Linda Parsons Fortunato, a 1994 Millikin University theatre graduate, began her new position as artistic director at Theatre at the Center in Munster, Ind., in January 2016. In a recent interview with the Times of Northwest Indiana, Fortunato discusses her award-winning theatrical career and her new experiences as artistic director.
"My goal as a theatre artist is to tell great stories in an honest way from the heart," Fortunato says. "I think that the stories we tell on stage affect people in many different ways – they can make people laugh, make people think, they can move people emotionally, or move them to action. So bringing a community into a theater and sharing a story with them is what is magical about theater; it's why we do it."
At Millikin, she majored in theatre with a concentration in acting and minored in dance, but she also studied directing and technical theatre; she graduated summa cum laude.
Fortunato taught dance and acting classes at Columbia College in Chicago for 10 years, and taught dance classes in the theatre department at Loyola University. "I found I had a real love for teaching," she says. "It's a way of giving back, especially to college students who are in the place I was, trying to figure out where in the business of theatre they fit."
Fortunato has been nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Awards for her work as a choreographer and director. She received both the Equity and Non-Equity Jeff Award for Outstanding Choreography in the 2013-2014 season, garnering Theatre at the Center their first award for her choreography of "42nd Street."
In addition to her award-winning work on "42nd Street," Fortunato has been involved with over a dozen shows at Theatre at the Center, including choreographing "Spamalot,""A Christmas Carol" and "Fiddler on the Roof." She performed in "Lend Me a Tenor,""The Diary of Anne Frank" and directed "A Christmas Story."
Click here to read more about Fortunato in an article from the Times of Northwest Indiana.