Biography

Rebecca Chiyoko Itow holds two associate degrees in dance and liberal arts, earned her bachelor’s degree in theatre directing, and her master’s degree in education and secondary teaching credential in December 2006.

She has performed in several lead and supporting roles in dramatic and musical theatre productions, including Dorothy in The Wiz, Tuptim in The King and I, Gloria in Damn Yankees, and Tanya in Have you seen Tanya?, a domestic violence production that toured Southern California for two years. She works as a choreographer at colleges across California and has been staff at California State University, Northridge for three years as a choreographer, teacher, and director for their TeenAge Drama Workshop. Her directing credits at Pepperdine include Horton Foote’s Blind Date, Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, and Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water. She has acted as assistant director at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles for Three Travelers directed by Jay Broad, and Threepenny Opera directed by Ron Sossi (which she performed in as well). Currently, she is working with the Odyssey in their student outreach program, guiding and directing high school students in developing their playwriting skills.

Rebecca has 20 years of dance training with Patsy Swayze and Don Hewitt in classical ballet and jazz, and enhanced her study and performance abilities with her mentors, Daniel Berney and renebaum. Although her background is classical, she has ventured into other realms of the art, and has become an avid swing and ballroom dancer.

She was ranked as the 5^th top speaker in the nation at the 2001 Phi Rho Pi National Speech and Debate Tournament, and completed a 2-year internship at the Beckman Research institute at City of Hope Medical Genetics Laboratory with an emphasis in Tourette’s Syndrome. Her research accomplishments can be seen frequently on the Discovery Health channel.