2nd Story: Storytellers: H

Don Hall

Guest Director // Don Hall is the Founding Director of Chicago's WNEP Theater and the Events Coordinator for Chicago Public Radio and NPR's "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!" Having directed, acted, improvised, taught and produced Off Loop Theater for the past twenty years, Hall has just started learning. The creator of WNEP's annual SKALD Storytelling Competition, he is no stranger to the art of spinning a yarn.

Martinique Haller

Martinique Haller participated in a 2nd Story workshop in the spring of 2011 and since then has been delighted and daunted by her new identity as a storyteller. She started writing poetry and fiction at the age of five and had her first poem rejected by Highlights magazine a year later at age six. Since then, Martinique has earned two masters degrees: one in Library Science and one in English with a Graduate Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies. Many years after Highlights rejected her creative writing she decided to put it to use in rousing wedding toasts instead; meanwhile her academic writing has been accepted and published by Momentum Magazine, Feminist Collections, and MacFarland Press and listened to by rapt audiences at multiple conferences including National Women's Studies Association, UCLA Thinking Gender, and First Year Experience.

Kyle Hamman

Kyle Hamman is the owner/operator of KBH Media, a small multi-media production company that specializes in visual storytelling. Kyle has been involved in Chicago theatre as an actor, designer, director and producer for over a decade. He has been seen in over 20 productions at Strawdog Theatre Company where he has been an ensemble member since the summer of 2000.

Kyle Harmon

Originally from St. Louis, MO (Go Cardinals!) Kyle Harmon attended his first professional baseball game at Busch Stadium around the age of 5. While his body may have matured since then…he has not. He has been seen doing a celebratory dance every time the Cardinals make it to the World Series. The first sighting of this dance was in 1982 and then again in 1985, 1987, and 2004. The most recent dance sighting was in October of 2006 at a dive bar on Milwaukee and Lawrence. Some say that was the best damn celebration dance anyone has ever seen. If you ask him nicely he might do it for you.

Ames Hawkins

Ames Hawkins is a tenured faculty member in the English Department at Columbia College Chicago. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from Wayne State University, an M.A. in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State University and an AB in American Culture from The University of Michigan. As a result of this over-education, Ames publishes in both creative and academic realms, and teaches creative nonfiction, first year writing and cultural studies. Besides writing, sites of pleasure include golf, microbrewed beer drinking, and thoughtful conversation.

Lott Hill

Lott Hill received his Masters degree in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago, where he works as the Associate Director for Civic Engagement in the Center for Teaching Excellence. He is the co-founding co-editor of Sleepwalk Magazine and a teacher of Creative Writing, Poetry, and community-based learning and Service-Learning classes. Lott’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction has appeared in multiple issues of Hair Trigger, Columbia Poetry Review, Fish Stories, B-City, Metropolitan Universities, The Spoon River Poetry Review, AdBusters, and Demo.

Thrisa Hodits

Guest Director //Thrisa is a director, bike-rider, stage manager, and lover of stories. Since graduating from Loyola University Chicago Thrisa has had the pleasure of wearing many hats in the Chicago Theatre scene. Most recent projects include work with The Hypocrites, Steppenwolf, The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, Chicago Children's Theatre, Theatre-Hikes, and The New Colony, where she is a proud company member. When not buried in the theater, you can usually find her hanging out in a park while nannying, digging through used books at thrift stores, or biking around, enjoying Chicago.

Debbie Hogan

Using humor and storytelling to teach the uninteresting to the uninterested, Debbie performs five times a day (no cover charge) for the toughest of all audiences—inner city high school students. Armed with the support of her husband John and engineer daughter Holly, she continues to develop herself as a writer and performer. Last spring she performed in the avant-garde show “Lying at Attention” and did some street performing with the show last summer. She plans to spend part of this summer living in Antibes, France, continuing her work on a short story anthology, her first novel and an account of her ten years as a Chicago Public School high school teacher. She appreciates the opportunity to be a part of 2nd Story for a second year and thanks everyone for everything they have given her.

Varris Holmes

Varris Holmes is very happy to be performing with 2nd Story. Varris is a sometime teaching artist, writer, singer and actor here in Chicago and has taught for several awesome local companies including Lookingglass Theatre, Free Street Programs and About Face Theatre. He is also a former company member of HealthWorks Theatre and occasionally does solo performance work around town. Varris also spends much of his time (the Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 part) extolling the many virtues of coffee for Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters, (who just allowed him to go on an amazing trip to El Salvador) so please drink some.

Carly Huegelmann

Carly Huegelmann has freelanced for local suburban newspapers. She has produced Sketch Comedy for Second City and Chicago SketchFest. She holds a bachelor's degree in Fiction Writing and is near completion of her MFA in Creative Writing. She's been published in The Story Week Reader and Chicago Parent. She’s an organizer and regular reader for the reading series RUI: Reading Under the Influence. She is currently working on the completion of her manuscript. She is an ESL Consultant and Teacher. She volunteers for C.A.R.E., a global organization fighting poverty worldwide. Her daughter, Ryanne, is her inspiration.

Fannie Hungerford

Fannie Hungerford is a native of South Carolina and has been living in Chicago for over 4 years. As an actor she has performed with TimeLine Theatre, the House Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Caffeine Theatre, Reverie Theatre, and most recently, The Building Stage. This year she will be performing, training, and creating at the Building Stage-a company you should know about. Fannie’s also a dancer and choreographer, loves food and friends, is learning the cello, and is slowly beginning to think of herself as a writer.

Jessica Hutchinson

Guest Director // Jessica is a director, educator, arts administrator and advocate, and true blue 2nd Story Fangirl. Past projects include readings with Inchworm, Theatre Seven, the Goodman, and New Leaf, Hideous Progeny with LiveWire Chicago and Orange Flower Water with BackStage. She is the artistic director of New Leaf Theatre, where she has directed plays including The Dining Room and The Man Who Was Thursday, and Redeemers.