Current and Past CollaboratorsTodd Anderson - Ensemble - studied theater and dance at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was a member of the Human Dancing Company based in Ashland, OR for two years. He has appeared at the Mark Taper Forum and the Matrix Theater in Los Angeles. Todd's television credits include roles on General Hospital, Houston Knights, The Lazarus Man and Divorce Court. He has appeared in the films The Outfitters, Vampires, Free Wheeling, Blind Horizon, Into the West and North Country. Most recently he appeared as Kermit in the comedy film Undead or Alive, and Hamlet 2. Todd was last seen with Theater Grottesco in Richest Dead Man Alive. This is his 14th year with Theater Grotessco.
Acushla Bastible - Ensemble - is a performer, director, writer, and educator. She is the artistic co-director of Angel Exit Theatre, an international theatre collective based in Ireland/UK, which has been nominated for awards at both the Dublin and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. In New Mexico, she has performed with The Red Thread Collective, Shakespeare in Santa Fe, Littleglobe, and The Santa Fe Opera. Recent directing projects include staged productions of GARDEN (an original intermedia piece for string quartet and video by Chris Jonas @ CCA, Santa Fe, NM); Pirandello's The Mountain Giants (Festival Internazionale dell'Attore, Naples, Italy); Stories from the 1001 Nights (a site-specific performance for the Todi Arte Festival, Umbria, Italy); Nino Rota's I Due Timidi (The Santa Fe Opera); Apprentice Scenes (The Santa Fe Opera); and Tan Dun's Ghost Opera (The Santa Fe Opera/Parnassus Productions @ Lensic Theatre, Santa Fe.) Writing/directing projects include ImprOpera (a collaboration with VoiceLab students from UNM and composer Molly Sturges) and Palimpsest (a site-specific ambulatory opera, co-written and performed by a youth ensemble, members of Santa Fe Community Orchestra, and composer Chris Jonas.) A longtime collaborator with the Littleglobe collective, their current collaboration is on Lifesongs, a writing and music project with hospice and nursing home patients.
Acushla has been an artist in residence and the artistic manager of the Santa Fe Opera's Student Produced Opera program since 2002. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, the Courtauld Institute of Art London, the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, and the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.
Acushla has been a member of Theater Grottesco since 2001 performing in The Richest Deadman Alive! and Keyholes.
Bob Brady - Graphic Design - Bob has designed for Grottesco since 2002, including The Angels' Cradle, Fortune, The Richest Deadman Alive! A Dream Inside Another , Wenomadmen, Keyholes, Winter One Acts, and Grottesco's 12th Night and our upcoming Shorts V. Other clients include TwelveTrees Publishers,The Lannan Foundation,The Santa Fe Opera, Cafe Pasqual's, Luminaria Films, Pie Boy Films (The Lark Snare), and Wumbic Productions (The Burden Carriers).
Karyna Cragin - Technical Director - earned her BFA in theater from the University of New Mexico in 1987. Her lighting and design includes work with Tom Moore, David Schweizer, Susan Jayn Weiss, Herbie Mann, Branscombe Richmond, the Bellamy Brothers, St. Petersburg Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, The Red Thread Collective, ThaMuseMeant, The Gluey Brothers, Los Lobos, Judas Priest and Iron Weed Productions. Karyna has been in the Grottesco ensemble since 1999 running tech in The Angels' Cradle, This is Life as We Know it..., Fortune, The Richest Deadman Alive! Shorts II! A Dream Inside Another, Wenomadmen and Keyholes. She designed lights for Winter One Acts.
J.A. Deane - Composer/Sound Designer - has appeared on a diverse range of recordings including work with Ike & Tina Turner, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell and John Zorn. He has created theatrical sound designs for Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin, Julie Hebert and Christoph Marthaler, winning critical acclaim in the United States and Europe. He has composed and recorded music for 50 dance works during a 25-year on-going collaboration with choreographer Colleen Mulvihill, performing in the U.S., Europe and China. He has appeared as a musician throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan and has worked with Butch Morris in his Conduction projects since 1985. In 1996, Deane moved to New Mexico where he works with a number of ensembles including the acclaimed Out of Context conduction ensemble. He has been composing and designing sound for Theater Grottesco since 1997. In 1999 Deane began researching Human BioAcoustics and Five-Element Theory, deepening his understanding of the connections between the meridian system and the body's natural ability to come into energetic balance through the use of low frequency sound waves.
John Flax - Founding Artistic Director - is a creator, performer, writer, director and designer. In addition to Grottesco, Flax has performed with London's Theatre Complicite and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at LA's new Disney Hall in Strange Poetry: Berlioz and the Chemistry of Dreams in 2004, and with choreographer Della Davidson's 10 PM Dream at the Mondavi Center in Davis, CA in 2005. He has been a resource artist and ensemble member with the Sundance Playwrighting Laboratory, performed for 2 years with the Paris Circus and 2 years with the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis and Paris. Mr. Flax has been a member of J.A. Deane's Out of Context structured improvisational orchestra since 2002. He has appeared in films in France and the U.S. He has translated several works from French into English including Jacques Lecoq's celebrated lecture-demonstration Tout Bouge. He has been a guest director and movement coach at theaters and colleges across the country. He is a graduate of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and also studied with Phillipe Gaulier in Paris and with Arthur Lessac, holds degrees in Environmental Studies, and all but dissertation for an Ed.D. in Philosophy and Anthropology. Mr. Flax served on the board of directors of the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET), a national organization, from 2003-2006.
Charles Gamble - Ensemble - is a graduate of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France (2000). He also studied at the Roy Hart Institute for Voice in Malérargues, France (2004), and at Shakespeare and Co. in Lenox, Massachusetts (2005). He has developed original work and toured with Angel Exit Theater in Dublin, Ireland, and acted with Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Santa Fe and Laboratory International of Theater Exploration (LITE) in New York. In Santa Fe, Charles does outreach for the Santa Fe Opera, working with young performers throughout the state to create original operas in the schools. Charles has been in the Grottesco ensemble since 1997 working in The Angels' Cradle, This is Life as We Know it... The Richest Deadman Alive! Keyholes and Grottesco's 12th Night.
Rod Harrison -Ensemble - has been a member of Theater Grottesco since 1999. Trained as an actor and dancer, Rod has worked with companies across the country, performing classical theater in addition to creating original movement-based works. He has performed his one-man show, a re-enactment of jazz comedian Richard "Lord" Buckley's material at The Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and at The Beat Museum in San Francisco. He will be performing for the Roots of American Music Festival at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in August (www.diglordbuckley.com). Rod's work with Grottesco includes 12th Night, Fortune, Wenomadmen, A Dream Inside Another, The Angels' Cradle, This is Life as we Know it, Keyholes, The Richest Deadman Alive!, and Grottesco Shorts II.
Scott Harrison - Ensemble - is a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theater Training in Cambridge, MA. He has performed regionally in New York, Boston, Miami and Washington, DC in productions including The Taming of the Shrew, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Suburbia and Wit. In 2002 he produced and directed The Roads to Home by Horton Foote at the 78th Street Theater Lab in New York. Since moving to Santa Fe, he has performed with Theaterwork, Chamber Theater, Greer Garson Theatre Company and Theater Grottesco in productions that include The Diary of Anne Frank, The Rainmaker, and Wenomadmen. In 2005, he founded Ironweed Productions. As Artistic Director, he has performed in their productions of Fool for Love, True West, and Rabbit Hole, and he has directed productions of ‘Night Mother, Doubt: a Parable, and The Trip to Bountiful. For the past several years Scott has also been an advocate for violence prevention in Northern New Mexico. In 2003, he directed The Vagina Monologues in Espanola, a benefit performance for Peacekeepers, a domestic violence prevention organization serving the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos. In October, 2009 he participated in the worldwide reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later. And he currently serves as an instructor with IMPACT Personal Safety, a non-profit geared toward ending the cycle of violence against women, men, and children.
Kent Kirkpatrick - Artistic Associate - an actor, director and writer worked mostly in theater before following an academic career teaching in the graduate theater programs of the University of California--San Diego, and Oxford University among others. Before tenure set in, he migrated into the world of film writing, production and directing. Credits include Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, an original play which he developed and directed; a multi-lingual adaptation of The Odyssey which he wrote and directed; a multi-media stage production Divining the Tapestry: Stories of Living and Dying Well which he wrote, produced, directed and developed; and The Legacy of Letters, a reading of important letters from New Mexico history for the New Mexico State Historian's Office which he researched, wrote and directed. He also recently directed Sam Waterston, Marsha Mason and Joan Allen in a reading of Georgia O'Keeffe/Alfred Steiglitz letters for the 10th Anniversary celebration of Georgia O'Keeffe museum entitled O'Keeffe: Speaking with Friends and Lovers. He wrote and directed the short film, Ride, which was awarded the best film award in the DigiFest Southwest Film Festival. Most recently, he has written, produced and/or directed commercial and narrative films. He is the Director of Development at Luminaria, a new film production company based in Santa Fe. Kent has created and performed with Grottesco since 1999 working in Fortune, Grottesco Shorts II, This is Life as We Know it... The Richest Deadman Alive! Keyholes, and Wenomadmen.
Kate Kita - Managing Director, Ensemble - has created and performed with Theater Grottesco since 2006 appearing in Wenomadmen, Fortune, Grottesco's 12th Night and The Richest Deadman Alive! Before arriving in Santa Fe, Kate based out of New York City working in various areas of management, production, performance and creation with companies such as Classic Stage Company, New York Stage and Film, the Ohio Theatre, the Hangar Theatre Lab Company, The Pittsburgh Public Theatre and International WOW. Kate is a co-founder of the Brooklyn-based arts collaborative The Engine and a creator of the company's writing program. Along with John Flax, Kate is a recipient of the 2009 New Generations: Future Leaders mentorship grant from Theatre Communications Group. Kate received a BFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, is a certified Montessori teacher, and has taught classes in gymnastics and creative movement to toddlers and pre-school age children.
Mona Malec- Ensemble - received a B.A. from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, IA and a M.F.A. from Ohio State University. She has worked with Theater Grottesco since 2005 and was last seen in 2009's The Richest Deadman Alive! She has also worked with Ironweed productions as Jessie in ‘night Mother and Jessie Mae in Trip to Bountiful. Some of her favorite performances include A Dream Inside Another in collaboration with Theatre Grottesco and Side Show Physical Theater and as Becca in Rabbit Hole with Ironweed Productions. Mona would like to thank her two wonderful children, Kegan and Genevieve, for supporting their mother in her artistic endeavors.
Joy Mills - ensemble - Joy Mills graduated in 2007 from L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. In 2008 she had the privilege of working with Theatre Grottesco as an ensemble member in Grottesco's 12th Night. In 2009 she teamed up with Cosmos Productions in Cape Town for Paraphernalia, an object and mask based show which was performed in the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. She has since co-directed and appeared in Duet, a short film with Mercurial Productions, London and is currently creating a new original piece with Two Tomorrows Theatre to be premiered in London later this year.
Janey Potts - Administration - is a consultant for arts organizations and other not-for-profit entities. With more than 25 years of experience in non-profit management, Potts consults in the areas of finance, administration, marketing, development and event planning and execution. Past experience includes Managing Director of Shakespeare in Santa Fe and Sacramento Theatre Company, Development Director for Sacramento Opera and the Odyssey Theatre (Los Angeles). Current and previous clients include the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Theater Grottesco, Institute for Spanish Arts, Monte del Sol Charter School, Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico School for the Arts, and the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. Janey has been working with Theater Grottesco since 2004.
Ian Rosenkranz - Lighting Design, Space Renovation - began his association with Grottesco in 1984 presenting them to American audiences during their premier North American tour. His Grottesco designs include Crusoe, Insomniacs, Fortune, The Richest Deadman Alive!, Shorts, This Is Life As We Know It..., Keyholes, The Angels' Cradle and Grottesco's 12th Night. His work in dance and theater has lit stages at the Civic and Wisdom Bridge Theaters in Chicago, The New Victory in NYC and World Expo in Brisbane to name a few. He has designed exhibition lighting for the Museum of International Folk Art and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe and many others. He regularly consults on arts facility planning and renovation and is currently working with El Museo Cultural and NDI-NM. Based in Santa Fe, Ian provides management, production and design services for the performing and visual arts. ianrosenkranz@plateautel.net
Vanessa Rios y Valles - Ensemble - has been working in theater for over 20 years. She holds a BFA in acting from the College of Santa Fe and studied acting at the British-American Drama Academy in London. Vanessa was a founding member of the critically acclaimed Other Side Theater ensemble company based in Portland, Oregon where she performed and directed for 7 years before returning to Santa Fe in 2000. Vanessa recently appeared as Thelma in Ironweed's production of Trip to Bountiful. She is a long time company member at Theaterwork and joined Theater Grottesco in 2007 performing in Fortune and The Richest Deadman Alive!
Elizabeth Wiseman - Associate Artistic Director - has been a principal creator and performer with Theater Grottesco since it's founding in 1983. Elizabeth studied at Whitworth College in Spokane, the Cornish Institute for the Arts in Seattle, with Phillip Gaulier in Paris, and is a graduate of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris France. She taught voice at Arriane Mnouchkine's Theatre de Soleil in Paris and has taught at theaters and universities throughout the U.S. She has been an ensemble member with the Sundance Playwriting Laboratory, has developed 6 children's librettos for the Santa Fe Opera's Outreach Program, and taught with the NEA Artist-in-the-Schools program for 8 years. Elizabeth has performed in numerous regional theater productions and several independent films. She recently completed her first full length adult opera, Ciconia Ciconia, and has begun research on a second project. Elizabeth recently started Real Life Rituals, and works with people in transition to create personalized ceremonies for important life events.
Carla Garcia - Production Associate - Carla is a graduate of Northwestern University with a BA in theater and anthropology. Carla started working with Grottesco as an intern in 2004, then came back in 2009 to work on The Richest Deadman Alive! In Santa Fe she has also stage managed A Love of Three Oranges with Umbrella Hat, Relative Good with Teatro Paraguas and Handy Dandy with Santa Fe Performing Arts. Before returning to Santa Fe, Carla stage managed in the Chicagoland area with Writers' Theatre, The Hypocrites, Next Theater, Northlight Theater and Lookingglass Theater.