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.

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.

Devon de Mayo

Guest Director // Devon de Mayo most recently co-directed The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler and devised and co-directed As Told by the Vivian Girls Dog & Pony Theatre - for whom she is a founder and associate artistic director. Directing credits: Pool (No Water), Nights at the Circus, and The World Over (NHSI - Cherubs); Edgar & Ellen: Bad Seeds and Phantom Tollbooth (Northlight Theatre); 52 (Canal Café Theatre, London), Ohio, Impromptu (Studio 7, London), The Spider (Indonesian Institute for the Arts), and Clouds (Dog & Pony). She holds a MFA in Directing from Middlesex University in London. She has also studied at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow and the Indonesian Institute for the Arts in Bali. She currently serves as the Director of the Northlight Theatre Academy.

Amanda Delheimer

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.

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.