Kate Parker-Barrows is an actress, improviser and the Artistic Director and Executive Producer of IJA. She has trained at iO, The Second City, The Cabaret Conference at Yale, and Middlesex University in London, among other places. Kate is an original member of the long-standing improv team, Damascus Steel, who co-hosted The Mixer for 4 years, at The Playground. She also was a member of Warden's Daughter and the Cupid Players at iO. She has been performing in plays, musicals and sketch shows in and around Chicago since the early aughts. Favorite roles include 'The Mother' in CIC's Troll the Sequel, Troll Again. Grace Poole in Circle Theatre's Jane Erye the Musical Drama, and Beth in Oil Lamp Theater's Dinner with Friends. She works as a voiceover artist and can be heard on your telephone supporting local candidates during election time with her very passionate "Robo-Calls!" She dreams that she and Jane Austen are BFFs.