Our Company

Aly Renee Amidei is a costume designer, playwright, and an Assistant Professor of Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Recent BTE work includes Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Andy Warhol’s Tomato, Season’s Greetings, The Cake, and Improbable Fiction. Her costume and makeup designs have also been featured at Lifeline Theatre, Strawdog Theatre Company, Michigan Shakespeare Festival, Steep Theatre, Magic Theatre of San Antonio, Lakeside Shakespeare, Irish Theater of Chicago, Dupage Opera, Stage Left, Artistic Home, House Theater of Chicago, Teatro Vista, Collaboraction, and Vitalist Theater. Previously, she worked for fifteen years as the costume and makeup coordinator for the College of DuPage theater and dance department and as a professor at UNC-Charlotte for seven years.

Bailey was last seen as Bernard in Seasons Greetings. As a member of BTE, Robert has appeared in Defiance (Chaplain White), Outside Mullingar (Anthony), The Ding Dong, Improbable Fiction, Don’t Dress for Dinner, Glass Menagerie (Jim), Homeward Bound, Hamlet (Horatio), Bedroom Farce, Angels in America (Louis), Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, 70 Scenes of Halloween,  Blithe Spirit (Charles), Fuddy Meers (Richard), Art (Marc), Sylvia (Greg), Three Days of Rain (Walker/Ned), Baltimore Waltz, Noises Off (Gary), The Woman in Black, Moonlight and Magnolias (Selznick), Private Lives (Elyot), Shining City (Ian), Drawer Boy (Angus), and Leading Ladies).  Some of Roberts other favorite credits include:  A Moon for the Misbegotten (Tyrone), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Valmont) and Lips Together, Teeth Apart (Sam) with Circle Theatre; Our Town (George), Equus (Dysart) and Rope (Rupert) with Bailiwick Repertory;  Relationship Hell with Strawdog;  Shadowlands (C.S. Lewis) with Borealis; and the premiere of Jamie Pachino’s Children of Cain with the Playwrights Center. Robert also spent a year at the professional regional theatre Players’ Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, where he played Peter in Prelude to a Kiss and Young Skrudge in the musical A Country Christmas Carol.  Robert also spent two summers in stock with Southern Appalachian Repertory where he played Cliff in Cabaret and originated the roles of Lonny in The Battle of Shallowford and E.J. Fikes in Echo 4 mi.  

Amelia Barrett is Associate Artistic Director and has acted, directed and coached dialect for many Buffalo Theatre Ensemble productions. She is a proud member of the acting ensemble and calls the theater her artistic home.  As an actor, she has appeared with other local, regional, and international companies. She is Chair of the College of Dupage Theater Department, where she has directed well over 60 productions. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association as well as the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from the University of Texas at Austin  and a Graduate Certificate in Laban Movement Analysis from Columbia College Chicago.  

Bryan Burke Bryan Burke  is a member of Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. Burke’s acting credits include the Jeff-recommended productions of Andy Warhol’s Tomato (Mario “Bones” Bonino), Clybourne Park (Russ/Dan), The Cake (Tim), Defiance (Col. Littlefield), The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay) and Good People (Mike), as well as Red, White and Blacklisted (Christopher Trumbo), Leading Ladies (Leo), Moon Over Buffalo (George), Faith Healer (Frank), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Johnny), Italian-American Reconciliation (Huey), Sleuth (Andrew Wyke), The Melville Boys (Lee), Noises Off (Frederick Fellows/ Phillip Brent) and Visiting Mr. Green.

Other acting credits include The Trip to Bountiful, The Lonesome West,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Living, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Look

Homeward Angel, Warrior and Hamlet. Burke also directed Frozen,

Shining City, Love Song, Stones in His Pockets, The Weir and Three Days

of Rain for BTE. College of DuPage directing credits include Defying

Gravity, Anton in Show Business, The Laramie Project, and The House of

Ramon Iglesia. Burke was also a founding member of Chicago’s Cactus

Theatre Company. Acting credits with The Cactus Theatre Company

include Golden Boy, Fishing, Paradise Lost and Waiting for Lefty. He also

directed their productions of Hurly Burly and Valentine’s Day. Burke

holds a BGS degree in Theatre from the University of Kansas. He is also a

member of Actors’ Equity Association.

Connie Canaday Howard, Managing Artistic Director, has directed numerous productions for BTE, with some favorites being Time Stands Still, Rabbit Hole, Noises Off, Into the Woods and Dancing at Lughnasa. She is also a member of BTE's acting ensemble, most recently playing Della in The Cake. Connie holds a MFA in Directing, and has worked regionally with Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, City Theatre Company, Belvoir Terrace, Drama Workshop, Down River Dinner Theatre, Ingersoll Theatre, Charlie’s Showplace, and tours of both theatre and dance, as well as helping to create and perform several improvisational shows. She serves on the Artistic Team of the Joseph Jefferson Committee, and, while a professor, also adjudicated for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Connie recently retired as Chair/Professor of the Theatre Department at the College of Dupage, where she directed countless productions, including some favorites of The Addams Family, Joe White and the Seven Dwarves, Taming of the Shrew and The Living.  Connie received COD’s Outstanding Faculty in 2004, and served as the Illinois IAI co-chair of the Theatre committee for sixteen years, until recently. 

Robyn Coffin has been back in Chicago since 2009. She recently made her mainstage, directorial debut at The Factory Theater with The Next Big Thing. She can be seen on NBC’s Chicago Fire playing Cindy Herrmann. Other television credits include Empire, Chicago Code and Hot Date.  Robyn has also worked on multiple commercials. Some film credits include Unexpected, Finding Hope, Life and Death of an Unhappily Married Man, Every 21 Seconds, Widows and Surprise Me. She is a recipient of the John Belushi scholarship at College of DuPage and a graduate of Columbia College Chicago and is represented by Stewart Talent.

Rebecca Cox originally hails from Ogden, Utah and holds a BA in Theater from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She most recently appeared in BTE’s The 39 Steps, having previously played Vivi in Improbable Fiction, Suzette in Don’t Dress for Dinner, and Miss Poppenguhl in Moonlight and Magnolias. Other Chicago-area credits include The Nurse/Lady Capulet in Shattered Globe’s Down and Dirty Romeo and Juliet and Edith in Blithe Spirit at Oak Park Festival Theatre. Digitally, she can be seen as Sandra alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari in the film 30 Minutes or Less, and more recently, in VC: The Web Series, directed by Ensemble Member, Kurt Naebig. When not acting, she can be found reading (sometimes in Spanish,) cooking, and crafting. She is also looking to help others develop their communication, trust, and relationship-building skills in the workplace by pursuing a Masters in Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University. She is positively thrilled to be an official member of the BTE family!

Lisa Dawn is an EMC and proud to be a member of Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, with whom she was nominated for an Equity Jeff Award for her performance in The Cake (Jen).  Other BTE credits: Into the Earth with You, Clybourne Park, Naperville, Time Stands Still, Shining City, Blithe Spirit,  and The Ding Dong.  Over quarantine, she was seen at the drive-in and streaming online in Oil Lamp Theatre’s one-woman show Bad Dates (Haley) and returned to the OLT live stage in their production of The Revolutionists (Marie Antoinette).  Dawn performed in Los Angeles as Jess in Ken Kaden’s adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel, A Long Way Down, as a benefit for Suicide Awareness and she also travels all over Illinois as an instructor/improv actress with Crisis Intervention Training, where the focus training officers to advocate for those struggling with mental illness.  Other favorite credits: Communicating Doors (Poopay), Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), The Elephant Man (Mrs. Kendal), YAGMCB (Snoopy), The 39 Steps (Annabella/Pamela/Margaret).  Favorite Directing credits: Into the Breeches, Wit, Steel Magnolias, and The Boys Next Door.

Nick DuFloth is  a proud member of Buffalo Theatre Ensemble and is honored to be back. DuFloth was last seen onstage playing Jimmy in Miracle On South Division Street. Previously with BTE Nick was in Defiance (Gunney Sergeant), Don’t Dress For Dinner (George), Hamlet (Bernardo) and understudied for The 39 Steps (Richard Hannay). DuFloth attended Columbia College Chicago for acting and College of DuPage for acting where he was the recipient of the John Belushi Memorial Scholarship. He was a cofounder and ensemble member of Silent Theatre Company, working as an actor, writer, and director. With STC he performed and toured in their critically acclaimed production, LULU (Dr. Schön, Jack The Ripper), which received an award for Outstanding New Play at the New York Fringe Festival in 2006. With them he was last seen in The Seven Secret Plays of Madame Caprice. Nick has been onstage with T.U.T.A, Lifeline Theatre, Speaking Ring Theater, PROP THTR and many other Chicago companies. His on screen credits include the feature film Dead of Winter (Black), Hitwoman, a webisode series, the music video “Crossfire,” and Bitter Spirits, a short film which recently debuted at Davis Theater. Nick is the lead singer, songwriter and a guitarist in the band, Berteau Trippers, which has performed all over the midwest and will be performing soon, once again, at Montrose Saloon in Chicago.

Jon is the technical coordinator for the McAninch Arts Center and has been a lighting and scenic designer for College of DuPage and the resident professional companies since the opening of the Arts Center in 1986. For more than 35 years, he has designed scenery and lighting for many professional and university theaters in and around Chicago. Notable past production designs include The Ruling Class, The Man of La Mancha, The Praying Mantis, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Evita, Sweeney Todd, and his Jeff-nominated scenic design for the world premiere of The Grab at Theatre Building Chicago.

Past BTE productions include Ethel in Moon Over Buffalo; Dotty in Noises Off!; Mrs. Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful; Grandma Kurnitz in Lost in Yonkers; Myra in The Middle Ages; Madame Acarti in Blithe Spirit; Lillian in I Hate Hamlet; Delia in Bedroom Farce; Mrs. Clatt in Look Homeward, Angel; Mrs. Boyle in The Mousetrap; various characters in Under Milk Wood; Mrs. Norman in Children of a Lesser God; Head Nun in House of Blue Leaves; Aunt Julia in Hedda Gabler; Melanie Klein in Mrs. Klein; Grace in Grace and Glorie; Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals; and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond. She also directed the BTE production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo and A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking. Her acting credits in community theater productions include Status Quo Vadis, Twigs, The Dining Room, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and Steel Magnolias. Directing credits include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Vanities, That Championship Season, When Ya Comin’ Back Red Ryder?, The Dresser and Lettice and Lovage.

Kriz is a composer and sound designer based in Chicago, and an Ensemble Member with BTE. Previous BTE designs include Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Andy Warhol’s Tomato, The 39 Steps (Jeff nomination), Season's Greetings, The Cake, Holmes and Watson, and dozens of others. Chicago design credits include: Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Court Theatre, TimeLine Theatre, Remy Bumppo, Victory Gardens, Northlight Theatre, Shattered Globe, The Gift Theatre, and many others. Regional: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Peninsula Players, American Stage Theatre, Crossroads Theatre, TheatreSquared, Montana Shakespeare, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Michigan Shakespeare Festival, and others. A winner of five Joseph Jefferson Awards, Kriz is a proud member of United Scenic Artists 829. To hear more of his work, please visit christopherkriz.com 

Michael has been with BTE since 1992 he has been a part of nearly every production in some form since then.  Michael retired from his position of Technical Director at COD in 2021, moving to the warmth of Mississippi.  Since then Michael has taken up the pen and continued writing plays and prose for himself and for the world.  He has had a dozen productions of his work as well as several published in literary journals.  He was awarded first place in the Southern Literary Festival for his play “The Last”.  He can be found pecking at the keyboard and steering his riding lawn mower around the grounds.  

Kurt Naebig has worked professionally in theatre, film, television and radio for more than 35 years, and has been teaching and coaching actors since 1992.

A Juilliard graduate, he has also studied at the Moscow School of the Arts in Russia. Kurt is the former Artistic Director of The Theatre of Western Springs, a member of Buffalo Theatre Ensemble and has worked as an actor at Portland Stage, Milwaukee's Pabst Theatre, National Jewish Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.

Kurt is a playwright and his solo show Stove Toucher was performed by him at BTE.

He also appeared in such films as Public Enemies, The Express, Witless Protection, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Relic, Dillinger, Howard Beach: Making the Case for Murder, and has been in seen in the television shows, Fargo, A League of Their Own, Empire,  APB, Sense8, Chicago Code, Detroit 1-8-7 and multiple episodes of Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, ER and Prison Break. Kurt has directed multiple seasons of VC - The Webseries. He also directed Clybourne Park, Naperville, Defiance, The 39 Steps, Don't Dress For Dinner, The Drawer Boy, Trumbo: Red White and Blacklisted, and Leading Ladies at Buffalo Theatre Ensemble.  Visit him at www.kurtnaebig.com

Laura Leonardo Ownby was previously seen in BTE’s productions of Season's Greetings (Phyllis), Defiance (Margaret Littlefield), Improbable Fiction (Jess), and Don’t Dress for Dinner (Suzanne). Currently, Laura serves on BTE’s Board of Directors. Locally, some of her favorite acting credits include Rosemary in Outside Mullingar*(Citadel Theatre, Jeff Nomination, Best Ensemble, midsized), Masha in Sonia and Vanya and Masha and Spike (Dunes Summer Theatre) Alma Winemiller in Summer and Smoke (TWS), Karen Brown in Unnecessary Farce (Jedlicka Performing Arts Center) and Belinda Blair in Noises Off (TATC). She has also served as properties designer, most notably for Dinner with Friends, A Life in the Theatre, and Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Laura taught high school English, Speech, and Theatre from 1991 to 2001. She now combines acting skills with teaching skills as a standardized patient for local medical schools as well as Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training for the DuPage Sheriff’s Department. Long ago, Laura was a theatre student of the College of DuPage. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Galen G. Ramsey (AEA) retired from College of DuPage after 15 years as the resident Property Master and occasional sound/set designer for the college theatre program, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, and DuPage Opera Theatre. Previously he was the resident Equity Stage Manager at Victory Gardens Theatre for 12 years. Galen’s professional career began at the Cherry County Playhouse while still in college where he worked with Ted Knight, Vivian Vance, Donald O’Conner, Dick Shawn, the Smothers Brothers and Broderick Crawford. Favorite memory: receiving his union card (Actors Equity) for Assistant Stage Managing Born Yesterday with Mr. Crawford. As an ensemble member of BTE, he was pleased to see that this professional company had been revived at the MAC and the College of DuPage. BTE has been an important element of creative growth not only for Ramsey and his fellow ensemble members, but also the students who become involved thru working on the productions and as audience members. It is a resource for the students and the public to experience new ideas and creative expression in a live venue. He hopes that this valuable interaction between professional artists, students, faculty and staff, and the public, will continue. Thank you for supporting BTE.

William Smillie, a theater kid back in high school, made his way back to acting after a decade of living the life of a starving artist, sans art. Since then, he’s found himself on professional stages, in voiceover booths, as a series regular on CHICAGO FIRE and APB, and in movies like THE DARK KNIGHT. He can be seen in the upcoming indie horror film, 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, as well as Elizabeth Chomko’s WHAT THEY HAD, which will premiere in 2018 at Sundance.

Kelli Walker has appeared in Clybourne Park, Naperville, Miracle on South Division Street, The Ding Dong, Outside Mullingar, Good People, The Underpants, Frozen, and Love Song (Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, ensemble member); Native Gardens (Williams Street Repertory, U/S, performed); Into the Breeches (iambe theatre ensemble); The Humans (Redtwist Theatre); A Doll's House (Raven Theatre); Roast and In the Wake (The Comrades); Angry F*gs (Steppenwolf Garage/Pride Films and Plays). Understudy roles include For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday (Shattered Globe); Roz and Ray (Victory Gardens Theater); Caught and Stupid F#cking Bird (Sideshow Theatre Company). Select Indianapolis credits include Stuff Happens, Boston Marriage, Proof, The Vagina Monologues, and the one-woman show Callie’s Tally (Phoenix Theatre); The Living, Arms and the Man, and Romeo and Juliet (Edyvean Repertory Theatre); Wit (Purdue University symposium with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Margaret Edson). Walker graduated from Butler University and Northern Illinois University.

Thirty three years ago Woodel moved to Chicago from Nashville. He quickly became one of the country’s top Voice Over Actors voicing for CBSNews, Subway, and the infamous Hillary Clinton 3AM political ad and more. Woodel’s TV and movie credits include The Client, George Lucas’ Radio Land Murders, Matlock, Early Edition, Chicago PD, and music videos with Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire. But Norm’s local stage career began right here at BTE when he played Big Daddy in our production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  He’s done The Rivals, Someone To Watch Over Me, The Guys, The Weir, Outside Mullingar and Holmes and Watson. at BTE as well. Having performed at Goodman and other Chicago theaters, Woodel  took the Best Supporting Actor Jeff Award for his portrayal of the father in Golden Boy at Griffin Theater in 2014. You hear him here as Granddad in Into The Earth With You and can see him in Gods & Monsters,  Playing Frankenstein Creator,  James Whale at Theater Wit in Chicago too.