NICK FRACARO (Co-Artistic Director/Dramaturg) was born and raised on an Illinois farm. In 1981 he co-founded and became artistic director of the cross-disciplinary precursor to ICL, Thieves Theater, for which he directed Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade at Toronto's Theatre Centre, Heiner Mueller's Despoiled Shore Medeamaterial Landscape with Argonauts and the world premiere of R.W. Fassbinder's Trash, the City and Death in New York, among many other projects, including ICL's Diva Divan. He was a founding member of RAT, an international coalition of theater workers dedicated to sharing resources and ways of working, for which he organized conferences in New York, Philadelphia and Rosario, Argentina. As dramaturg at Dallas's Undermain Theater in 1999, he created one of the first theater blogs which he later continued at RatSass (ratconference.com/blog). He holds a BA from Illinois Benedictine College (IL) and an MA in Literature and Creative Writing from The University of Illinois at Chicago. Contact Nick at nick@intlculturelab.org.

GABRIELE SCHAFER (Co-Artistic Director) was born and raised in Germany, educated and trained in theater in the US. In 1981 she co-founded ICL predecessor Thieves Theatre, which produced the world premiere of R.W. Fassbinder's controversial Trash, the City and Death in her translation. In Germany she has acted at Hamburg's Thalia Theater, Theater Rampe and Theaterhaus Stuttgart. Other theater acting credits include New York's Public Theater, Seattle's Annex Theater, the Wellington NZ and Los Angeles fringe festivals, and the Yale Repertory Theater. At ICL she originated the role of Kathleen in Outside Inn and Mother/Jackie in S/he. For a full acting resume please see her personal website at gabrieleschafer.com. She has studied Butoh since 2001, and in 2005 and 2007 was producer of the CAVE New York Butoh Festival. She holds a BA in Theater and Criminal Justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Contact Gabriele at gabriele@intlculturelab.org.