Action in Art
The Persephone Project
Co-creator and Pageant Director
Created alongside Tria Smith, the Persephone Pageant Project uses the tools of the theater to create spectacular events that support community, environmental justice, and climate change activism. Through participatory pageants using story, song, drums, dance, costume, choreography, and beauty, the Persephone Project weaves together mythic tales and true stories of conservation.
We invite people of all ages to create these ceremonies of place and join in chorus with nature to address the environmental issues of their home.
In order to build communities’ capacity to respond to the climate crisis, it is important for them to vividly imagine justice and deeply imagine a relationship with the land.
We've led seven pageants from Evanston, to Chicago, to Kenya, creating interactive, family-friendly performances calling attention to unjust environmental and social issues and amplifying the needs of nature through the power of metaphor.
Rough Magic
Creator and Director
Rough Magic is a pop up project which hosts dark-night theatrical celebrations in Chicago, celebrating our immense good fortune at being able to do the work we love, and share it with an exciting and generous community of artists and audiences.
At each event, we present three local organizations who are using the human power of creative thinking, storytelling, and hard work to meaningful effect. The audience then votes on where they want their $10 suggested donations to go. Rough Magic events around the Chicago area have raised over $10,000, distributed to more than 20 nonprofits.
The performance evening is an event the audience will never have a chance to see again, using the best of our talent and resources, and that can be put together in only one day! Rough, but magical.
Art of the Spontaneous Spectacle
Co-creator
Art of the Spontaneous Spectacle is a loose organization of artists that formed during the pandemic in response to the isolation and injustices of the time. under the leadership of Jessica Thebus, performers gathered in open public spaces with instruments and puppetry to create instant theatrical spectacles for anyone who gathered for or stumbled across them.
Performances were widely varied, from a celebration of the Twilight King, to a flight of large bird puppets held by children. The spectacles welcomed performers and participants of all ages, and were places for theater makers to continue to practice their art in unconventional and unexpected ways.