“I strive to create theatre that takes risks, and that requires complicity with the audience – theatre that never allows you to nod off, that requires more and offers more. I wish for my art to engage conversation that prods the audience to reflect, urges us to look at our own humanity, charges us to belly laugh with a stranger, and plants the seed of recognition of our shared humanity. In my practice, I am comfortable in the uncomfortable – it’s the place that helps me grow, helps me to push through human frailty, to create anew, and also to fail sometimes.

I’m particularly passionate about discovering and promoting structural change in our industry to help us move away from the oppressive, capitalist model of American Theater today and into a justice-based, economically-fair, racially-balanced, ability-diverse version of the New American Theater. I’m dedicated to creating transparent, anti-racist, anti-oppressive creative processes and building artistic teams that expand representation, strengthen diversity of thought, and uplift traditionally underrepresented populations. Theatre promotes and exalts the practice of transformation, transformation is change, change is a good thing.

I am an Iowa gal at heart, from the center of this country, so I’m direct, affable, quirky, and unexpectedly intense. Roots are important and mine are Midwestern to the core: so I believe in morals, talking to your neighbors, writing thank you notes and also in the funky, the belly, the guts. I am inspired by living a full life. I am inspired by challenges. I am inspired by people that never go to the theatre. I’m inspired by exploring new forms for theatrical performance, alternative models of resource-creation, and building fresh versions of ensemble in the American theatre. I am influenced by current events and history. I am influenced by bad theatre, boring theatre, theatre seats full of homogeny. I think if you are the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. With credit due to Ben Franklin: I seek to increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interests, and to strengthen my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates.”

 

• I believe in artistic excellence.
• I believe theatre is for all.
• I believe storytelling is a civic value and responsibility.
• I believe in conversations about the big things in life.
• I believe in justice, balance, and reflection.
• I believe in complexity and depth.
• I believe in entertainment.
• I believe in roots.
• I believe in transformation.
• I believe in community, activism, civility, and public engagement.
• I believe in Old Actors.
• I believe in Very Young Artists.
• I believe in Multi-Hyphenate Arts Workers.
• I believe in stories that create a bigger mind and a kinder spirit.

 

Let’s Work Together!

• excellence
• intentionality
• complexity
• rigor
• theatricality

• bravery
• anti-oppression
• justice
• transparency
• progressivism

• truth
• conflict-positivity
• heterogeneity
• activism
• abundance