Charissa Bertels is a Broadway actress and champion of new musicals. She has performed on Broadway and at Madison Square Garden in A Christmas Story and toured the country in the first national tour of If/Then, starring Idina Menzel, La Chanze, and Anthony Rapp. As part of the singing ensemble for New York City Center Encores’ productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Lady Be Good, her work can be heard on the subsequent cast recordings, featuring Megan Hilty and the legendary Tommy Tune.  

Charissa’s original one-woman musical, My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend (Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Human Race Theatre Company), garnered rave reviews and an IRNE award for Best Solo Performance. Her newest collaboration, The Uncivil Ones, features unheard female, trans and non-binary voices from The Civil War and garnered the 2019 Special Mention for the Women in Arts & Media Coalition Collaboration Award.

In addition to her own writing and producing projects, she is currently a professor at New York Film Academy’s Professional Conservatory of Musical Theatre, pursuing an MFA from the University of Idaho, and a proud member of Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA. Visit Charissa Bertels website for more information.

Jennifer Arbogast Wilson is in her first year of the distance-learning Directing program in the theatre department at the University of Idaho.  A native of Columbus, Ohio, Jennifer now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she is a professor of music and theatre at Chattanooga State Community College.  Jennifer’s main teaching includes private voice lessons to music and theatre majors, voice and speech courses, and directing musical theatre productions.  She holds a Doctor of Arts degree in Vocal Performance with a secondary emphasis in Speech-Language Pathology from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.  When Jennifer is not busy with theatre or music, she enjoys life with her fantastic husband Jonathan, their dog Romeo, and their cat Benvolio.  Jennifer and Jonathan are looking forward to welcoming the arrival of their first child near the completion of this Midsummer project!

Olivia Wikle is co-creator of the Voices of Gay Rodeo web project. Olivia is the digital initatives librarian at the University of Idaho Library and the pedagogical director of the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CD?L).

Devin Becker is co-creator and designer of the Voices of Gay Rodeo web project. Devin is the Head of the Data and Digital Services department at the University of Idaho Library and director of the Center for Digital Inquiry and Learning (CD?L). Some of the features of this site developed out of his most recent digital humanities project, CTRL+Shift, which explores the ways poets’ writing practices changed with the advent of the personal computer and digital age.

Evan Williamson is a cool guy who develops digital scholarship projects.