top of page

About Us

Kathleen Laakso_July 2023.JPG

CEO, Artistic Director

Theatre has been Kathy’s passion for most of her life, even bringing her young daughters along to play in the makeup room during her rehearsals. In addition to over thirty-five years of practical experience, she has a double BS in Communications and Theatre and a Masters in Communications. While living in Texas she co-founded ‘Magination Station Children’s Theatre and performed in the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh, WI before coming back home to family. Kathy has performed in the Twin Ports theatres as well as dinner theatre at the Shack Restaurant. During her years as director of the Douglas County Historical Society she created history-based theatre, and her love of history and theatre continues today as she blends the two as director, playwright, actor and producer.

thumbnail_IMG_3222.jpg

CTO, Technical Director

Ed is a native Superiorite who retired in 2016 after 33 years of teaching in the School District of Superior. His work in theatre started in 1986 when he did tech work and had a small role in a high school student & teacher dinner theatre production. He paused for 20 years, then built a reproduction 1926 stage in the former Vasa Hall in Superior, and branched out into set and prop building and light and sound design for several live theatre groups in the Superior/Duluth area.

Ed’s undergrad studies were in botany and German language, his grad work was in educational administration and environmental science.”

DCR_9403-1.jpg

VP, Musical Director

Bruce W. Nelson is a songwriter, composer, jazz pianist and retired music teacher. He received both his Bachelor’s and his Master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. After twenty-one years of teaching in Winona, Minnesota, he moved to Russia where, from 1998 to 2016, he was choir director at the Anglo-American School of Moscow. Nelson has served as both director and conductor of youth music festival choirs in Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia and Poland. With an oeuvre of around 250 original songs, he has published many songs for singers of all ages. While in Russia, he produced and starred in multiple iterations of his musical revue, “Notes From Moscow”, a witty and sentimental commentary on ex-pat life in the Russian capital.

bottom of page