CREATIVE PERSONNEL

Susan Nussbaum (Producer/Writer) is a disability rights activist and playwright based in Chicago. As a playwright and actor, her work has been seen at theaters in Chicago such as Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, Second City ETC, Goodman, Northlight, Live Bait, Bailiwick and others.  Her plays include Staring Back, Mishuganismo, No One As Nasty, and Crippled Sisters. She is a recipient of the Award of Excellence from the International Media Fest on Disabilities for her short play and video, Parade. Mishuganismo appears in an anthology of notable disabled writers and poets and No One As Nasty appears in Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays By Disabled Playwrights.  The Utne Reader named Nussbaum one of “50 Visionaries” in 2008. She coordinates the Arts and Culture Project at Access Living, where she also founded the Empowered Fe Fes, a group for girls with disabilities.  The Fe Fes have won dozens of awards over the years for three films they made with Salome Chasnoff and Beyondmedia Education. 

 Salome Chasnoff (Director/Writer), the Founding Executive Director of Beyondmedia Education and an award-winning filmmaker, brings 20 years of documentary production, distribution, fundraising, and media activism to this project. Beyondmedia Education is a 10-year-old Chicago-based media arts nonprofit organization whose mission is to collaborate with under-served and under-represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts. Chasnoff has an M.A. in Theatre and Performance and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. As a filmmaker, she has produced, directed, shot and edited more than 25 works, including three feature films. She has screened her work in more than 70 festivals and on television. Her films are also distributed widely to universities and media centers. Chasnoff was recently named winner of the Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism and one of the 21 Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s eNews. She also received a 2010 Impact Award from Chicago Foundation for Women. This is Chasnoff's fourth film on disability issues created in collaboration with Susan Nussbaum.     
 

          
Dr. Carrie Sandahl (Producer/Writer) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the head of the new Program on Disability Art, Culture and Humanities, which is devoted to research on and the creation of disability art. This program also serves as the new administrative home for Chicago’s Bodies of Work, an organization that promotes disability arts and culture. Her research and creative activity focus on disability and gender identities in live performance, including theatre, dance and performance art. Sandahl has published numerous articles and co-edited an anthology with Philip Auslander, Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance (University of Michigan Press), which garnered the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy in 2006. She is currently working on a book called Americans with Disabilities Act: Disability Identity and Performance, which surveys strategies used by performers with disabilities to challenge prevailing notions of disability and create disability culture in the United States. Sandahl's creative activity includes producing, directing, dramaturgy, solo and collaborative performance art pieces, and video work that participate in the creation of disability culture, particularly from a feminist perspective. 

Aly Patsavas (Producer/Writer) is a PhD candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she also works on the Program for Disability Arts, Culture and the Humanities. Her research examines representations of pain, discourses of disclosure of non-apparent disabilities and representations of disability in film. Aly has a B.A. from the University of Arizona in English and Creative Writing.  
 

Laurie Little (Creative Producer) is a Chicago-based filmmaker, artist, photographer, and educator. As the founder of the film production company Luminist Films, she has been producing and directing award-winning documentaries and short narratives as well as working on documentaries and independent features as a camera operator, production designer, and colorist. Her films have screened in over twenty film festivals worldwide.  Her short film, “Disability Pride Parade” was a finalist in the 2010 LinkTV One Chicago/One Nation film competition and her 2004 feature documentary, A Day On The Force: Women’s Professional Tackle Football, is used in colleges as a teaching tool for gender studies and cultural criticism. Little teaches media production and cultural criticism classes as an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago and received a 2010 Center for Instructional Technology Fellowship for her online work on the Columbia College class, Documenting Social Injustice. She holds a B.F.A. in Visual Art from York University and an M.F.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago.

Jerzy Rose (Editor/Unit 2 DP) is a filmmaker and video editor who has worked in a range of documentary forms and topics including healthcare and eldercare. He also creates short personal experimental narratives. Rose is a 2008 Art Institute of Chicago Fellow and a two-time award winner at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. 

Robert Cauble: Unit 1 DP

 

Kimberly Nicole (Unit 3 DP) is broadcast television professional, seasoned director, and an award winning cinematographer.  From humble roots as a PBS cinematographer and then producer, she entered the commercial television arena as producer/director inside the Top 35 ADI markets, and free-lanced as an assistant director for Wide World of Sports. Kimberly allied with CNN at its inception as camera and technician, before starting her own production company, Film & Video Inc. to better serve clients.  Her credits include broadcast Network and syndicated sports and entertainment, environmental and social documentaries, local and regional commercials, and a major motion picture.  To her credit are segments of "That's Incredible!", "The Spirit of The Marathon" , "The Chicago Force; Women's Pro-tackle Football" and "2009 Chicago Disability Pride Parade". Ms. Nicole also teaches Advance Television Production classes at WYCC-TV as an adjunct professor for Kennedy-King College. 

Mason Thorne, Scott Kaser and Ian Wellman (Location Sound) have worked on several thesis films and independent film productions as location sound mixers and boom operators. Mason was the sound professional at the Hollywood Images of Disability Town Hall event at Access Living of Chicago in August of 2010. Ian and Scott have recorded our most recent events.