About Us – Curious Theatre Collective

Founded in 2016, Curious Theatre Collective creates original, interdisciplinary educational theater programming that inspires audiences to follow their curiosity, persevere through challenges, and believe in the power of their imagination.

CTC was founded by four women who together have decades of experience in acting, composing, directing, playwriting, teaching, and arts administration.

Meet Curious Theatre Collective

Maxine Eloi

Maxine is an actor, writer, director and filmmaker. Classically trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Maxine has recent film credits in Blue Crossing, Roll Pin Punch, and Diamond. She is a company member at Theater Delta, Theatre For Change, and Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. She recently starred in the feature film The Last in Line.

Juliet Kaplan

Julie is a music composer and actor. Her music has been performed throughout the U.S., Nepal, the Czech Republic, and on Kansas Public Radio. She received a Master of Music from the Longy School of Music, and has since collaborated with a variety of artists on new work for dance, theater, and chamber music. She is also an actor with the Transactors Improv Co., the longest running improv company in the south, and teaches improv theater at the People's Improv Theater (The PIT).

Dana Marks

Dana is an actor, musician, teacher, and director based in Durham. She is the co-founder of the independent professional theater company Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. As an actor, she has performed and trained around the world in over 70 shows. As a musician, Dana tours and records with her band, Curtis Eller’s American Circus. She has an MFA in Acting from The American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, and teaches Acting at Duke University.

Julie Oliver

Julie is an actor and musician based in Raleigh. She has appeared with Burning Coal Theatre, Aggregate Children's Theatre, Seed Art Share, Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Manbites Dog Theatre, and others. Julie is a retired middle school band director.

Jessica Flemming

Jessica is an actor, singer, and theatre educator. She has been working in the Triangle since completing her BFA in Theatre Performance from The University of Michigan-Flint. Most recently she has been acting with Manbites Dog Theatre and Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. She also teaches with Incubator, an actor training program for domestic and international freelance artists.

Tamara Kissane

Tamara is a playwright, actor, director, and podcaster for Artist Soapbox. She’s worked with Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Manbites Dog Theatre, The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, Duke Theatre Studies, Transactors Improv, Summer Sisters, Archipelago and both hands theatre company. Her play, The New Colossus, was performed at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham in 2016. Her adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder premiered in Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern’s 2017-18 season.

Emma Nadeau

Emma is a musician and theater artist based in Chapel Hill and a graduate of Oberlin College. Locally, she has lent her creativity to Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Manbites Dog Theater, The Performance Collective, Playmakers Repertory Company, and Paperhand Puppet Intervention. She also spent many years touring the US with the indie band Lost in the Trees. Offstage, she spends her time gardening, cooking, dancing, and searching for the meaning of life with her amazing kids and husband.

Jeri Lynn Schulke

Jeri Lynn is the Director of Education and Outreach at PlayMakers Repertory Company. She spent five seasons at ArtsCenter Stage as its Producing Artistic Director and ran the Youth Performing Arts Conservatory, also at The ArtsCenter, for four years. She is an equity actress with an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has performed throughout the Triangle. She has taught acting to all ages, and was the casting director at a media start-up. Her passions are the development of new work, training the next generation of theatre artists, and fostering collaborative opportunities.