Current Students

Daria Davis

Daria comes to Austin by way of Chicago where she spent five years directing new work and performing wild acts of dramaturgy. A second year in the Directing M.F.A. program at UT Austin, Daria has continued her passion for developing and collaborating on staged readings and workshops of new work. Additionally at UT, she has directed projects ranging from a back porch production of PROOF, to STOCKPILE, a site specific work about squirrels and their problems, to DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, a movement based thriller about the control freak in all of us. Future projects include THE CHRONICLES OF BAD ASS WOMEN written by Holli Gipson. A love letter to Carl Sagan performed through objects and the most straight ahead, literal staging of William Inge’s masterpiece: PICNIC.

Daria is a graduate of the Literary Apprenticeship Program at Steppenwolf Theater Company, is a proud company member of Chicago's hybrid storytelling series 2nd Story, and served as the director of new play development at Red Tape Theatre. Daria is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University where she completed a B.F.A. in Theater Studies.

Courtney Sale

Courtney Sale moved to Austin by way of New York City, where she spent five years as Co-Artistic Director of “The Management.” With a strong interest in new and devised work, her credits at UT include The Fictional Life of Historical Oddities, Emergency Prom, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later an Epilogue, The Tides of Aberdeen and The Man With the Dancing Eyes. Other credits include Bruecklen, The Chalk Boy, Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls, The Well (The Management), The Zoo Story (Secondhand Theatre), A Bright Room Called Day (Strike Anywhere Productions) and Singer's Stories (Seattle Children's Museum). Her production of Kristen Kosmas's The Scandal! was nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award and featured in American Theatre Magazine. She was also selected as one of fourteen emerging directors to participate in Peter Brook's workshop in conjunction with his tour of Hamlet. She assistant directed with many artists including: Dael Orlandersmith, Richard E.T. White and Steven Dietz. This fall she will direct 360 (round dance) by Steven Dietz and premiere september play, a theatrical event that focuses on the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. She holds a B.F.A. from Cornish College of the Arts and is currently in her 2nd year as a M.F.A. Directing Candidate at UT.

Steven Wilson

Prior to attending The University of Texas at Austin, Steven had been working throughout Chicago as an actor, director and educator for the past 15 years. Most of his acting work in Chicago was with The Hypocrites where he is a proud company member. During his time with The Hypocrites, Steven performed in over a dozen productions including The Cherry Orchard, Balm in Gilead, The Glass Menagerie, The Bald Soprano and Angels in America Parts 1 & 2. He also spent three years as The Hypocrites Casting Director. Steven was last seen on a Chicago stage in The Court Theatre's production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Steven is an Artistic Associate at A Red Orchid Theatre. He is one of the founders of A Red Orchid Theatre's Youth Ensemble where he has directed several shows, most recently, Craig Wrights's adaptation of Homer's The Iliad. Other directing credits include the Chicago premier of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at A Red Orchid, American Stage Sessions with The Plagiarists and Mat Smart's The 13^th of Paris for LiveWire Chicago Theatre. As an educator, Steven spent many years teaching theatre in and around Chicago Public Schools, including four years as a full time high school acting teacher at North Lawndale College Prep in Chicago's West Side.