Daniel Cantor – Co-Founder, Artistic Director

Daniel Cantor is an actor, director, educator who has worked in theaters across the country, on television, in independent films, and on the faculty of numerous nationally ranked theater programs. He has appeared in guest spots on shows such as Law and Order, Conviction, Law and Order: CI, Law and Order: SVU, Chicago PD, Empire, and The Sopranos,as well as in the films The Auteur Theory, Alchemy, Justice, House of Satisfaction, and Alternative Universe: A Rescue Mission. He has appeared in multiple Off-Broadway productions, including Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, Tuesdays With Morrie, Strictly Personal, and as Picasso in the national production of Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile. He also has extensive Chicago credits, including work at Goodman Theater, Court Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Drury Lane Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, Silk Road Rising Theater, Next Theater, and the American Theater Company. Daniel has also worked extensively in regional theater including performances at the American Conservatory Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Milwaukee Rep, Cleveland PlayHouse, among many others.  Daniel’s past UV Theater Project credits include playing Vanya in Uncle Vanya, and directing The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard.  Daniel currently serves as Head of the BFA Performance program at the University of Michigan Department of Theater and Drama.

J. R. Sullivan – Co-Founder

J. R. Sullivan is a director, producer, and writer, having worked in theaters nationwide as well as heading companies as artistic director. He was the Artistic Director of New York’s Off-Broadway Pearl Theatre Company, presented with a Drama Desk Award in 2011, where he directed productions of Hard Times, Playboy of the Western World, Widowers’ Houses, Biography, The Importance of Being Earnest, Richard II,A Moon for the Misbegotten, and the New York premiere of Wittenberg. Sullivan was the founder and producing director of the New American Theater in northern Illinois, a company that thrived under his direction until 1994, when Sullivan moved on to a freelance directing career prior to his work at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and then in New York City. He served as associate artistic director for USF from 2002-2009, and has continued since that time as a visiting director, staging productions ranging from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, including Amadeus, Hamlet, Henry V, The Glass Menagerie, and most recently, Romeo and Juliet. His work has also been seen in regional theaters nationwide, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Theatre X, Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre, the Studio Theatre in Washington DC, the Delaware Theatre Company, and the Resident Ensemble Players at the University of Delaware. In Chicago he has directed for Northlight Theatre, American Theatre Company, A Red Orchid Theatre, Live Bait Theatre, Prop Theatre, and the Onyx Theatre. His adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice andSense and Sensibility, in collaboration with Joseph Hanreddy,have been produced at regional houses nationwide, including Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, the Oregon and Utah Shakespeare festivals, South Coast Repertory Theater, Round House Theatre, People’s Light & Theater Company, The Cincinnati Playhouse, and Connecticut Rep. His previous UV credits include directing the production of Uncle Vanya and playing the Station Master/Homeless Man in Cherry Orchard. www.jrsullivan.net

David Newman – Producer

David Francis Newman is an Actor and Producer in the Chicago and Los Angeles area. He holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Michigan. David served as Producer/General Manager of MUSKET, a theater company in Ann Arbor, MI for two years. His theater credits include playing Lord Aster in Peter and the Starcatcher, Russ/Dan in Clybourne Park, Sir Hugh Evans in Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as other roles in Henry IV Part I, Iphigenia at Aulis, Fuente Ovejuna, and Serious Money at Michigan. He also played Rhode in UV Theater Project’s Three Sisters. David has also worked on multiple films, including She’s Lost Control and Palais du Noodles at Michigan, Time Enough, An Accidental Memoir, and To Neptune, On the Night Before the End at Cue93 Studios, and Saving Greg at Save A Penny Films. He has also worked extensively in fundraising and politics during his brief professional career, having worked at multiple non-profits and on several political campaigns.

Cindy Gold – Board Member

Cindy Gold is an actress and teacher in the Chicago area.  She recently appeared with Chicago Shakespeare in the all female Taming of the Shrew, directed by Barbara Gaines. She played Gertrude Stein in Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty’s Loving Repeating for which she won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actress in a musical. Chicago area performances also include In the Garden at Lookingglass Theatre directed by Jessica Thebus, About Face Theatre’s A Kid Like Jake, directed by Keirra Fromm, My Fair Lady at Lyric Opera directed by Robert Carsen, Measure for Measure at The Goodman, directed by Robert Falls, and Awake and Sing at Northlight, directed by Amy Morton. Cindy performed in Showboat at The Lyric Opera, Chicago and Washington, D.C. National Opera at the Kennedy Center, directed by Francesca Zambello. Other Chicago credits include: Love, Loss and What I  Wore at Broadway in Chicago, Pride and Prejudice and Jekyll and Hyde at Northlight Theatre, and Moises Kaufman’s 33 Variations workshop/About Face and Tectonic Theatre. Cindy appeared in The Music Man at Glimmerglass Opera Company, both in New York and at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman. She was recently seen in the television dramas Empire,Chicago Fire, and the pilot episode of TNT’s Leverage.  Cindy will be seen in Fall, 2018, at Victory Gardens in Indecent, directed by Gary Griffin.  She is a Professor of Acting at Northwestern University Department of Theatre.

Taal Hasak-Lowy – Board Member

Taal Hasak-Lowy is the executive director of Friends of the Children – Chicago, an organization committed to helping Chicago’s most vulnerable children develop the relationships, goals and skills necessary to break the cycle of poverty. Taal also serves on the development committee of The Actor”s Gymnasium – Circus School and Theater Company. Taal has been working in the nonprofit sector for the past twenty years; prior to that she was an employment attorney. She has lived in Evanston since 2018 with her husband and two daughters. She is deeply committed to the arts and proud to serve on the board of the UV Theater Project.

Vanessa Tanaka – Board Member

Vanessa Tanaka is an attorney at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher practicing in the area of energy and commodities.  She is currently a board member of Crushers Club, a boxing club in Englewood that provides Chicago’s youth with an alternative to gangs. Vanessa is also a member of the Associate Board of the Cities Project, a research and mentoring program dedicated to supporting Chicago’s public school students. She also serves on the Ambassador Board of Children’s Place International. She has lived in Evanston since 2005 with her husband and two teenage children, and is an avid theater, television and movie fan.

Email Us: info@uvtheaterproject.org