Tekki Lomnicki Tekki Lomnicki believes in the healing power of stories. She is a solo performer, playwright, director and educator. She has devoted her craft to finding ways to incorporate her abilities and those of others to perform compelling stories. In 1995, Tekki and two friends formed Tellin’ Tales Theatre. The company, dedicated to building community through the art of storytelling, produces adult solo performance as well as a life changing mentoring program and show called Six Stories Up featuring kids and adults with and without disabilities. Tekki performs her critically acclaimed solo work for schools, conferences and theater audiences all over the US and Canada and starred in the award-winning film, The Miracle by Jeffrey Jon Smith. Tekki also taught for Chicago’s Gallery 37 and currently teaches solo performance to adults at the Victory Gardens Training Center and Prop Thtr. She is a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship in New Performance Forms, the 2008 3Arts Artists Award in Theater and the 2010 Grigsby Award for Excellence in Solo Performance.

Past Performances

1994-5	When Heck Was a Puppy	Blue Rider Theater American Blues Theater
1995	Show of Strength	Zebra Crossing Theater
1996	Honor Thy Mother	Blue Rider Theater
1996	Alchemy	Blue Rider Theater
1997	Tall Tales & Small Miracles	St. Charles Art & Music Festival Live Bait Theater
1998	Six Stories Up	Blue Rider Theater
1999	Six Stories Up on a Rooftop	Victory Gardens Theater
2000	Honor Thy Father	Blue Rider Theater
2000	Six Stories Up in the Treetops	Blue Rider Theater
2001	2001: A Wedding Odyssey	Elmhurst College Live Bait Theater
2001	Six Stories Up in Outer Space	Blue Rider Theater
2002	Sibling Revelry	Prop Theater
2002	Six Stories Upside Down	Blue Rider Theater
2003	Detours	Victory Gardens Theater
2003	Six Stories Up in Pediatrics	Children’s Memorial Hospital
2004	Blurred Vision	Live Bait Theater
2004	Six Stories Up on Capitol Hill	Chernin Center for the Arts
2005	Blurred Vision: The Relapse	Live Bait Theater
2005	Six Stories Up on Mt. Everest	The Storefront Theater
2006	Body Language	Live Bait Theater
2006	Six Stories Up in the Ozone	Live Bait Theater
2007	Shrink	Live Bait Theater
2007	Six Stories Up in Wonderland	Viaduct Theater
2008	Potholes on the Path to Enlightenment	Live Bait Theater
2008	Six Stories Up in Peace	Irish American Heritage Center
2009	In Your Facebook	Prop Thtr
2009	Six Stories Up in the Economy	Prop Thtr
2010	A Midsummer Night’s Dreamers	Prop Thtr
2011	Whatever Gets You Through the Night	Prop Thtr
2011	Six Stories Up on Mt. Olympus	Greenhouse Theater

Board of Directors

Tekki Lomnicki Artistic Director

Jim Bensdorf President
Adjunct faculty member for DePaul University in the school of education. Jim works with career switchers who are obtaining masters degrees in special education at Northeastern Illinois University and is also a private educational therapist. The former Director of Special Education at Martin Luther King Lab School in Evanston, Illinois, Jim is uniquely qualified to assist with the educational aspect of our productions.

Maureen Shick Secretary
An attorney by training and currently serves as the Executive Director of The American College of Psychiatrists, a non-profit honorary society for physicians. She has previously worked for the American Medical Association and the Illinois Legislature, and served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law.

Mina Nakano
Home school expert, develops art and recreational programs for preschool and grade school children with and without disabilities.

Evan Trad
Evan is the founding special education teacher at Erie Elementary Charter School. He works with a wide range of students from Kindergarten through 7th grade with varying disabilities. He recently received his Masters Degree in Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Tellin' Tales brings together his love of theater and his career of helping people with disabilities.

Lu Ann Herbold
Owner, Caroline Carlson and Associates. Children’s Memorial Hospital volunteer. Board member of SOCS (Staehely-O'Malley Cancer Survivor Foundation).

Terri Thrower
PhD Candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Disability Studies.
Research assistant for an NEA funded study about careers in the arts for people with disabilities. Mentor with the M & M Roll Model Program through RIC, a program that matches disabled women with disabled teen girls.

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Past Shows

2008 Potholes on the Path to Enlightenment

2008 Six Stories Up in Peace

2009 In Your Facebook

2009 Six Stories Up in the Economy

2010 A Midsummer Night's Dreamers

2010 Six Stories Up on Ellis Island

2011 Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Contact Us

360 East Randolph Street
Suite 1006
Chicago, Illinois 60601
312-540-1330

Our Mission

Tellin' Tales Theatre's mission is to build community through the art of storytelling. Our company gathers the stories of groups or individuals - including adults and children with disabilities - and creates theatrically innovative performances using mentoring and collaboration. Tellin' Tales is dedicated to providing a venue for bringing together diverse people. Our aim is to help our audiences and our performers recognize their commonalties and build a sense of community where none existed before.