Anneliese Toft
BIO
Anneliese Toft is a director, creative director, and educator with twenty years of professional practice in comedy and theatre. She spent a decade at The Second City Chicago, directing original revues for the Mainstage, ETC, and all three Touring Companies before serving as Creative Director, where she held artistic oversight for three Equity theatres running original programming nightly.
Her directing credits span institutional theatre, world premieres, and large-scale live events: including performances at The Kennedy Center with Rachel Dratch and Jon Glaser, productions with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and "Louder! Longer! Wagner!" with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She serves as Resident Director for Fremantle's live stage productions of "The Price Is Right Live" and "Press Your Luck" aboard Norwegian Cruise Line.
Before joining the faculty at DePaul, Anneliese taught in the Comedy Studies program at Columbia College Chicago and across every level of The Second City Training Center for nearly a decade.
Outside the theatre, she designs and facilitates custom learning experiences grounded in applied improvisation and behavioral science for Fortune 500 clients including AbbVie, Nike, McDonald's, and educational institutions such as Harvard Business School.