Staged Readings: Apartment Life & Road Kill Creative

Company Director

David Lee

David Lee has served as the Artistic Director at Avenue Arts Marketplace and Theatre since the conception of the theatre company in 2017. He has had the pleasure of working with a diverse group of actors including youngsters as the Director of the young actors workshop each fall and spring. Some of his favorite shows with the the Junior class are “Annie JR”, “Willy Wonka JR”and “Shrek JR”. David also understands the importance in the development of new works and has formed a company of actors called “Underground” that preforms staged readings of new works. He invites you to check out the season of new works at AvenueArts.org. David is a Canton, Ohio native and attended Malone University where he was trained in the Michael Chekhov Technique of acting and revived and B.A. in Communication, Visual and Preforming Arts.

Company Manager

Emily Hisey

Emily Hisey has loved theatre since she was chosen to play the coveted role of Twinkle the Christmas Angel at age nine - she’s been escaping reality ever since. Past stage credits include Jane Eyre, Dancing at Lughnasa, Doubt, and A Year With Frog and Toad. Emily is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such talented and hardworking artists. “Enjoy the show and thank you for supporting live theatre!”

Original Creative Team

Gerry Sheridan (Apartment Life Playwright)

As an aspiring writer and English major in college, I lost the will to write after being intimidated by Wallace Stevens and Alexander Pope and having a professor say I had no right to write unless I could read and write ancient Greek. After some years my mantra became “no idea is too stupid” and I was free to write again. I think Second City inspired that. I completed the comedy-writing program at Second City Chicago. I was one of two women in the graduating class. I began with writing sketch comedy and monologues and ventured into play writing when my long-time friend and mentor Gene Lasko suggested I write a play. I responded with incredulity, and Gene said, “Just take your characters and put them in a room together.” My first play won the Samuel French Short Play Festival. I grew up in Pelham Manor, NY and now live in Brooklyn Heights where I play squash, write and dote on my dog. I earned my B.A. in English Literature from Stony Brook University.

Cassandra Rose (Road Kill Playwright)

This bisexual playwright has had over 300 of her plays performed in Chicago and beyond. That includes the hundreds of micro-plays that made up all five years of The Dictionary Project, a self-produced project in which each play was created for and inspired by a very specific audience member. A person would buy a play, pick a page number that corresponded to a page in Cassandra’s dictionary, and within the year Cassandra would write them a play (one page, three pages, or ten minutes long) about one of the words found on that dictionary page. Her other short work has been produced by Broken Nose Theatre, City Theatre, Cold Basement Dramatics, Jackalope Theatre Company, Nothing Special Productions, The One Minute Play Festival, and The Whiskey Radio Hour. Her longer plays include The Amen Trilogy, At His Best, Billy to his Friends, Children of Troy, and The Volunteer. She has dramaturged shows at Jackalope Theatre Company, Redtwist Theatre, Raven Theatre, and Strawdog Theatre Company. And Cassandra sometimes starts theatre companies; she helped found the Chicago Theatre marathon and Cold Basement Dramatics. Girl gets around. Cassandra earned her BA in playwriting from Columbia College Chicago, and she was one of six inaugural Tutterow Fellows at Chicago Dramatists (class of 2019).