Christian Murphy founded Catharsis Productions with Gail Stern in 2000 after they co-created Sex Signals. He serves as Artistic Director and Director of Operations for the company. Mr. Murphy has been a professional actor for over twenty years. After relocating to Chicago, he began writing plays. His one-person show, Meditations, won the 1998 Factory Theater Shut Up and Laugh! One-Act Play Festival, where he met Gail Stern. He also wrote the full-length one-person show, Sleeping through the American Dream, that was workshopped at Stage Left Theatre.

Mr. Murphy was the original male presenter for "Sex Signals" and toured the show for six years. He currently oversees the ongoing development to the "Sex Signals" program. He has served as the chief architect on all additional versions of the script, in particular versions customized for each branch of the military. He also has taken a more active role in the development of new programs and workshops with Ms. Stern.

Mr. Murphy has been trained as a certified rape victim advocate through Chicago's Rape Victim Advocate program. Most recently, he has helped design a peer-education training on gender issues for Lambda Chi Alpha and its undergraduate fraternity members. He also serves on the MEN (Men Endorsing Non-Violence) Illinois state committee.

Education experiences include the University of Southern California, where he was a brother of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and the University of Kent at Canterbury in England. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame having earned degrees in the Program of Liberal Studies as well as Communication and Theater.

Upon graduation, Mr. Murphy spent time as an apprentice actor at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. He continued pursuing his acting career in Los Angeles. There, he co-founded Voices in Harmony, a non-profit urban youth-theater program that paired high school students with professional actors to create and perform vignettes that addressed cultural diversity and identity. He served as Artistic Director for the program from 1995-1996.

He is happily married to Lauren Murphy, co-owner of Laurenceleste, makers of some really hip, organic baby clothes. Visit them at www.laurenceleste.com . He and Lauren are also happy to now be dressing their two children in the aforementioned hip clothes. (Top of page)
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Gail Stern has spent the last fifteen years using humor to teach volatile subjects. Her audiences have ranged from police officers to college students, and while addressing the issues of rape, domestic violence, hate crime and extremism, her approach has utilized a combination of experience and stand-up comedy to get her messages across.

Gail served as the director of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Campus Advocacy Network from 1991-1998, providing crisis counseling and court advocacy to victims of hate crime, domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault. She began training law enforcement officers in 1993 on the topics of hate crime and cultural sensitivity, and served as the National Law Enforcement Training Coordinator for the Anti-Defamation League from 2000-2003. She is a member of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers and has also served as a member of the following law enforcement training programs:
* State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program
* Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Hate/Bias Crimes Training Cadre
* US Department of Justice Hate and Bias Crimes Training Program
Gail served as the Co-Chair of the Chicago Task Force on Hate Crimes Against Women, and was a member of the Cook County State's Attorney's Domestic Violence Task Force and Hate Crime Prosecutions Council, and the Illinois Attorney General's Task Force on Date Rape Drugs.

Gail is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has a master's degree in Education from UIC, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on the relationship between humor and learning about controversial issues.

She has presented at the American Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences on the use of humor in law enforcement education, the Illinois Coalition for the Prevention of Violence Annual Conference on utilizing humor to teach difficult topics, and presented a paper on offender typology at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Conference in February 2003. She has served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies, and currently serves as a consultant to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Gail has performed stand-up and improvisational comedy for almost twenty years, performing with the "Skin of Our Teeth Comedy Ensemble" and "Chick Show." In 1999 she performed in the Chicago Comedy Festival and appeared on "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" as a citizen panelist. Her two one-woman shows, Red Dress of Grievances and Merge enjoyed extended runs as part of Chicago's Factory Theatre's "Shut Up And Laugh" Comedy Festival (where she met Catharsis co-founder/Sex Signals co-author Christian Murphy), and she recently participated in the "World's Funniest Cop" Competition hosted by Jay Leno.

For her work in victim advocacy and law enforcement training, Gail has received the U.S. Department of Justice Award for Public Service and the Public Allies "Tomorrow's Leaders Today" Award.

To find out more about Gail’s consulting work, click here.

To find out about Gail's show "RANT!", click here.

Gail is married to the remarkably wonderful Ari Frede. (Top of page)
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Brian Golden is a native of Davenport, Iowa and received his B.A. in Drama from Washington University in St. Louis. He began serving as Sex Signals Assistant Director in May 2007, and is now the show's Director. He is a certified volunteer for the Rape Crisis Hotline at the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago. Brian is a director, playwright and the Artistic Director of Theatre Seven of Chicago. His work with Theatre Seven of Chicago includes ten productions in four seasons, among them, seven Chicago premieres, including his play Cooperstown, which recently earned the company its first Joseph Jefferson Award Recommendation. He recently moderated a discussion with the Chicago Storefront Theatre Summit on Gender Equity in Chicago Theatre. Brian is eternally grateful to his beautiful girlfriend Tracey for her patience, and to the Catharsis team for empowering him to do this work, which combines three of his great loves; theatre, travel and social justice. (Top of page)
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Ben Murrie has never quite made up his mind as to whether he should be an actor or educator, and he thanks Catharsis Productions for letting him continue to stall that decision for going on seven years. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Ben left the area to attend Pepperdine University, from which he holds a degree in Psychology. After college, Ben spent two years working as a counselor at a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles and received his rape victim advocate training at the Rosa Parks Center there. He also holds an MS in Educational Psychology from Oklahoma State University, where his studies focused on moral development and media impact. As the Program Coordinator for Sex Signals, he attempts to tame the monster he helped nurture while developing other projects, such as a workshop on pornography consumption. As an actor and producer, he has enjoyed involvement in various stage productions and films around the country and performed at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Ben is the co-author of the rock musical "www.Here.I.Am" and has recently finished shooting the independent film "Lonesome Town". He can also be seen in promotional material for the Red Cross and every major branch of the Armed Forces. For Ben, the only source of pride greater than his relationship with this company, is his marriage to the imminently gracious Shawna Murrie, with whom he has two rambunctious sons. (Top of page)