Announcing our Leadership Team!
Since Fr. Kyle Kowalczyk and Mary Shaffer sat in a coffee shop five years ago and decided to start a theatre company (yes, they came up with the name “Missed the Boat Theatre” at that meeting!), we’ve expanded like a grow pet in water. But a change we made this December marks the most significant of our developments.
Until now, we’ve been operating under a show-based model of leadership. This meant that aside from our Board of Directors, we had no ongoing organizational structure. Instead, we pulled together a leadership team to plan each production, and our roles shifted based on the needs of that production.
In December 2022, we transitioned to a season-based model of leadership. Inviting five core, visionary members of MTBT into this new role, we formed a Leadership Team that will provide stable, year-round planning, strategy, and oversight of the organization. Within this team, Fr. Kowalczyk and Mary Shaffer continue in their roles as co-artistic directors.
Meet our Leadership Team below!
Fr. Kyle Kowalczyk, Co-Artistic Director
Fr. Kyle is just a simple country pastor out in the lonely outskirts of Delano. Originally from Ann Arbor, MI, he made his way to MN some 17 years ago to serve as a missionary with NET Ministries and never went home. When he is not priesting, he runs, writes, and hunts, and spares some time to run this bustling theatre company. He is the co-founder of Missed the Boat Theatre, and has written a couple of the shows, and produced all of them with a great team of collaborators.
Mary Shaffer, Co-Artistic Director
Co-founder of Missed the Boat Theatre, Mary Shaffer studied Interdisciplinary Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Theatre at St. Olaf College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Distinction. She went on to complete a Masters of Arts in Theology from the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. An actress, director, creative writer, and singer, Mary possesses an explosive creative joy that brings spiritual and artistic richness to her endeavors. The director of Catholic Young Adults: The Musical, Moonshine Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility, she looks forward to raising up new talent within the MTBT family as the company continues to grow.
Christina Malloy
Originally from California, Christina specializes in movement in devised theatre and other acting techniques. She has created three shows using these techniques, receiving several awards through the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Mexico City. Christina moved to Minnesota to serve with NET Ministries for 3 years and is currently a youth minister at St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi. Creating devised stylized movement pieces and playing on the playground of the stage is her specialty because she is a firm believer in the healing power of play. Her dream is to create a theatre company that centers on Catholic theology, encourages freedom through creativity, and promotes healing through different methods of acting.
Samantha Wend Vargo
Sam is a theater artist and manager, with more than a decade of experience in professional, educational, and community theater settings. Through working at Swim Pony Performing Arts and Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia, she was deeply immersed in all stages of the creation, development, and production of devised theater pieces. With a BS in Entertainment and Arts Management (Drexel University ’15) and an MA in Catholic Studies (University of St. Thomas ’22), Sam has the practical training, years of experience, and spiritual formation to help take Missed the Boat into a new stage of growth. Originally from the East coast, she moved to the Twin Cities just in time to dive into Missed the Boat’s first show and now lives happily in Saint Paul with her husband and cat.
Erika Zabinski
Erika Zabinski is Missed the Boat Theatre's managing director. She has worked or volunteered in administrative roles for a variety of nonprofits, including the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Saint Paul Seminary, and the Professional Editors Network. She's a lifelong Minnesotan and has been working on theater projects with Fr. Kyle ever since his first grassroots production at the Saint Paul Seminary in 2013. Erika has a master's degree in theology and works as a freelance editor and book indexer. She is a geography nerd, a lover of (other people's) cats, and a cook who will leap at any opportunity to make you dinner.