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After majoring in theater at Connecticut College, Churchill moved to Chicago to work as an actress. “I really loved the rehearsal process,” she recalls, “but found the performing tedious. I realized I was on the wrong side of the stage.” In the early 1990s she became the first producing director of the Lookingglass Theatre, where she produced more than half a dozen shows, including Mary Zimmerman’s original staging of The Arabian Nights (a revival is now running downtown). Then Churchill headed to Los Angeles to break into film and television, working as a unit production manager for Disney before scoring a development deal at Universal. After little more than a year in Hollywood, she left. “I just didn’t like it,” she says. “I hightailed it back to the east coast, and landed a job at Nova.” Churchill stayed employed for six years and traveled all over the world, producing and directing documentaries. In 2001 she started her own company, Nama Productions.
On a panel for a leadership conference, Churchill met New York journalist Nick Rosen, who reportedly wowed the audience with his off-the-cuff remarks. Later he mailed her some of his articles, and eventually Churchill asked him to take part in Enlighten Up!, serving as a human guinea pig who’d be curious about but skeptical of spirituality.
