Spill, Cornell University (2018)
Directing
As a director, my work spans what Michael Rohd and his colleagues at the Center for Performance and Civic Practice (CPCP) have described as a spectrum between studio practice and civic practice, where studio practice references artist-driven projects that do not involve public partners and civic practice describes public projects that enlist artists to co-imagine creative solutions to local concerns. On one end of that spectrum, my studio practice focuses on developing and staging plays by queer, trans, and feminist theater-makers.
Much of my work aligns with what Rohd and CPCP describe as “social practice:” artist-led public partnerships that respond to collaboratively identified social issues. This work includes co-creating interview-based works, such as The Loneliness Project, a documentary play about intergenerational loneliness in Chicago’s LGBTQIA+ communities, and Halcyon, an opera that explores what happens when a place that matters to us comes to ruin. I also create community-based plays with companies like Civic Ensemble, with whom I have worked on four community-based plays that addressed topics ranging from racist policing practices to the failures of public education to the local impact of climate change.
Men On Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus
Kent State University (2025)
Spill by Leigh Fondakowski
Cornell University (2019)
The Loneliness Project by Kelli Simpkins
Civic Ensemble & Cornell University (2018)
Climates of Change - Collectively Devised
Civic Ensemble & Cornell University (2017)