Who We Are

Staff

Executive/Co-Artistic Director: Kevin Simmons
Managing/Co-Artistic Director: Molly Feingold
Design/Technical Director: Mike Oleon
Development Consultant: Peter Weathers
Production Assistant: Kara Clarke
Production Assistant: Jen Clar
Photographer: Omar Z. Robles

Artistic Advisors

Joe Miller: Visual Art
Jason Pallas: Visual Art
Majel Connery: Music
Amelia Lukas: Music
Molly Shanahan: Movement Arts

Board of Directors

Jonathan Baskin
Sarah Curran
Alexis Frasz
Kevin Simmons

Contact:

info@highconceptlaboratories.org

Staff Bios

Kevin Simmons

Since 2003, Kevin has worked in the Chicago area and abroad, including Central America and Bhutan, in consulting and project management for a variety of cultural and environmental efforts.  A former AmeriCorps*VISTA member, he served as a LIFT site coordinator with a focus on issues of urban poverty, benefits access, and student civic engagement. He splits his time between Chicago and Panama, where he is co-founder and associate director of Los Del Patio, a not-for-profit cultural complex that houses a gallery, café, bar, studios, and blackbox theater, and which offers educational workshops in the arts for at-risk youth, as well as other activities to develop and present contemporary Latin American artists. He is an NAI Certified Interpretive Guide, and among other institutions, including the Panama Audubon Society, has worked on development, strategy, and programming for BioMuseo, designed by Frank Gehry and Bruce Mau, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.  Recent creative projects include coproduction and set design for W. A. Mozart’s Apollo et Hyacinthus (Teatro Nacional de Panamá, 2011), and execution support on a series of installations by Costa Rican visual artist Federico Herrero (Art Basel, Switzerland, 2011).  He serves on the boards of Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak, the Azuero Earth Project, Opera Cabal, and the Foundation for National Progress / Mother Jones Magazine.

 

Molly Feingold

Molly Feingold is a Theatre Artist based in Chicago Illinois. She received her BFA in Theatre from the North Carolina School of the Arts and is a graduate of the professional program at the International School of Physical Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris France. She is a founding member of Theatre Run International Ensemble with whom she has created and performed original shows, Horror Vacui, Russian Doll and Cabaret Fou at the NY Fringe, Piccolo Spoleto, Edinburgh Fringe and Consolidated Works (Seattle). Her regional theatre performance credits include The Geranium on the Window Sill Just Died, Amazing Adventures of Anna Marie, The Quilt Makers Gift and Waiting for Lefty. She has directed movement for Opera Cabal, Vitalist Theatre, Anatomy Collective, Big Theatre, Second City and Experimental Theatre Chicago. Her Directing credits include Lookingglass Young Ensemble’s original creation Stories from the Attic and High Concept Laboratories production of The Maids. She is also a teaching artist with Lookingglass Theatre Company and Managing and Artistic Director of High Concept Labratories.

 

Mike Oleon

Mike is a Chicago-based actor, puppeteer, and web/graphics designer. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelor’s in Musical Theater and moved to the City of Broad Shoulders to pursue a more immersive career in theater than the West Coast could provide. Since moving here in 2008, Mike has performed regularly with Blair Thomas and Co., Redmoon Theater and many others. Some favorite puppetry gigs include the shadow puppet version of Swan Lake at Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cabinet, and the world premier of The Houdini Box. Mike was the curator of the Puppy Tears Festival at Oracle theater and his puppets can be seen in various shows around the city. He also tours the Midwest with his shadow show, Gong Lab: Suite for Dreamers. Mike co-founded the performance space, the Rough House in Logan Square. His work can be seen at www.mikeo.net.

Peter Weathers

An Oregon farm boy, Peter Weathers currently supports HCL's Not For Profit development and institutional growth. Peter earned an MM degree in opera performance from Northwestern, and has worked for five years in opera administration in Boston and Chicago (and currently with Opera Cabal). The move from the East Coast to Chicago was a good one, as Chitown provides a fruitful mix of institutional, grassroots, and activist aesthetic opportunities. In addition to his work as a musician, he is an arts theorist, author, and pretends to be a mononymously named artist. onpraxis.com

 

Kara Clarke

Kara Clarke earned a B.A. in Studio Art from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, and a Post- Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been shown nationally, including the Betty Rymer Gallery in Chicago, Odessa in Memphis, Tenessee and Gallery RFD in Georgia. She is currently living and working in Chicago and has joined HCL as a production assistant.

 

Omar Z. Robles

Omar Z. Robles is a mime and photographer. He is one of the selected graduates from L’École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris Marcel Marceau and also has a B.A. in Arts and Communications from the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico. His passion for creating stories and characters has taken him to explore the human body as a the subject, the medium and canvas of his work. As a photographer he has won several awards in Puerto Rico and has worked as an fashion and editorial photographer. Omar recently relocated to Chicago where he has stablished Paumé Studio Photography and currently shoots editorials for Latino Leaders Magazine.  As a mime he has performed  locally with companies like Fifth House Ensemble and internationally with Théâtre Vertical(France) and Teatr Mimo(Poland)  and a as a soloist as well. For more information visit: www.paumestudio.com and www.ozrobles.info

 

Board Bios

Jonathan Baskin

Jon Baskin is a founder and co-editor of The Point, a Chicago-based magazine of ideas and culture.  A Chicago native, he is a doctoral candidate in The Committee on Social Thought at The University of Chicago, and holds a B.A. in English and History from Brown University. He has also worked for the Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly and Agate Publishing, and published articles on literature and philosophy in Bookforum, Salon and n+1.

 

Sarah Curran

Sarah Curran is the Programming Director for the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, where she creates multidisciplinary arts programs to align with the teaching and research mission of Stanford University.  Sarah began her career in Chicago, teaching high school theater, and has worked with a variety of arts organizations, including the Tribeca Film Festival, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and the Chicago Humanities Festival. She holds an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and is a member of the inaugural cohort of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University.

 

Alexis Frasz

Alexis is an anthropologist with a passion for how communities and people transform and change through cultural practice. She works as a consultant with Helicon Collaborative, specializing in research, policy and strategy for the cultural sector.  She applies influences from a diverse range of fields to her work including physics, psychology, acupuncture, ecology, tai chi, and design. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Princeton University. She has a background in visual arts and writing, but the current incarnation of her artistic practice is kung fu. She lives in San Francisco.