Susan Boes has been a member of Um…Gee…Um since 1997. She has been enthusiastically teaching improvisation workshops and classes, including Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced and Specialities for 7 years, and has volunteered as a teacher for 4 years at the Annual Improvathon Festival, held at the Actors’ Theatre. She appeared in "Certain Urges" with Dangerous Neighbors sketch comedy ensemble. She has been the Artistic Director of Um…Gee…Um, and organized a benefit show for the Resource Center for Nonviolence. Her degree is in Peace Studies from Antioch College.
Todd Phillips has been performing with UGU since 1997, and before that attended the UGU academy of improv. Now he’s hooked on self-expression though improv. and finds boldly walking into the unknown with a sense of humor while remaining open and related to others to be one of his greatest passions in life. Todd brings his zest and joy for existence to his day job with his own company,” Whose life is it anyway?", as a life and business coach. He also teaches improv classes with UGU, as well as leading his own workshops which blend coaching and improv entitled “improvising with your survival mechanism”. Recently you might have seen him as "The Cat in the Hat" in Cabrillo Colleges production of Seussical.
Chopsy Gutt is an educator, a poet and an aspiring jazz musician. She believes that improvisation is one of the answers to all that ails us, and imagines that if every person on the planet was aware of the multitude of options they really have for how to be in the world, and also was deeply in touch with the power of their imagination, what joy and revolution this could bring about.
Suzanne Schrag has been with Um…Gee…Um since 1994. She is a cofounder of the theater company Friends of Gus, and has been an actor in it's productions of “Haiku,” “French Quarter Quartet,” “Dance with Me,” “Kindertransport,” “'Night Mother,” “Blood Relations,” “Lear's Daughters” and “Arcadia,” and directed “Sylvia” in fall of 2000. She has also appeared with many other local area theater companies, including Actors' Theatre, Cabrillo College, Mountain Community Theater, Unicorn Theater in Monterey and Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and has been a member of the Dangerous Neighbors sketch comedy ensemble. She holds a graduate certificate in Theater arts from UCSC; has trained with Marcia Taylor, the New Actors Workshop, and Shakespeare and Company; and is a graduate of the Ian McRae Acting Studio's two-year course in Meisner Technique. For several years, Suzanne was a participant in the Actors' Theatre Artists in Residence program devoted to the development of new work. In 2002, she received a Santa Cruz Sentinel Gail Rich Award for her contributions to Santa Cruz theater.
