Cathy Crocco  Storyteller. Director. Teacher

Cathy Crocco is a director  and teaching artist who lives and works in Chicago. She uses her dance background and passion for radical justice, equity, and feminism to inform her work.  In many of the pieces she directs, she seeks to combine her passion with modern art and the boundaries it breaks with the classic techniques and stories she learned and studied from the time she was young. Her work is physical and seeks to make a statement that lets us hear from a diverse group of voices and backgrounds. 

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Although she was very creative and precocious, Cathy was an awkward and inattentive child who could barely sit still. She did not always fit in with the other people in the lower class neighborhood in Pittsburgh where she spent the first 11 years of her life, or the rural Southern county in Northeast GA where she spent the next 15 years of her life. But theater and the performing arts where always a refuge for her and she would not be here today if it were not for the teachers and others who encouraged her along the way. 

When she was barely old enough to walk, her grandmother, Corrine Crocco, took her to the ballet and she instantly fell in love with the movement and the costumes and tried copying the moves she saw the dancers make.  By the time she was four, her grandparents had made sure she was enrolled in ballet and dance lessons.  

Later, at church, Susan Karas, who was starting a youth theater group, encouraged Cathy to join even though she was a year younger than the youngest child in the group. It was through this group that she began to fall in love with not just dance.  but theater as an art form. Mrs. Karas took Cathy and the other members of the group to see Jesus Christ Superstar, where she realized that theater was her life's calling. 

In high school, she met the former Mrs. Westmoreland, aka the Empress, who reinforced her strong appreciation and interest in theater through the MCHS Drama Club.  Besides finding a home and refuge during a difficult time in her life,  the Empress encouraged her to develop skills that she never thought she could because she wasn't the most talented or capable. 

Later, in college, she met Amy Roeder, who became her friend and introduced her to the world of improv and to Boalian theater, both of which have become an immense part of her artistic and personal life.  

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These four women were not only inspired her and challenged her artistically, but also inspired her to see the value of sharing her skills with the next generation. For this reason, Cathy works as a teaching artist in Chicago Public Schools as well as with community organizations to provide that sense of refuge and inspiration to the next generation regardless of whether or not they become the next great performing artist. 

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Artistically, Cathy is more inspired by modern art, dance, and music, but she still appreciates the techniques and styles she learned by studying the classics.  Some of her favorite artists and works of art include Frida Kahlo, Alchemy of Desire/ Dead Man's Blues by Caridad Svich, and the Distillers. 

In her spare time she likes to visit the Museum of Contempory Art in Chicago, hang out at concerts, and see live comedy and theater, particularly alt-comedy and experimental theater.  She also enjoys hanging out at home with her domestic partner KJ and their cat Waffles while watching tv, playing video games or otherwise relaxing. 

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