the Goodman Theatre’s Michael Maggio Directing Fellowship.  She is a novelist, a produced, prize-winning playwright, a graduate of NW5 Theatre School in London and The Second City Conservatory; a member of Actors’ Equity, AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild; a member of the Michael Merritt Awards Committee; and an alum of the 2005 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York. 

Elizabeth Margolius (Co-Founder/Artistic Director) is a stage director with a primary focus in the development and direction of both contemporary and classical works of musical theatre and opera. She has worked in many capacities with theatres throughout the country including the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, and the Santa Fe Opera. Elizabeth now resides in Chicago where she has worked as an actor, flautist, teacher and director for over twelve years. In 1997, Elizabeth was honored for her work as an actor by being selected to study with Uta Hagen at the Piven Theatre Workshop.

Directorial credits include: Out of the Blue, for Live Bait Theater, Headlines, which premiered at the Chicago Improv Festival and later at Chicago’s Apollo Theater; Ss, an adaptation of Kafka’s The Silence of the Sirens, and an adaptation of Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus both of which were selected for the Chicago Directors Festival at Bailiwick Repertory Theatre; new musical concert readings of The Circus of Dr. Lao and Death and Plenty for Theatre Building Chicago; Down But Not Out, a series of original mini-musicals for Theatre Building Chicago; Fairystories, which opened in the 2006 Stages Festival of New Musicals at Theatre Building Chicago, Whirlybirds, a musical in development, for Stage Left Theatre’s LeapFest, and a concert reading of the new musical Downtown for the 2007 Stages Festival of New Musicals at Theatre Building Chicago.

Most recently, Elizabeth directed Heloise and Abelard, a concert reading of an epic new musical for Theatre Building Chicago.
Elizabeth’s critically acclaimed staging of Songs for a New World with the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble played to sold-out audiences last fall, and was remounted at Theatre Building Chicago in January 2008. Songs for a New World will be remounted for a second time at Theater on the Lake this summer. Other upcoming directorial projects include the American premiere of a new musical, The Master Poker Player, co-created and conducted by former Chicago Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, Ruben Gonzalez.

Elizabeth holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Music/Classical Flute, and she is an alumna of both the 2004 and 2005 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York. She is currently serving as an invited panelist on the Chicago CityArts Panel, and is a member of the Michael Merritt Awards Committee. In 2007, Elizabeth was awarded a full summer scholarship to study as a participant director at the Wesley Balk Opera-Music Theater Institute in Minneapolis.