John Kaufmann (Writer/Performer)
John Kaufmann served as planetarium supervisor at Pacific Science Center where he developed astronomy and science theatre programming. He also worked as a Cranium game-developer and created and led improvisation workshops for chaplains at Harborview Medical Center. Original theatrical creations include Starball, a musical astronomy comedy that toured planetariums across the country and Line One, featuring actors speaking what they hear through the earpieces of their cell phones. Recently, John worked with performance group “Awesome” on noSIGNAL, directed The Duchess of Malfi, and developed Date of Birth, with a script taken from verbatim transcripts of recordings he made during the birth of his sister’s first child. He supervised and developed programming for Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. His experiences in PSC’s planetarium inspired him to create Starball in collaboration with Dan Dennis. In 2003, John was shortlisted for The Stranger weekly’s Annual Genius Award. John has taught theatre at Lowell Elementary, Seattle Academy of Fine Art, and Seattle Children’s Theatre, where he also directed RnJ in the 2007 Summer Season. John is currently pursuing a Theatre Directing MFA at the University of Iowa.

Dan Dennis (Writer/Performer)
Dan Dennis (performer/creator) is a theatre artist and teacher who developed an interest in sharing the night sky with others over ten years of performing and teaching at the Willard Smith Planetarium at Seattle's Pacific Science Center. He specializes in exploring the interweaving of music and story. To that end he has worked as performer, director, adapter, music director, conductor, composer, sound designer, or vocal coach for many productions with such companies as Seattle Opera, Seattle Children's Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Tacoma Actors Guild, Book-It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, UMO Ensemble, Summer Repertory Theatre, Village Theatre, and others. He has performed throughout the United States and in Europe and Asia. Dan recently completed his MFA in Theatre with an emphasis in Voice and Speech Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University. There he taught eight semester-long classes in just two years to undergraduate and graduate theatre students, in addition to vocal coaching, directing, and producing and hosting a biweekly late night cabaret of his own creation. He has embarked on further study in Ohio University's School of Interdisciplinary Arts, where he hopes to complete his PhD by 2012.

Rachel Katz Carey (director)
Rachel began her professional directing career in Minneapolis as the Associate Lab Director at the Playwrights’ Center. Her Minneapolis credits include Burn This, School For Wives, Orphans, The Caretaker and A Streetcar Named Desire. For theater simple she has directed award-winning productions of The Master & Margarita, Escher’s Hands & The Snow Queen. Seattle credits include Desdemona, Misalliance, Life Is A Dream, 7 Stories, Winners, Smash, 21A; Motorcade, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, the world premiere of The Visible Horse by Mary Lathrop Recent productions include; Jeffrey Hatcher’s Three Viewings and Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky, at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. Last year took her to her hometown of Duluth, Minnesota where she directed The Philanthropist by Christopher Hampton.Last spring she sent Notes From Underground and The Big Time (a musical by John Moe with songs by Chris Ballew-of The Presidents of the United States of America) to the Adelaide Fringe Theatre Festival where they played to rave reviews and excited crowds. This summer she brushed up her German for Lohengrin at the Seattle Opera as Stephen Wadsworth’s Assistant Director. Her teaching credits include University of Minnesota--Duluth, Lewis and Clark College, University of Washington and Taproot Theatre in Seattle. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab West and the American Guild of Musical Artists.

AJ Epstein (Producer)
In 1995, AJ Epstein presaged the webcam revolution with the live broadcast of the world premiere production of Rich Howard’s Cowboys in Love: The Hank Plowplucker Story live to the Internet. He produced and directed the West Coast premiere of Radha Bharadwaj’s Closet Land . His company, The Ethereal Mutt - Limited, provides high end production, logistics, marketing, and media for live music and theatrical productions. AS PRODUCER: The Flying Karamazov Brothers’: L’Universe; Interactive Media for the television pilot Survival Skills: Keri Healey’s Parrot Fever (Or, Lies I’ve Told in Chat Rooms): Scot Augustson’s Gilgamesh Iowa & Brent or Brenda (Seattle Times Footlight Award); and Roger Corman: A Beatnik Fantasia (in development). AJ was recently named "Seattle’s Best Lighting Designer" and his designs have been seen in theatres nationwide. AJ serves as a Trustee of The Lark Theatre in New York. He studied with Mabou Mines and has toured with AC/DC, Rod Stewart, and the Eagles.

LiLiza Comtois, Associate Producer
Before joining Emutt, Liza’s producing credits included Invisible Ink and Project X: Before the Comet Comes for House of Dames Productions, The West Side Story Project for the 5th Avenue Theatre and as the Forums Producer for the Seattle International Film Festival. Other experience includes work with ShadowCatcher Entertainment on Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals, the National Performance Network tour of O, Say a Sunset written and composed by Robin Holcomb and as Intiman Theatre’s Artistic Associate for seven years. Liza’s dramaturgy credits include the premiere adaptations of Cry the Beloved Country, Giant, Plainsong, Broken for You, The House of the Spirits and Persuasion with Book-It Repertory Theatre, Watsons Go To Birmingham – 1963 for Milwaukee’s First Stage, Tania Katan’s My One Night Stand with Cancer produced at ACT Theatre. She was production dramaturg for Strawberry Theatre Workshop’s The Life of Galileo, upstart crow’s King John, Vincent in Brixton at ACT Theatre, The Awakening at Book-It and for Intiman Theatre’s Living History program. She also assisted William Berry on Wonderful Town at The 5th Avenue. Liza is currently a script evaluator for the Sundance Theatre Program and participated in their ’04 and ‘05 Theatre Labs as well as attending their White Oak Lab in ‘07.