Meet the Instructors
Learn more about the experts hosting, teaching, and performing in the FORTs Workshops and Learning Opportunities.
Emil Thomas
An Atlanta-based Artistic Director, Director, Playwright, and Actor who relocated to the great city of Chicago to study at The Theatre School for his Masters in Directing. He is the Executive Artistic Director of Marietta’s Theatre in the Square. Recent directing credits include Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown, Carmen Rivera’s La Gringa and Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son where he was awarded Broadway World’s Atlanta Best Director and Play for 2017. His holiday adaptation of The Gift of the Magi 2.0 premiered in 2017 and is a 5-time Metropolitan Atlanta Theatre Awards nominated production. In June of 2020, Emil produced his original stage play, PARTNERS: A 21-st century love story. Follow him on Instagram @Partnerstheplay or @nemilthomas
Kristina Fluty
Kristina Fluty is a Chicago-based movement artist/educator/consultant who has been dancing and teaching all around the city since 2002. She has served as Intimacy Director/Choreographer/Consultant at Victory Gardens (Mies Julie and Indecent), Remy Bumppo (Frankenstein and Top Girls), TimeLine Theatre (Cardboard Piano), Center Theatre Group (Los Angeles remount of Linda Vista) and Steppenwolf (The Children). At The Theatre School, she has provided choreography, movement coaching, and/or intimacy choreography for numerous productions. She also directed two devised works for Introduction to Performance, Saccades in Darkness and Fray the Tethers; Go, Dog. Go! for Chicago Playworks for Families and Young Audiences at The Merle Reskin Theater; and Bachelorette.
Toy Deiorio
Victoria (Toy) DeIorio has a BFA in Musical Theatre from Syracuse University, and studied classical acting in London at RADA and LAMDA. Her compositions and sound design have been heard Off-Broadway in productions including Cassie's Chimera – Joe's Pub, The Public Theatre, The Bluest Eye – Steppenwolf Theatre @ The Duke Theatre, and Ophelia – NYC Fringe Festival. As associate designer Off-Broadway: Boy and Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams – Primary Stages, God of Hell – Actor's Studio Theatre, Luminescence Dating – Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Live Girls – Urban Stages. National Tour: Private Lives – LA Theatre Works. Productions with: The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Center Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Indiana Repertory, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Milwaukee Rep, Geva Theatre, Writers' Theatre, and many other theatres in and around Chicago, NY and LA. Victoria is a founding member of Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, an Artistic Associate of The Next Theatre, and a member of Lifeline Theatre. She has been nominated for nine, and has received five, Joseph Jefferson Awards as well as two After Dark Awards. She has produced two CDs of her own original music.
Liz Joynt Sandberg
Liz Joynt Sandberg is a comedian, writer, performer, and teacher based in Chicago. Liz performs improv and sketch regularly with The Improvised Sondheim Project, ComedySportz, Baby Wants Candy, Perennials and The Musical Armando at iO Chicago, South by Midwest, VAMP, Storytown, The Greatest Story Never Told, Liz&Lou, and others. Originally from Michigan, Sandberg trained with The Second City Music Improv and Conservatory Programs, and as a member of Infinite Sundaes; at iO Chicago, and in Chicago's improvisational dance community. She has a degree in Philosophy and Music from Central Michigan University. Her writing can be found online at Rebellious, The Huffington Post, The Second City Network and others. Her essay "Hummingbird" appears in the anthology Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now (Putnam, 2015).
Dee Dee Batteast
Dee Dee is a Chicago-based actor, director, writer, and teacher. Her credits include work at Goodman Theatre (The Winter’s Tale), Drury Lane Theatre (A Christmas Carol), Clarence Brown Theatre (Detroit ‘67), Illinois Shakespeare Festival (The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V, Shakespeare in Love), Virginia Stage Company (The Parchmen Hour), and PlayMakers Repertory Company (In the Next Room, A Raisin in the Sun). TV credits include NBC’s Chicago Fire. Dee Dee received her undergraduate degree from Ball State University and her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches acting on the faculty of Ball State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance.
She is a writer and activist who believes that art has the power to change the world, because art has the power to shape the conversations that change the world.
Zoe Gray Mazza
Zoe Gray Mazza is a 3rd year BFA acting student at the Theatre School of DePaul University. Zoe has been film editing and making since the age of eleven, and in her nine years of experience has worked on short films, art videos, experimental pieces and has produced and edited a documentary. Zoe hopes to teach and empower people to create and share impactful stories through film. Everyone has the ability to make a movie, and Zoe hopes that this workshop will help aspiring film editors and makers find their feet and get started.