2nd Story: Storytellers: G

Julie Ganey

Director of Education Outreach, Story Development Team // Julie Ganey is a Chicago based actor, improviser, director, teacher and now, evidently, a writer, too. As an actor, she has worked with Victory Gardens, Northlight, Goodman, Chicago Dramatists and Drury Lane, among others. She is currently the Director of Outreach at Next Theatre, where she leads community members in the creation of civic-based theatre projects that explore challenging issues. Through Wavelength, an award winning comedy ensemble that performs for educators, she has created and led workshops for teachers and executives nationwide. Julie has also created lots of programs for kids, on everything from violence prevention to etiquette. She sounds busy, but she also spends a good amount of time hanging out on her porch in Rogers Park.

Jason W. Gerace

Jason W. Gerace is Artistic Associate of American Theater Company, where he directed the most recent production of It’s a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play, which was broadcast on WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and will be the Associate Director on the World Premiere of Welcome to Arroyo’s, by Kristoffer Diaz, and is curating The Silver Project, a festival of new plays by national and Chicago playwrights celebrating ATC’s 25th season. Other Chicago credits include assistant directing for Amy Morton, Kimberly Senior, Jessica Thebus and PJ Paparelli. Regional directing credits include Hamlet (Oklahoma Summer Shakespeare), A Christmas Carol (Oklahoma City Theatre Co.) The Miracle Worker (Theatrikos), Love Letters (Theatre Works), Antigone and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre for Young People). Jason originally hails from Anchorage, Alaska and holds an MFA in Directing from The University of Oklahoma. He is married to a truly amazing woman, who makes everything he does possible to begin with.

Sarah Gilmore

Sarah Gilmore arrived in Chicago this year and now works as a freelance sound designer, electrician, and stage manager. Chicago sound designs include the What’s Next play lab (Next Theatre Company), Cherry Smoke (The Side Project Theatre Company), and Trans Form (New Suit Theatre). Sarah earned her B.A. from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in Speech/Theatre from Kansas State University, where she also worked as Assistant Technical Director for McCain Auditorium. Sarah aspires to learn to play the banjo and ride a unicycle, ideally at the same time.

Max Glaessner

Max Glaessner received his B.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. His stories have been featured in Belletrist, Hair Trigger (issues 29 & 30), Reservoir, No Touching Magazine, Ghost Factory, Criminal Class Press, and Thuglit.com. His interview with musician/spoken word performer Henry Rollins was published in Fictionary. He is also a regular contributor to Doorways: A Journal of Horror and the Paranormal, as well as feoamante.com, where he writes reviews of scary movies. In addition to this, Max is also the founder of the Sexy Bald Men Reading Series and has been a featured reader/performer in many Chicago literary events, including Reading Under the Influence, 2nd Story, and The Windy City Story Slam. Most recently he won the Windy City Story Slam finals tournament at Metro to become the first story slam champion of Chicago.

Brian Golden

Guest Director // Brian Golden is the Artistic Director of Theatre Seven. For T7, he has directed Diversey Harbor, Killing Women, The Sand Castle, and written for Yes, This Really Happened To Me. Brian's work has been produced at American Theatre of Actors (NYC), Nice People Theatre (Philadelphia), Regroup Theatre (LA), Collaboraction, the side project and Chicago Dramatists. Brian is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, a winner of the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Contest, and recipient of the Leota Diesel Ashton Playwriting Prize and the John J. Jutkowitz Award. He directs Sex Signals, the nation's leading touring program on sexual assault prevention.

Liz Gottmann

Company Manager // Liz Gottmann is currently finishing up her degree in Performance Art Management from Columbia College. She has worked for the Goodman Theatre, is an alumni member of Stage Wright Theatre, and is currently Company Manager here at 2nd Story. She also finds bios really difficult to write! If you’d like to know more, please feel free to chat her up at one of 2nd Story’s shows!

Sarah Rose Graber

Sarah Rose Graber is ecstatic to be working with the 2nd Story team! She is a graduate from Northwestern University's Theatre program and received her acting certificate from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Past directing projects include: Factory Theater's Hey! Dancin?! (Time Out's Best Theatre of 2010 Honorable Mention), CIC Theatre's Trapped in A Box, Chicago Dramatists Play Festival's The Purple Heart and Car or Quince?, IMAGO (CIRA grant and Program in the Study of the Imagination grant recipient) and numerous shows for Northlight's Theatre Academy, Metropolis, and Adventure Stage Chicago's theatre programs and camps. www.SarahRoseGraber.com

Morgan Graham

Morgan graduated with a BA in Fiction Writing and Cultural Studies in 2010 from Columbia College Chicago. She is passing the time these days as a server in a restaurant much classier than she is and writing her first novel, but her primary focus is living a life worth writing about. She is so grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing people and learn from them as a 2nd Story Story Development Intern.

Sarah Grainer

Sarah Grainer is a Fiction Writing student in her last undergraduate year at Columbia College. Her work has appeared in the Austin-American Statesman, the Sorin Oak Review and the Story Week Reader. Currently, she is developing a workshop for 826CHI and working as one of the editors of the 32nd edition of Columbia's Hair Trigger magazine. Sarah credits her deep love of stories (and often talking too much, and too loudly) to being born and raised in the South, and to her mom, the best and loudest storyteller she knows.

Sharon Greene

Sharon Greene, Artistic Director of The Neo-Futurists, writes and performs in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. She created Windmilled: Tilting at Don Quixote, which showcased at the Neo-Futurarium and the 2005 PAC/Edge performance festival. She is a teaching artist for About Face’s The Home Project, and a curator of the Neo-Solo Performance Series.

Tyler James Greene

TYLER JAMES GREENE is a Chicago-based producer and director who has been telling stories since he could speak. Before coming to Chicago, Tyler worked as a Directing Apprentice at the Tony-Award winning Long Wharf Theatre. After a year in New Haven, Tyler ventured 7,000 miles away from home to South Korea where he spent a year teaching children English. When thinking about where to land upon his return, he had no doubt it would be Chicago, having spent a beautiful summer's past interning at Steppenwolf. About Face Theatre welcomed him to Chicago with open, loving arms and there he worked extensively in the Artistic Department, most notably as Assistant Director on E. Patrick Johnson's SWEET TEA: BLACK GAY MEN OF THE SOUTH. He currently spends his days working for WBEZ 91.5 and produces a monthly StorySLAM for The Moth at Haymarket Pub and Brewery. Tyler thanks the folks at 2nd Story for the opportunity to spread solid stories across the land.

Merrie Greenfield

Merrie Greenfield authored the world’s worst novel by a fourth-grader. Truly. Horrible. An excerpt once caused a sobbing, freshly-divorced friend to laugh so hard he dropped the phone. So let’s just say she’s honored and humbled to work with 2nd Story. Words she arranged have appeared in swell places like Ray’s Tap Reading Series, Stories at the Store, Otium Magazine, Mortified, Story Lab, the Neo-Futurists, Comedy Corner, et al. Merrie’s a proud, as-yet victorious veteran of the charitable literary brawl Write Club, a personal favorite you should check out. She won both 2010 and 2011’s Maelstrom timed improvisational storytelling competitions at Acorn Theater (WNEP). Busy Stage Actress is Merrie’s rather fortunate default setting. Kindly hire her for your full-time slash benefits-enriched part-time job. Besides working hard, she’ll let you read the 4th grade novel.

Sheree L. Greer

Sheree L. Greer is a graduate student in the Fiction Writing Program. Her work has been published in Story Week Reader 2006 and 2007, Jazz.net, Bike Shorts, the Windy City Times, and Fictionary Magazine. Her work has been heard at the Women and Children's First Bookstore and the Affinity Community Space for the Saving Our Sisters Anti-Violence Weekend where she taught creative writing workshops. Though she was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, she considers Winter her arch-nemesis.

Jon Gugala

Jon Gugala was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended high schools in Michigan, Chicago, and finally, Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated. From there, feeling he hadn’t moved around enough, he enlisted in the Marine Corps as a trombone player. After four years of active service, he wanted to try something else, so he worked with the base chaplain’s office on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for another couple of years, simultaneously devouring books from the public library. Finally, he started college, and is a junior in the Fiction Department at Columbia College Chicago. He enjoys reading, running far, and travel.