I am a craftswoman who builds things from the ground up. Alongside a handful of brave collaborators, I make analog and digital performances that attempt to embody truths and answers that can only be found in the imagination. By giving the strangest, most impossible dreams in our head the space and respect they deserve, we can chart bold new paths for personal and social transformation.

Hey, I'm Vanessa!

Reveling in the freedom to be a mess.

I make work for intimate spaces — studios, churches, community centers, barns — where you can feel and heal under the collective warmth of strangers. Through uncanny spectacle and absurdist experiments in language, voice, music, and physical theatre, I take people’s (mostly) true life stories and elevate them the level of myth. 

My aim is to throw audiences head-first into the magic space between the ordinary and the extraordinary. I lure them in with nostalgia before using a surprise twist to awaken their senses to new futures. New realities. Worlds they secretly long for but never knew existed. The experience is often confrontational, but eventually delightful. Food and drink always helps.

Storytelling is a survival tactic when I forget how to dream, hope, and fight. It’s a ritual that connects us to an expansive energy that helps us all imagine and re-imagine ourselves and our world anew. 

INTERESTED IN WORKING TOGETHER?

VANESSA OGBUEHI is a Philly-based theatre director, performer, and producer of new and devised work. Driven by a love of uncanny storytelling and a deep belief in radical empathy, Vanessa’s work helps people understand themselves and their place in the world from surprising angles. She received her BA in Theatre from Mary Baldwin College and her Graduate Certificate in Devised Performance from the Pig Iron School/University of the Arts in Philadelphia. As a serial collaborator, Vanessa has worked with a range of artists, companies, and institutions to create and present original pieces, including Double Edge Theatre, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Grammy-winning mezzo soprano Maren Montalbano, Theatre Horizon, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, and Villanova University. Presently, she is the Director of Digital/Film/Interactive at Pig Iron Theatre Company, and is devising a new solo-performance on shadow personalities.  

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BIOGRAPHY