Directing

Boston University
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre

An intimate fantasia that tries to unravel the social, political, and gender binaries holding reality together. Wild and epic in scale, but a very human story.

Director of Movement: Yo-EL Cassell
Assistant Director/Director of Movement: Lana Sage
Dramaturg: Adrian Speth
Production Manager: Hannah Eckert
Stage Manager: Chris Daly
Scenic Designer: Maggie Shivers
Costume Designer: Andrew Wehling
Lighting Designer: Rachael Harned
Props Coordinators: Zoe Charbonneau, Liv King
Sound Designer: Katie Chen
Project Manager: Autumn Munsell
Technical Designer: Nathaniel Crain

Photos by Katie Nelson

ORLANDO (2023)

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Heartbeat Opera
Directed by Emma Jaster
Arranged and Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg

Role: Assistant Director

A distinctly American adaptation of Verdi’s Macbeth that centers Lady M's privileged ascent that destroys her marriage, her sleep, and her sanity.

"Flat-out brilliant." - NYT Review

Scenic Design: Afsoon Pajoufar 
Costume Design: Beth Goldenberg 
Lighting Design: Oliver Wason 
Projection Designer: Camilla Tassi 
Sound Design: Michael Costagliola 
Electronics and Live Processing:  Gleb Kanasevich 

Lady M (2023)

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Drexel University
Co-Directed w/ Brett Ashley Robinson

A student-written play examining the destruction of an established black community to make
way for Drexel University’s expansion in the 1960’s.

Sets: Michael Lambui
Costumes: Leigh Paradise
Lights: Aimee Hanyzewski
Sound: Adiah Hicks

Resilient: Black Bottom (2023)

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Pig Iron Theatre Company & Josephine Decker

Role: Associate Director

A dark fairy tale about the terrors, joys, and deep uncertainties of pregnancy. Inspired by Maria Tatar's research on the history of fairytales, this immersive performance explores the complex decisions that mothers, fictional and real, must make about their children's lives.

Performed at Rigby Mansion as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

Visual Design: Maiko Matsushima
Lighting Design: Tuçe Yasak
Sound Design: Tina Hanae-Miller

The PATH OF PINS OR THE PATH OF NEEDLES (2022)

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Written & Performed by
Carter O'Brien Ford

Performed at the Community Education Center (CEC) in West Philly as part of Philly Theatre Week 2022.

Carter retells true stories from his childhood about his struggle to have a singular racial identity.

Lessons From an Incomplete Black Boy (2022)

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Written & Performed by
Maren Montalbano

Directed and staged for livestream on Twitch. Part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

At the intersection of romantic tropes and operatic gender power dynamics, Grammy-winning Maren Montalbano's one-woman show explores sexuality and abuse through the lens of humor, storytelling, and original music.

The Bodice ripper project (2020)

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By Mary Zimmerman
Villanova Student Theatre

An imaginative retelling of classic myths, each of them dealing with the complexity of human life in every aspect. In gist: Greek myths. Bodies. The voice. How to tell a story. A semi-devised theatre process. Magic.


Metamorphoses (2019)

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Written by Vanessa Ogbuehi
Performed by Jesse Gottschalk

Part of Directors Gathering (DG) JAM 2021

Special thanks to Swim Pony Performing Arts

With only 10 minutes to spare, a young writer scrambles to work out the last line of their epic tome. 

A "first-person" theatrical experiment in dynamic intimacy with the audience. 
Made with a head-mounted GoPro Hero 8. 

Colossus
(2021)

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Pig Iron Theatre Company & Mimi Lien

Role: Assistant Director

Superterranean is a new work of visual theatre driven by award-winning designer Mimi Lien’s fascinations with urban infrastructure acting in concert with the human body.

Performed at 2300 Arena as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

Sets: Mimi Lien
Costumes: Olivera Gajic
Lights: Barbara Samuels
Sound: Lea Bertucci

Superterranean (2019)

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Performance

Double Edge Theatre

A free, public celebration of Ashfield’s unique history of tolerance, freedom, and creativity, performed in the heart of the town by the people of the community.

Grown directly from the theatre’s questions about the roots of identity, the Town Spectacle extends this search to include the whole community through a kaleidoscope of history, art, and spectacle.

The Ashfield town spectacle (2017)

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By JD Stokely, Vanessa Ogbuehi and Jackie Soro

What do projection, karaoke, and an infamous Eartha Kitt interview all have in common? Inspired by Grada Kilomba's book "Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism", Mouth/Piece is an exploration of the Black feminine mouth as a site of trauma, heartbreak, and resistance.

Presented at HERE Arts Center as part of the SANCTUARY Sublet Series.

Mouth/piece (2017)

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Kaleid Theatre

A response to the presidential election of 2017, Scape-ing was an exploration of hate in space and in the body. Told through dance, plot-lines, poetry, and news articles, Scape-ing served as a theatrical investigation of violent human emotions, a personal reflection on the first months of a new administration, and a ritual of compassion.

Performed at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.

SCAPE-ING (2017)

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An experimental staging, after Anne Carson
Created by Erik Ruin and Dan Rogers

A collaboration with shadow puppet artist Erik Ruin, performed at Panorama Space in Philadelphia.

The staging combined three overhead projectors with shadow puppetry, illuminated cantastoria choruses, and original music for harp, violin, viola, electronics, and operatic soprano.

A benefit show for the Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project,

ANTIGONICK (2016)

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Kaleid Theatre

Undiscarded explored the things and people that we, as a society, discard, the relationships between them, and what it means for us to listen to their stories.

In a world where discarding is intertwined with identity, we faced the things and people that we discard, and confronted the desires that urge us to throw them away. What do we risk by by listening to those we discard? What do we gain?

Undiscarded (2015)

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Double Edge Theatre & Charlestown Working Theater

Once a Blue Moon ("Cada Luna Azul") is inspired by magic realism and many Latin American stories. 

The story reflects an increasingly universal situation in which “progress” displaces people, in this case causing a flood. It is a story of memory, culture, and song, imbued with the excitement of Latin American carnival.

Once a blue moon (2015)

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LET’S CONNECT, I’M READY!

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