I'm actually not this serious.
really.
no, really.
c'mon.
I do smile from time to time.
I just wanted to look badass.
did I just blow it?
(uh oh I did, right.)
I am a theater-maker. I write and direct original productions, often developed with ensembles over the course of a year or more. I bring together different performance languages (dance-theater, clown-theater, circus-theater, puppet-theater … you get the idea). As both a theater-maker and audience member I enjoy the unexpected ways in which story emerges from bringing different performance languages together.
I'm currently the bookwriter and co-lyricist for a new musical OUT HERE with composer/lyricist Erin McKeown and additional concept developer David Levin. OUT HERE is now in development at Chicago's Court Theater after receiving generous early support from the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and the Neubauer Collegium, at the University of Chicago, and from Lucky Plush Productions (see below).
On this website I've included devised work, new plays, and other projects. My artistic homes include the dance-theater company Lucky Plush Productions led by the extraordinary Julia Rhoads; 500 Clown, a 10-year ride in bold collaborative circus-theater creations; and Third Coast Percussion, an exquisite musical ensemble that has invited me to be their stage director for their works that require theatrical staging. With these companies, I've had the honor of bringing works to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, Spoleto Festival (SC), CRASHarts at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Dance Cleveland, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (VT), Maui Arts and Cultural Center, ODC in San Francisco, MASS MoCA, La Jolla Music Society, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (MD), PS 122 (NYC), the National Forum of Music (Wroclaw), De Doelen (Rotterdam), and many more small & large, scrappy & fancy venues.
I’ve also included on this site courses I teach in my position as Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts at the University of Chicago, and projects I developed and guided in my former role as founding curator of the Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry a forum for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars (also at the University of Chicago).
What’s not included is an important precursor to all this work: being an actor with NYC’s Elevator Repair Service from 1996 – 2000, which has been highly influential to my aesthetic sensibility and to my understanding of how to be in a rehearsal room with an ensemble for a long time creating original complicated smart funny unexpected shows. I am grateful for those enlightening years.
As for education and training, I received a BA from Brown University where I did theater nonstop (being enormously influenced by Paula Vogel who led the MFA playwriting program at the time) and where I created an independent major combining Women's Studies and International Relations. Years later I earned my PhD in Performance Studies at Northwestern University where I focused on gender and physical theater and the how-tos and histories of clown-theater. Between undergrad and grad, my imagination (and skills) expanded when I trained in physical theater and related forms at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris and with Philippe Gaulier in London.
Thanks for visiting! Feel free to be in touch!