Nancy, a native of New England, trained as an actor and director at the University of Michigan and the National Theatre Institute, earning her MA in theatre at Northwestern University. In her young and starving days, she worked as an actor, director and drama teacher in Chicago. In the late 1980’s, she helped to start two cutting edge theatre companies that are still going strong today: Strawdog Theatre and Theater Oobleck.

 

In the early 90’s, Black Box Theater lured Nancy to Prague where she directed a number of plays. When she became Artistic Director, she professionalized the company, and rechristened it as Black Box International, at which time the theatre began touring productions through out Europe.

 

One night Nancy had a dream that she was carrying a bus uphill on her head. When she woke up, she realized that it was time to stop doing theatre. So she visited the doctor, and he gave her a shot to cure her of theatre affliction.

 

At this point Prague was fast becoming the Hollywood of Europe. Because of her knowledge of actors in the region, and her experience as a director, she started getting casting offers. One of her first big jobs was casting over 60 roles on Dune for the Science Fiction Channel. Since then she has cast hundreds of actors from Central Europe and the United Kingdom on over forty productions.

 

Nancy has tried to leave Prague many times, but the city does not let go. Her mock documentary film Rex-patriates tells the expatriate story and has screened for a commercial run in Prague and at numerous film festivals, and is planned to premiere on Czech TV soon.