Meet the Creatives

 Amy Engelhardt (music/lyrics) scored Off-Broadway Alliance Best New Musical Nominee BASTARD JONES (2x Eugene O’Neill/Richard Rodgers Award Finalist) with Marc Acito, TRIPTYCH (book/music/lyrics, NY Transit Museum commission), A COMEDY OF ERAS (ACT Seattle w/Flying Karamazov Brothers), ANNIE DREAM WILL DO (Prospect Musicals) and A COLLECTIBLE SENSATION (with Arianna Rose, which had a development workshop here at the Depot in January 2025). Her solo theatre piece, IMPACT won the Jury Prize for Best Score at the National Women’s Theatre Festival and has been produced at the Edinburgh Fringe, The Tank NYC, the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles and London’s Voila Festival among others. Amy co-created TUNE IN TIME, NYC’s Musical Theater Game Show and has been a regular “sub-lebrity” guest in Judith Owen & Harry Shearer’s CHRISTMAS WITHOUT TEARS (LA/NY/Chicago/New Orleans) for many years. From 1998-2012, Amy was the sole female writer/performer in Grammy-nominated vocal quartet THE BOBS. www.amyengelhardt.com 

 Robert John Ford (Book & Additional Lyrics) is an award-winning playwright, composer, lyricist, and theatre producer.  His stage productions include: Caucus! The Musical (featured by the NY Times, Washington Post, NPR, CBS Morning Show, and ABC Evening News, among others); Adore Us! Line (featured by the New Yorker and winner of Broadway World's Regional Best of the Decade Award); The World’s Largest Aluminum Foil Ball ("Must See" designation, St. Paul Pioneer Press); Sleeping Dogs (winner, Ashland New Play Festival and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop competition); and My Dinner With Andrew ("Must See" designation, St. Paul Pioneer Press).  An Iowa native, RJF is based in both Des Moines, where he is an Iowa Arts Council Fellow and the founder of RJFcreative, and New York, where he currently serves as the Company Manager for Hudson Valley Shakespeare and is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.  In 2026, his newest musical Rolf(e) will have an off-Broadway workshop production.  rjfcreative.com 

 Marc Acito has traversed a multi-hyphenate career as a novelist (Ken Kesey Award for How I Paid for College); journalist (regular commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered) playwright (Helen Hayes Award for Birds of a Feather); stage director (NY Times Critic’s Pick for his Off-Bway musical Bastard Jones) and filmmaker (multiple award-winning film musical MAD/WOMAN). Acito also wrote the libretto of the Broadway musical Allegiance, which was subsequently produced in Tokyo and London’s West End. In 2016, he became the first Broadway librettist to have a new Mandarin-language musical produced in China (The Secret, featuring the music of Jay Chou), followed by Sound of the Silk Road in 2021). Other musicals include A Room with a View (Old Globe, 5th Avenue Theatre) and Chasing Rainbows (Goodspeed Musicals, Papermill Playhouse). His most gratifying work, however, is mentoring young artists through the Theatre Development Fund and teaching History and Musicals at New York University. @AcitoMarc / MarcAcito.NYC. disappointment.

 Amanda Weis is a Twin Cities-based music director, stage director, and vocal instructor. Ms. Weis has worked with such companies as Minneapolis Musical Theatre, History Theatre, Masquers Theatre, Eden Prairie Players, Journey North Opera, Opera Reading Project, Open Window Theatre, Lyric Arts, The Phipps, and Duluth Playhouse, among others. She vocal directed the 2019 National tour of Nick JR LIVE and is a teaching artist at the Guthrie and Children's Theatre Company. Amanda teaches private voice lessons at her home studio in Lino Lakes. She volunteers frequently with her certified therapy dog Bucky, visiting their local library, Crestivew Memory Care in Blaine, and Ecumen hospice patients. www.weisamanda.com

 Robert (Rob) Dunbar Hofmann is President/CEO of Dunbar Hofmann Productions, LLC. Rob is a theater, film and PBS executive producer, actor, playwright, screenwriter and published author on the subject of dementia’s impact on donors and their philanthropy. Rob is lead producer for the new cooking/food immersion one-woman show HOLY SHIITAKE! A WOK STAR IS BORN by celebrity chef Katie Chin, and his newly commissioned musical THE WILLING, based upon the book The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare. In addition to producing the 2025 workshop of the new musical A COLLECTIBLE SENSATION, Rob is co-producer for the London bound 2026 West End production of the play A BRIEF CRACK OF LIGHT and is co-executive producer for the independent feature film The 7th. From 2017 through 2019 Rob co-produced two presentations of New York based 24-Hour Plays with Minneapolis based Hennepin Arts and one presentation of 24-Hour Musicals with Twin Cities based Chanhassen Dinner Theaters.   

 Chris Spencer is Lead Producer for A BRIEF CRACK OF LIGHT: the first play, written by Minnesota playwrights Roy M. Close and William Semans, to premiere  in London’s West End Fall of 2026 with an experienced, successful team including award winning Producers Michael Linnit and Martin Platts. 

She’s an Executive Producer of TV pilot DEPARTMENT OF ONE with cameo  performances by Amy Madigan and Ed Begley Jr. 

Spencer is a limited partner in the national tour of PARADE, and the Broadway  production of OHIO STATE MURDERS starring Audra McDonald. She’s also an  investor in The Museum of Broadway.  

In addition, Spencer is a co-author of COLDSTREAM STORIES, a collection of  short stories slated for publication. She edited PROSECUTORS WILL BE  VIOLATED, a satire of criminal defense that won a national Ben Franklin and a  Midwest award. 

As a former director of Art Workshop International, Spencer ran workshops for  writers and artists in Assisi, Italy. She organized four solo shows of her artwork.  Her previous career was a Morgan Stanley Vice President, Investments.

Katie is originally from Katy, Texas, and moved to Duluth in 2018. She graduated with a BFA in Stage Management and minors in Marketing and Communications from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has been busy working as the Production Manager for the Minnesota Ballet and is excited to be a part of this project.  She has loved this unique experience and working with the Collab team and hopes you enjoy it. Katie would like to thank her mom and boyfriend for all of their support and to also send a special shoutout to her dad who is looking down on her as her guardian angel from above. 

Luke is a senior at UMD who has served as executive director and production manager for his student-run theatre company as well as founding/co-founding a new works theatre company, an improv comedy troupe, and (upcoming) a group dedicated to performing free Shakespeare in local bars and breweries (no director, one rehearsal). As an actor, he was most recently seen in Zeitgeist Theatre’s production of La Ronde and UMD’s production of The Women of Lockerbie. As a director, you can see his upcoming immersive production of Julius Caesar in Studio 4 this February. Tickets available soon at Stage2Duluth.com.

Savannah is a Chicago-based graduate student with a background in

performance and production. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of San Francisco in 2023.

Previously, Savannah trained at the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, completing the theater track with instruction in voice, acting, dance, and stage combat. Savannah assisted with fundraising for The Willing and is thrilled to assist this workshop

with technical elements. Previous work includes collaborating with Labrador, a youth collective creating devised experimental theater, as well as assisting with lighting and sound for Youth

Performance Company.