Betty J. Bruther is an independent scholar who writes about military history, Irish revolutionaries, and serial murder. She has taught both history and geography at the college level, most recently at Marian University and Oakland City University at the Indiana Women’s Prison.
Eric Bryant moved from Indianapolis to New York in the mid-1980s. He initially studied scene work with Sandy Dennis at HB Studio. Other HB instructors included Elizabeth Dillon (scene work) and Carol Rosenfeld (technique and scene work). Eric also studied fencing for the stage with his longtime friend and mentor, Joe Daly, eventually becoming his assistant, helping teach, develop choreography, and compose scene work for the actors. After touring the country in two separate productions of The Three Musketeers, Eric began studying at Circle Rep Lab under the instruction of Michael Warren Powell and Peg Denithorne, initially focusing on the works of Lanford Wilson. From this experience Eric was asked to become an apprentice member of The Lab Theater, which focused on artist development and developing new scripts. Eric has appeared onstage both in Indianapolis and New York. After a hiatus from the theater for a few years to focus on family and career, he has enjoyed re-igniting his passion for performance and artist development.
Associate Professor of Spanish at Marian University, Carla holds a Phd in Latin American Literature and Spanish from Purdue University, specializing in Latin American short stories, Latin American studies, and Latino/Hispanic communities in the United States. Originally from Brazil, Carla is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. She volunteers with Project Stepping Stone and Indiana Partners of America in addition to being on the board for Southbank Theatre Company. Carla's favorite quote is: "The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves." Paulo Freire, We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change.
President, Treasurer of the Board, and Artistic Director. Marcia Eppich-Harris holds a PhD in Shakespeare and Dramatic Literature from Marquette University and taught at the college level for roughly fifteen years. She is a playwright and a founding member of the Indiana Playwrights Circle (IPC), where she is the Scene Nights Coordinator and serves on the steering committee. In addition to plays, Marcia's writing includes fiction, poetry, scholarship, and reviews -- all influenced by the literature and history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the British Medieval and Renaissance periods, as well as current events. In her creative writing, she focuses thematically on politics, the arts, gender, family, and culture.Her complete CV can be found at https://www.meppichharris.com.
Sara Galer is Associate Vice President of Communications at the University of Indianapolis. She is an invested and committed communications expert, digital content strategist and social media innovator with two decades of experience bringing exceptional success and long-term impact to teams, projects and organizations. She honed her skills in large-market television newsrooms for 15+ years before pursuing a communications career in higher education. Sara has a passion for the arts and seeks out new theatre experiences whenever she has the opportunity, whether close to home in Indianapolis or in New York, Boston or London. Sara holds a bachelor of arts degree in communication from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst and a master of science degree in communication from Purdue University.
Aric Harris is the Marketing Director of Southbank and holds a Masters degree in New Media Communications from Marquette University. Aric’s theatrical experience includes acting, directing, and backstage work. His set designs for Southbank include The Profession and Natural Shocks. He is the founder and owner of 4621 Creative Solutions, a full-stack digital creative studio, focusing on digital and print marketing, web design and development, video editing, and motion graphics. His polynesian-pop art can be found at tikikitchen.com.
Mark Harvey Levine has had over 1800 productions of his short plays everywhere from Bangalore to Bucharest and from Lima to London. His plays have won over 45 awards and been produced in more than ten languages. His work has been published in over two dozen anthologies by Applause, Smith & Kraus, Routledge and Vintage. Full evenings of his ten-minute plays, such as "Cabfare For The Common Man", “Didn’t See That Coming” and “A Very Special Holiday Special” have been shown around the world, including at the Edinburgh Fringe and in a multi-year tour of Brazil. A Spanish-language film of “The Kiss” (“El Beso”) premiered at Cannes and aired on HBO and DTV (Japan).
Rod Macrae is Lechleiter Professor of Chemistry at Marian University Indianapolis. Raised on the island of Lewis and Harris in Scotland - the northern and southern parts of the island have different names - he was educated in chemistry at Glasgow University, receiving both B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees there. After graduation from university, the pursuit of research took him around the world, including over six years spent in Japan working primarily at accelerator facilities, where he investigated the structure of matter with the help of unstable elementary particles called muons. He transitioned to a teaching-focused career shortly after coming to the US, and has been at Marian since 2002, where he has taught a broad range of courses and directed student research projects on a wide variety of topics. His main research interests are in theoretical and computational chemistry and spectroscopy. Besides his passions for science and education, Rod is enthusiastic about literature, music, and the arts, and enjoys live performance from butoh to burlesque.
Janice Morris Neal started playwriting nearly five years ago after taking her first class at the Indiana Writers Center (IWC). Since 2018 she has written over 30 short plays and a few full lengths. She was selected as part of Gi60 One Minute Play Festival for the UK in 2022, and ONYX Fest 2021, for her original one act show, That Day in February. She was part of Fat Turtle Theatre Company’s monologue festival in June 2020. Her work was chosen by Emerging Artists Theatre and appeared in Indy Fringe’s 10 Minute Play Festival in 2020 and 2022. Janice is the current President of the Board of the IWC, starting her tenure in 2023. She also joined the board of Southbank Theatre Company in 2022. Janice is a member of the steering committee for the Indiana Playwright Circle (IPC), a critique group which gives feedback, conducts cold reads and shares information about upcoming plays and festivals. Janice is also an author of several books including World’s Collide, her first published novel in 2012 and Anywhere But Backwards published in 2014. She owns and operates Neal Press, LLC a publishing company she established in 2015 to help other authors bring their work to life. Her ambition is to create her own theatre company where she can successfully tell stories about life experiences especially in the African American culture.
As a Movement/Theatre Artist, Robin has created and performed original works at NYC’s Dance Theatre Workshop, the Patravadi Theatre in Bangkok, and several theatres across the US, including Valley Ridge Theatre, which she founded and directed for 15 years in Thomas, WV. She’s served on Theatre and Dance faculties at West Virginia Univ., Ohio Wesleyan, and Mahasarakham Univ. in Thailand, supported by a Fulbright grant. A published author of two non-fiction books, she also wrote regional and national grants for Valley Ridge. Her new To the Rescue Theatre company, presents productions aspiring to raise awareness and donations for animal rescues. Robin holds an MFA in Acting from Ohio State, an MA in Dance from Univ. of Oregon and a BA from Princeton University.
Rob Slaven is the founder of Indy Ghost Light Photography. (More bio info coming soon!)
Southbank Theatre Company is a nonprofit, tax exempt 501(c)3. That means every financial contribution is tax deductible! No matter how big or small, your contribution supports theatre artists and the stories they bring to our audiences. With your help, we will be able to build a sustainable, creative company in Indianapolis that will celebrate emerging and established artists from all backgrounds.
