Dinah Toups is a United States Air Force officer's wife who has had the rare opportunity of spreading her love of theatre to many parts of the world. She studied theatre and English literature at Louisiana State University and the University of Southwestern Louisiana. She continued her education beyond college by studying with Gary Austin of Los Angeles, founder of The Groundlings; Mick Napier, artistic director of Annoyance Theatre in Chicago; Michael Gellman, artistic director of Second City in Chicago; and Emmy-Award-winning actor, Daniel Neiden of New York City. Over the past 30 years she has performed her original children's plays everywhere they were stationed, helped many of these communities start theatres, and offered acting classes for students as young as five and as old as 98. She loves writing scripts that have flexible casts and can be produced on a shoestring. She believes that quality theatre can be accessible to everyone without a huge budget or the trappings of an established theatre; that good theatre can be performed off the back of a truck if it's performed from the heart … and with a really good director!
