2nd Story: Storytellers: D

Daria Davis

Director, Designer Recruitment and New Work Development // Daria Davis is tremendously pleased to be back with the folks at 2nd Story after a year long hiatus traveling the country by car. When she’s not collaborating with 2nd Story’s exceptional storytellers, Daria freelances as a director and is currently wrapping up a literary apprenticeship at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. This fall she will be directing the world premier of Mouse in a Jar by Martyna Majok at Red Tape Theatre Company, where she helms the Fresh Eyes Project, a new works festival, and is a company member.

Paul Davis

Paul M. Davis is a writer of articles, essays and fiction who is obsessed with the media, class, pseudoscience and arcade-style video golf. He is a contributing writer for the Santa Cruz Weekly, and his work has also appeared in the Silicon Valley Metro, the A.V. Club Chicago, Punk Planet, Gapers Block, Proximity Magazine, Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine and cellstories.net. He also publishes the online culture and politics magazine Is Greater Than. Information about his various activities and his blog can be found at www.paulmdavis.com.

Amye Day

Amye Day is excited to be joining 2nd Story and making use of her storytelling skills outside of happy hours and coffee breaks at work. During the day, she coordinates study abroad programs and advises students at Loyola University Chicago. Amye studied abroad herself as an undergraduate in Toledo, Spain and earned a Masters in Religion at Yale University, focussing on Latin American arts and religion. Though she loves to travel, Amye feels most at home in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky, where she spent her summers as a child.

Misty De Berry

Misty De Berry, a Chicago based actress and playwright is currently completing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago. After receiving her BFA in acting from North Carolina School of the Arts, her work has been supported through various fellowships including the Kennedy Center, New York Theatre Workshop and most recently the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. Her current play Milkweed is a solo-performance exploring the lingering effects of sexual violence within the African American lesbian community and premieres in May 2009.

Jane deLaubenfels

Jane deLaubenfels is a Chicago based actor. She has worked with Redtwist, Provision, Stage Left, ATC, and City Lit, among others. This winter she will be appearing in Dark Play or Stories for Boys with Collaboraction Theatre. Jane lives in Lincoln Square with her husband Jamie and her children, Alice and Gabriel.

Whitney Dibo

Whitney Dibo works in the Education Department at Steppenwolf Theatre Company through which she’s lucky enough to direct the theatre’s after school program and work as a teaching artist in the Chicago Public Schools. She’s also Steppenwolf’s Program Assistant on First Look Repertory of New Work and a former Steppenwolf apprentice in the casting department. Whitney is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Time Out Chicago, New City: Street Smart Chicago and The Blood Orange Review. She’s also worked as a dramaturg for various theatres around town, including The Gift Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, TimeLine Theatre and Urban Theatre Company.

Amanda Dimond

Artistic Director // Amanda feels extraordinarily blessed to work as a freelance director, choreographer, writer, and educator all over the fine city of Chicago (a.k.a. the best city in the world). After completing her Master's in Theater and Spanish at the University of Chicago in 1999, Amanda worked for a couple of years in Los Angeles and Mexico before returning home to the Windy City. She has had the pleasure of working with the Steppenwolf, the Goodman, the Court, the Next, Pegasus Players, Red Moon, Collaboraction, Strawdog, Teatro Vista, and Adventure Stage Chicago, among others. She is the Artistic Director of the Serendipity Theatre Collective and is also an Artistic Associate with Collaboraction Theater Company and Adventure Stage Chicago. When she's not running Serendipity, Amanda spends her time working in the local public schools as a teaching artist, baking pies and breads and cakes (oh my!), and trying to convince her plants to hold on for just another day. She loves food and wine and stories and music, and is truly excited to be helming 2nd Story, surrounded by such wonderful people—welcome!

Nic Dimond

Guest Director // Nic is the artistic director of Strawdog Theatre Company, where he has been a company member since 1995. He is a proud graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University and Rich East High School.

Gina DiPonio

Gina DiPonio's work has appeared in Contrary Magazine, The Sun, Story Week Reader, Traverse Magazine, and others. While she loves teaching in person at University of Chicago, Roosevelt University and elsewhere around this fine city, she is a devoted advocate for and creator of innovative distance learning. Any time now she'll have an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Now and always, Gina is excited to see what happens next.

Eileen Dougharty

Eileen Dougharty has been entertaining people with stories for a long time, and upon moving to Chicago she opted to pursue it officially. After dabbling in some sketch comedy writing with Second City, she decided that the true tales of her life were better than fiction and certainly easier to come up with. When she’s not writing, she’s often brainstorming captions for New Yorker cartoons or flying around the country handing out drinks, snacks, and snark to the general public, which beats having a real job. She is thrilled to make the transition from 2nd Story super fan to storyteller.

Rob Duffer

Robert Duffer teaches part-time at Columbia College Chicago, bartends and writes. Currently seeking a home for his first novel, Home, Duffer’s work has appeared in The Taj Mahal Review, Flashquake, Pindeldyboz, Rain Taxi and others. He is a contributing reviewer for New Pages, a freelance writer for Centerstage and has had other freelance pieces published in print, online, and recently, on NPR’s morning show, 848. Duffer reads every month at RUI: Reading Under the Influence. His proudest accomplishment, however, is his son, Calvin, who is currently learning to stick his foot in his mouth. This is a skill Dad should learn.

Beth Dugan

Hailing from Glen Ellyn in the NW suburbs of Chicago, Beth earned her BA in Psychology at the University of Iowa. When she graduated, she stayed in Iowa for several years. This turned out to be a very bad idea, so she returned to Chicago in 1999. She will never live somewhere with more grass than concrete again. Beth is an MFA candidate in the Fiction Writing program at Columbia College and works full time for the Man as a writer for a small financial consulting firm. She is a contributing reviewer for Time Out Chicago, New City, Bookslut.com and UR Chicago; her writing has appeared in The Banana King, The South Loop Review, Ducts.org, Ginosko Journal, and Fictionary.