Faculty:

The Institute staff consists of professional stage directors, music directors, vocal coaches, and movement specialists who studied with Dr. Balk for many years, providing a remarkable sense of continuity. They collaborate often on Nautilus projects, including fully-staged productions, developmental workshops, and other professional training initiatives.

Ongoing Institute Faculty:

Ben Krywosz, Stage Director
Karen Coe Miller, Stage Director
Jerry Rubino, Music Director
Tracy Michailidis, Stage Director
Mindy Eschedor, Music Director
Marilyn Habermas-Scher, Movement Instructor

Stage Director BEN KRYWOSZ serves as Artistic Director of Nautilus, founding it as the New Music-Theater Ensemble in 1986, when it was a program of the Minnesota Opera. Serving as producer-director-dramaturg, his work with Nautilus includes directing world-premiere productions of MOONLIT WALK HOME, TWISTED APPLES: STORIES FROM WINESBURG OHIO, JOAN OF ARC, REACH, LOSS OF BREATH, MEDITATIONS ON ARION, HEARTS ON FIRE, DANTE’S VIEW, WITHOUT COLORS, FLY AWAY ALL, FIRE IN THE FUTURE, and the revised version of SNOW LEOPARD, as well as new productions of THE FANTASTICKS, GOBLIN MARKET, INTO THE WOODS, THE LAST FIVE YEARS, MAN OF LA MANCHA, CAROUSEL, THE DIARY OF ADAM AND EVE, A WATER BIRD TALK, ORPHEUS AND EURIDICE, ALICE UNWRAPPED, THE VIEW FROM HERE, JOHN AND JEN, FROM THE DIARY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, and SONGS FROM AN UNMADE BED. He also produces the company’s ROUGH CUTS program, a monthly series of new operas and other forms of music- theater. Krywosz has also staged productions for The Minnesota Opera, San Francisco Opera‘s Merola Program, North Star Opera, Opera Roanoke, California Coast Opera, Midwest Opera Theater, West Bay Opera, Dorian Opera Theater, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and the Lake George Opera‘s Apprentice Program.  His academic work includes teaching at the David Geffen School for Drama at Yale University, University of Iowa, Grand Valley State University in Michigan, and Augsburg College in Minneapolis, staging productions of INTO THE WOODS, SATURN RETURNS, MY FAIR LADY, WEIRD ROMANCE, COSI FAN TUTTE, CANDIDE, and THICK AS A BRICK. He developed and continues to direct Composer-Librettist Opera Studios around the country, having facilitated over 1,620 collaborations between composers and writers since 1984. He has also directed the company’s Wesley Balk Opera/Music-Theater Institute since 1983, teaching classes in integrated singing-acting. From 1984 to 1987, Krywosz was Project Director for Opera America’s OPERA FOR THE 80s AND BEYOND program, where he concentrated on introducing the professional opera field to the work of innovative music-theater artists. Krywosz also serves as a group facilitator, community organizer, and administrative consultant, and teaches classes in collaboration. He has twice participated in the Institute for Renewing Community Leadership (now known as the Shannon Leadership Institute), and was awarded a Leadership Initiative in Neighborhoods Program grant from the Saint Paul Companies to study innovative approaches to non-profit management.

Stage Director KAREN COE MILLER developed a passion for working with the singing actor early in her career while on staff at The Minnesota Opera. In 1992, she co-founded the New Music-Theater Ensemble (now Nautilus Music-Theater). As co-artistic director for the Ensemble, she produced five world premieres, directed seven productions, and served as producer, director, or dramaturg for over 30 sessions of work-in-progress. She has also directed for the Minnesota Opera New Music-Theater Ensemble, The Southern Theater of Minneapolis, Union Avenue Opera in St. Louis, Geva Theatre Center of Rochester NY, Midwest Opera Theater, Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, North Star Opera of Saint Paul, the Des Moines Metro Opera, Sarasota Opera, Lyric Opera of Cleveland, Northern Arizona University, Baylor University, The Ohio State University, Oklahoma City University, and the University of North Texas, among others. Ms. Miller received an M.F.A. in directing from the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music (CCM). She joined the faculty of Oklahoma City University in 2009. She serves as the Assistant Director of the Opera and Musical Theater program at OCU. Ms. Miller has been a staff director for the Wesley Balk Opera/Music-Theater Institute since 1986.
 

Music Director JERRY RUBINO holds degrees in piano, music education, and conducting from Temple University and the University of Minnesota, and began his teaching career at Northwestern College in St. Paul in 1974. A native of Philadelphia, he was a charter member of the Philadelphia Singers and attended Curtis Institute as a cellist. He currently serves as Minister of Music at Spirit of Hope United Methodist Church in Golden Valley, Minnesota, is the artistic director of VOICE 360 and is the Assistant Conductor of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Chorale. Rubino worked for twenty-three seasons with the Dale Warland Singers, as associate conductor, director of special projects and music education, pianist, singer and arranger. In 1983, at the request of the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Public Radio, Rubino formed what is now known as VOICE 360. Under his direction, they developed their own sound and style and became known for their crossover programming and performance practice based educational outreach. They toured extensively, have released a CD of gospel music and are currently recording a CD for Oxford University Press. Rubino’s conducting and teaching credits include honors choirs in Australia, Taiwan, Hawaii, and Europe, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the California State Summer Arts Workshops, the Wesley Balk Institute for the Singer/Actor process, and the University of Minnesota Jazz Festival. Recent theatrical music direction includes productions of MAN OF LA MANCHA, CAROUSEL, SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM and SWING. He was named Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1999, 2003 and 2004. He was named an editor for the VOICES OF DISTINCTION series with Hal Leonard in 2005 and is editing a new Christmas choral collection for Oxford University Press titled AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS due in Spring, 2010. He serves as repertoire and standards chair for vocal jazz for the North Central Division of the American Choral Directors Association, is a member of ASCAP and is requested nationally as a choral clinician, music director, pianist and adjudicator.
 

Music Director BARBARA BROOKS is an active vocal coach, pianist and music director in the Twin Cities area. Barb has served as coach/pianist for several opera companies including Canadian Opera, Minnesota Opera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Banff, Kentucky Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Berkshire Opera and the Wesley Balk Opera/Music Theater Institute, as well as for university opera programs at the University of North Texas and the University of Minnesota. She is presently the principal accompanist of and artistic advisor to the Minnesota Chorale. She also served as a vocal coach in the Resident Artists program at the Minnesota Opera. Barb holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Augsburg College and a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan. She attended the Britten-Pears school in England where she studied accompanying with Martin Isepp. 

Stage Director TRACY MICHAILIDIS is a Toronto-based Dora-award winning actor (her fourth nomination is for last year’s RETOLD) whose career has taken her across Canada, the U.S (both regionally, on National Tours, and on and off-Broadway), and internationally (TIFT’s Sweeney Todd in Argentina, and an Eastern European tour of Alon Nashman’s Charlotte). She has played leading roles at the Charlottetown, Stratford, and Shaw Festivals, and is particularly passionate about new Canadian work (her Dora Award is for Britta Johnson’s Life After). She was the creator and artistic director of Musical Works in Concert, which ran for six seasons at the SummerWorks Festival, developing 20 new Canadian musicals. She received a Canada Council grant last year for director training at the Wesley Balk Institute in Minneapolis, MN, and returned in the Summer on 2023 on Faculty. She directed Sharr White’s The Other Place at Talk is Free Theatre this Fall, and has been running her own coaching studio for the last thirteen years. Recipient, Lorne Greene Award, Queen’s University.
 

Movement Instructor MARILYN HABERMAS-SCHER has been researching the relationships between voice, movement and human experience since the 1970’s when she danced in the nationally touring modern dance company, The Nancy Hauser Dance Company. She brings thirty-five years of training in Body-Mind Centering TM , meditation practice, yoga, the Alexander Technique, T’ai Chi Chuan and Qi Gong to her teaching. Her performance work has ranged from opera to contact improvisation and performance art to storytelling, and has been supported by many grants and fellowships. She has taught at the Guthrie Theater, The Loft, The Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the University of Minnesota Graduate Theater Dept and Metropolitan State University. She has maintained a private practice in VoiceWork (somatically based voice training) since 1978, and also works as a hospital chaplain in Minneapolis.