Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi

SYLVIA HERNANDEZ-DISTASI is co- Artistic Director of The Actors Gymnasium in Evanston where she teaches the art of circus to actors and anyone else with the desire to "learn to fly".  An Artistic Associate of Lookingglass since 1999, she has won three of her four Jeff Awards for choreography with the company. Her Lookingglass credits include; The Master and Margarita ,The Baron In The Trees, The Vanishing Twin, Her Name Was Danger, Hard Times, La Luna Muda, Manuscript Found In Saragossa, Black Diamond, and Lookingglass Alice. She has also worked The Lyric Opera ,Piven Theatre, Chicago Children's Theatre, Light Opera Works, Marriot Theatre, Northwestern University and The Theatre School of DePaul. Sylvia was last seen on stage in The Flying Griffin Circus, although she can occasionally be found dangling from the rafters at a corporate event. She lives in Evanston with her husband Larry, son Griffin and their dog Sparky.

hometown: Sarasota, FL
favorite vacation destination: Boulder, CO
favorite book: The Inner Game of Tennis
favorite band while in high school: The Ramones
favorite Lookingglass memory: A few months after Larry and I got married he co-adapted and directed The Baron in The Trees. I was the choreographer. Since there was a lot of circus choreography in the show, it was brought up that I should understudy two of the women in the cast. I was pretty sure I would never have to go on, since I had never seen anyone at Lookingglass actually miss a show, so I agreed to it.

After the show extended, Larry had to replace the lead actor who was getting married and both women had conflicts. I did go on as both Larry's mother and his girlfriend (not at the same time). My favorite part of the whole thing, is that I got to do a love scene on the trapeze with Larry. But my FAVORITE favorite part, was that I was pregnant at the time. I love the fact that my whole family was on that trapeze together .