Julia Giard Handschuh

Julia Giard Handschuh

juliashoe@gmail.com

www.juliashoe.com

Northampton, MA

C3

http://www.commonwealthcenter.org/

Performer, Dancer, Director, Artist

I am interested in performance for its immediacy and the opportunity it affords me to manipulate and explore notions of time, subtlety and intimacy. I want to engage people in an experience that asks us to pause, look closer, and consider the world around us. I want to illuminate or amplify the particularities of a given moment, object, or process. These concerns are reflected in the detail, repetition, collecting and documenting that inform my two and three-dimensional work.

Through performance I am able to frame particular aspects of life and fuel my art making process. I use durational performance scores to structure work like 'morning drawings' or 'of the apples I eat' in which drawings or seeds mark the passing of time. These objects are accumulated in lieu of moments and actions in my life; they signify the choice to apply value and meaning to otherwise small things. Those things that we may not ordinarily make space for.

I currently reside in Northampton, Massachusetts where I dance, study cello, am a member of the artist collective Projéct, work on outreach and development for ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art and am Co-Director of Commonwealth Center for Change.

Tom McCabe

Tom McCabe

info@TomMcCabe.com

http://www.tommccabe.com/index.html

Holyoke, MA

PaintBox Theatre

Director, Storyteller, Inspirational Speaker

For more than 25 years Tom McCabe has been creating programs to inspire children to read and write. More than a million people throughout the US and abroad have shared in his presentations. Along with his work with children, Tom has become a renowned teacher of teachers, a conference speaker, and an inspired performer for adults. Tom is also the Artistic Director and founder of PaintBox Theater.



Paint Box Theatre is a theatre of improvisation and imagination for the whole family. Audiences young, old and in between have called it unique, wild, zany and even educational. Audiences members range in age from three on up to 11, plus parents, seniors and adults who love IMPROV. Everyone joins in on the singing and audience participation. Parents are often heard to say, "I think I liked it better than the kids."


Tom McCabe, begins with a classic tale known to one and all and adapts it, modernizes it and adds twits. Each show features just three actors. In order to tell the tale, the actors work as a team, playing multiple roles, creating props and costumes, solving problems and drafting people out of the audience to help. Educationally speaking, every production models the joys and challenges of unstructured play.


The name Paint Box alludes to the theatre’s emphasis on children’s art. Above the stage we hang a 9’ by 12’ projection screen. Prior to the entrance each character and/or as we move to a new locale, a painting of the character or the location, painted by a local child artist, is projected onto the screen. Each production features more than 20 original art works from children ranging in age from 3 – 14. The screen is also used to enhance literacy. Through PowerPoint, we project words, phrases, math word problems, and riddles – all related to the production. In order, to assure that even our youngest audience members are able to follow along, the audience (Yes, even the dads) has to read the projected words out loud.

Jane Hanson

Jane Hanson

Jane Hanson Productions

Holyoke, MA





jane@proficientmusician.com

Singer, Musical Director/Producer, Instructor, Conductor

Jane Hanson, Proficient Musician founder and director, holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Music Education and a minor in Piano Accompaniment from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a Master of Music Degree in Choral Conducting from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). While at CCM, Ms. Hanson was the conductor in residence and a vocalist at the Music '97 and Music '98 international composition festivals, where she collaborated with and performed premiers of works by composers Augusta Read-Thomas, Benedict Weisser, Ruben Salazar, and others. She was also featured in the CCM Grandin Festival, a solo voice festival devoted to vocal literature with instrumental accompaniment (vocal chamber music).

From 1999-2001 Ms. Hanson served on the faculty of the UMass Amherst music department where she taught conducting and aural skills. In 2001 she left UMass and founded The Proficient Musician, a company that provides skills-based professional development opportunities to music educators and performers. Currently, Ms. Hanson has flourishing voice studios at the Northampton Community Music Center, the Williston Northampton School, and through her company. She also serves as music director of the Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton (P.A.C.E.). Ms. Hanson directs two summer programs for teens: the P.A.C.E. Summer Musical Theater Intensive and the Proficient Musician Summer Vocal Music Academy, as well as a solo vocal performance class for teens during the school year. In 2004, she was appointed music director of the Keene Chorale, an eighty-voice community choir in Keene, New Hampshire.

In the fall of 2006, Ms. Hanson conducted and music directed the new opera "The Captivation of Eunice Williams" at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She also served as assistant conductor and chorus master for Commonwealth Opera's production of "La Boheme."

Ms. Hanson studied voice and vocal pedagogy for thirteen years with the world-renowned (late) Dr. Oren Brown. Ms. Hanson has been a featured soloist with The Keene Chorale, Commonwealth Opera, The Tuesday Morning Music Club of Springfield, the Chamber Music Series at Wistariahurst Museum, as well as through her own concert series.

Jane Hanson, Performing Artist, is a captivating mezzo-soprano soloist, renowned conductor, director and producer. With a voice of incredible depth, insight and pathos, her solo recitals and concerts are known to evoke powerful emotions of laughter to tears from the audience. She is right at home in a wide variety of genres, but specializes in premiering contemporary repertoire and helping composers bring their new work to life. Ms. Hanson's expert musicianship and technique as a conductor and director enable her to provide strong, positive leadership for both singers and instrumentalists, inviting and encouraging each to perform at a high level of excellence to achieve critical success. As a musical director and producer, Ms. Hanson encourages her singers with fun and fury!

Stacy Ruttenberg

Stacy Ruttenberg

Norwalk, CT

sruttenberg@soltheatercompany.com

Actor, Director, Producer

Stacy Ruttenberg has been creating, directing, producing, and acting in her own projects since she was a little girl. She has performed on the stage at Hampshire College, Smith College, UMASS Amherst, and on screen for EJA Productions, Greenwich Dreamtime Productions, Visit Films, and the Infinite Monkey Project. She has worked behind the scenes, directing, stage managing, and producing shows for many theaters, including Theatre Genesius and The Eastbound Theater. Ms Ruttenberg spent five years in an educational environment, working individually with students exhibiting learning difficulties, teaching reading and comprehension. It was there that she first dreamt up Slant of Light’s education program, striving to create another vehicle for students to express themselves. Her next move was to Manhattan, interning at Women’s Expressive Theater, where she not only garnered experience in the non-profit sector, but in her distaste for the “biz of the biz” realm of New York City, fully realized her mission for Slant of Light, to create a safe place where artists can create without catering to the commercial appeal of the masses. Ms Ruttenberg holds a BA in theater and psychology from Smith College, in Northampton, MA.

Company: Slant of Light Theater Company
www.soltheatercompany.com

Jeffrey Stingerstein

Jeffrey Stingerstein

Deerfield, MA

Jeffrey.Stingerstein@gmail.com

Actor, Director, Playwrite

Jeff is a Theatre Artist originally from Western New York. He received his associates in theatre from Niagara County Community College. There he acted in several plays, including Playboy of the Western World, Twelve Angry Jurors, and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. It was at NCCC that he wrote and directed his first play, Edgar. A couple years later NCCC produced his second play, Afterwords. Jeff returned to college later, receiving his BFA in Dramatic Writing from Purchase College in 2006. At Purchase he acted in Beyond Therapy, The Shape of Things, and Something Lost (Somewhere, Somehow, Along the Way), this last play being one that he also co-wrote and co-directed. In 2007-2008 Jeff was an apprentice at Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem, PA. There he acted in Tales from the Middle East and Christmas City Follies. He also wrote and directed a short play, Shadows, and scenes for Christmas City Follies. That spring he stage managed Another River Flows. Jeff is very interested in being involved in Pioneer Valley theatre. He wants to act, direct, write, stage manage, work as crew, ANYTHING that is in theatre. Starting in the Fall of 2009, he will be an MFA Playwriting student at Smith College. An interesting fact about Jeff: his last name, Stingerstein, is a combination of his maiden name, Stein, and his wife's maiden name, Stinger. They are the only Stingersteins in the world. That's what love will do for ya.

Emmy Bean

Emmy Bean
beansome@gmail.com

Montague, MA

Singer, Puppeteer, Artist

After studying music, religion, and theater at Vassar College, I went on to study and work with Sandglass Theater, LaMaMa ETC, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. In 2005 I performed with the Cosmic Bicycle Theater in "Objete", a children's show created for the ASSITEJ International Festival in Montreal. I have performed my original puppet play "war bride" in Providence, Vermont, New York City and Quebec. Other performance work includes: "The Long Christmas Ride Home" at Studio Theater in Washington DC; "The Snow Queen" at Sandglass Theater in Putney, VT; "Flood" and "Stiles Under Sky" with Company of Strangers. I have also appeared in Amanda Maddock's puppet play "Mrs. Wright's Escape" and co-created the "Three Piggy Opera" at Links Hall in Chicago (with Barbara Whitney and Merrill Garbus). In 2008, I worked as an Associate Curator with Great Small Works atthe Great Small Works 8th International Toy Theater Festival in New York City.

Current work includes:

"Mary and Sarah and You and Me: A Series of Tiny Spectacles".
It's a collaboration with Philadelphia filmmaker and artist Naima Lowe.

Other projects on the table:

"The Man Without a Shadow", a shadow puppet show with digital animation by Jacob Richman.

"The Story of E", a children's adventure story in episodes, due to play this fall in our beautiful old dairy barn in Montague, MA.

The Barn at 8 Main

I am in the process of building and maintaining a live/work space in the old dairy barn. I want this space to be useful and available to artists, thinkers, builders, and growers. I want this space to be a community asset and a gathering place. I also want to invite puppeteers and performers looking for space to workshop and perform new work to check out our barn in Montague, MA. I live here with my friends Rachel and Tom. We're 20 minutes north of Northampton/Amherst in the Pioneer Valley, and we're always looking to bring people together and enjoy creating new performances and events for this thriving rural community.

Tamar Westphal

Tamar Westphal
ladieswholunch1970@gmail.com

South Hadley, MA
Actor, Singer, Dancer

Tamar Westphal can’t remember a time when she didn’t love the performing arts. She is an actress, singer, and dancer (ballet, hip-hop, jazz, modern, musical theatre dance, ballroom, and tap) whose main interests are serious drama, classical acting, and musical theatre. Although she is originally from Boston, she has lived and performed in England, and now calls Evanston, IL (just outside of Chicago) home. She is currently a student at Mount Holyoke College, where she plans on majoring in theatre, with a focus on acting, vocal performance, and dance. She trained for three years at The Entertainment Project in Chicago in the Fast Track Program and recently studied at the British American Drama Academy’s Midsummer Conservatory Program in Oxford, England (during the summer of 2008). She has performed in various choral groups and has competed at the International Dance Challenge and at the American Dance Competition as a member of The Entertainment Project’s senior dance team, Vega.

In addition to her performance experience, Tamar has worked as a counselor, assistant teacher, and office assistant at a musical theatre summer camp in Chicago. She has back-stage and technical theatre experience—particularly in make-up, costume design, and lighting—and has directed and assistant directed productions such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Big River, as well as original work. In her free time, she writes poetry and is involved in political activism groups.

Douglass Zhang

Douglass Zhang
dzhang07@yahoo.com

Amherst, MA
Actor/Poet/Disciple of the Arts

Doug is a citizen of the world, and a lover of the stage. He received hisBachelor's Degree in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst andgraduated Magna Cum Laude. He is an actor, an artist, a poet, an athlete, anda beginning dancer. Expression is the key to his existence. He never had anyprofessional training. However he has stayed close to the stage throughout hisyears of personal struggle with identity. The following is an excerpt from hisautobiography:

"...yet despite the darkness there was always a place that provided a sourceof surreal warmth and comfort—the stage.

I like to sneak into an empty theater at night from time to time, stand up onthe dark stage, look into the eyes of ghosts and demons, and just freestyle. Idon't know the reason, but it is a rush. I don't have to care about mytechniques. I don't have to watch my language. I don't have to enunciate everysyllable like a properly-trained British broadcaster. I don't have tobe 'compelling'. My monologues don't have to be structured. I don't have toproject, because the ghosts are not as physiologically-challenged as ushumans. They hear everything, even the thoughts in my mind. I don't have tocare about criticisms and be self-conscious, because I know they appreciate mefor just being with them, and because in my heart I am content. I do it forthe love of it, and nothing more.

It seems that all odds are against me from becoming involved in theperformance arts—my lack of actual experience and training, the disapproval ofmy parents, the repetitive rejections, the constant circumstantial conflictsthat hinder me from participating in productions, and the oppressingstereotypes for Asian males in the entertainment business. It feels almost as if God is saying, 'Don't even think about it.' It is my forbidden love."

Toby Bercovici

Toby Bercovici
tobyvera@hotmail.com

Northampton, MA
Director

Toby Bercovici considers herself a radical deconstructionist theatre director, one who lovingly rips apart classical texts and stitches them back together, full of music, dance, and elements of the circus and the grotesque. Movement is of primary importance in her pieces, as is the continual casting of females in male roles.

Bercovici graduated from Smith College in 2006, where she was awarded the Samuel A. Eliot, Jr./Julia Heflin Award for Distinguished Directing. While there, she directed the darkly comedic "A Feast At Countess Kotlubay's," as well as her own adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll House." She has spent the past two years living and working in New York City. She joyfully assistant directed "Imminence," a piece created by The Talking Band and performed at La Mama, E.T.C.; and "Old Comedy from Aristophanes' Frogs," a Target Margin show performed at Classic Stage Company. She also directed two one acts as part of The Looking Glass Theatre Writer/Director Forum, "Cardboard Box" and "Intimate Things," both of which received festival awards.

Bercovici is currently at-work on a film, tentatively titled "Playing Double: Deconstructing (Cross-)Gendered Performance." In the Fall, she will begin the MFA Directing program at UMass Amherst. There, she hopes to direct a Dadaist "The Winter's Tale."

Linda McInerney

Linda McInerney
lmciner@gmail.com
www.olddeerfieldproductions.org

Deerfield
Director, Producer, Creator


Old Deerfield Productions was created in 1986 to offer theatrical productions in the village of Old Deerfield, Massachusetts. Through a series of collaborations with museums, Deerfield Academy, The University of Massachusetts and the Shea Theatre in Turners Falls, MA a small theatre company gradually formed. Old Deerfield Productions is now a regional and international theatre company that offers six or more productions a year throughout the Pioneer Valley and beyond with a mailing list of 4600 and growing.

Old Deerfield Productions is a community based, community engaged performing arts organization. By deepening community through offering work that is chosen and created to engage and connect those who participate and attend, Old Deerfield Productions hopes to be an engine of the burgeoning creative economy and a connector for the creative human capital of our region, while working intergenerationally on all levels. The nature of the organization is connective in that it brings together artists of many disciplines and audiences of many demographics who become part of the wider creative community. Artistic Director, Linda McInerney, has lived and worked in the Pioneer Valley for 25 years, was educated at Middlebury College, The University of Paris, National Shakespeare Company Conservatory and the UMASS Graduate Department of Theatre. The company includes actors, singers, musicians, composers, designers and technicians of all ages who are part of our community.

ODP creates concentric circles of community involvement. At the center of that involvement are the creators who are brought together to invent or bring to life a theatrical piece that resonates for our place and time. Many of these collaborators are young artists at the beginning of their careers, thus mentoring their work is part of the process. With each work, new collaborators are brought to the fold so the creative family expands. The creative economy is enhanced, as these creators add to their income through the work. The next layer of involvement is through our audiences. An increasing number of theatre goers have become faithful followers of our work and express fulfillment and connection to us and to one another, as well as to a wider experience through attending our productions. And further, when we take our original work to international venues, that same experience is offered to a new audience while stories are told that express our interconnected nature and we all learn about the richness of our differences and the resonance of our sameness.

Sheryl Stoodley

Sheryl Stoodley
rwdoty@rcn.com

Northampton
Director

Sheryl Stoodley is Co-founder and Artistic Director of Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble, Northampton,MA.
(A member of the Network for Ensemble Theaters, USA.) Since1992 Ms. Stoodley has performed, taught and directed with regional and academic theatres throughout New England for the past 30 years. She leads the ensemble physical training focused in theatre as an art form, and has directed over 20 productions with Serious Play! including the premiere productions of Alice Tuan’s "Coastline" and Lenelle Moise's "Matermorphosis". Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble is committed to total physical expressiveness on stage.Other productions include:"What’s Left is Not Right: Marat/Sade’" with new music by Elizabeth Swados; "Becoming Antigone,"developed in collaboration with the spoken word ensemble Universes; and, "Hamlet– Asalto a la Inocencia," a reinterpretation with new text by Migdalia Cruz. "Coastline" toured to New York City and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland for a month-long run. "Marat/Sade" toured to New York City and London. "Hamlet" toured to the 5th International Women Playwrights' Festival in Athens, Greece, where Stoodley taught ensemble acting and the physical theatre-making process with members of the Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble. Serious Play! has received funding from the NEA, the Ford Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as other support and is a member of (NET) the Network of Ensemble Theatres, USA.

Ms. Stoodley holds an M.A. in the History of Theatre and Dramatic Literature from Smith College, and is a faculty member in the Theatre Dept. at Holyoke Community College. She has studied with Anne Bogart and Will Bond and the SITI Company; Eric Hill at the Suzuki Theatre Training Workshop, StageWest; Kristin Linklater and the Company of Women, and Jerzy Grotowski and the Polish Theatre Lab and at StageOne Theatre Lab inBoaton. Sheryl received the Jane Ahfeld Award for Dynamic Impact in the Arts from the Northampton Arts Council in 1999. She has directed all four of the presentations of "Celebrate the Children of Resistance" for the Rosenberg Fund for Children in Northampton, Berkeley, NYC and most recently at the John Hancock Center, Boston with Eve Ensler and David Strathairn.

Stoodley has performed and directed with Playwrights Horizons NYC, StageWest, Boston's Women in Theatre Festival, City Center NY, Smith College, UMass and Historic Deerfield. She was a faculty member of The Drama Studio in Springfield for nine years and Theatre Artist-In-Residence with the YouthReach Project of StageWest in Springfield from 1995 to '97. For five years she directed the TEAM Acting Program for young adults through the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts. In 1986 while studying at Smith, she directed a program of theatre workshops with incarcerated women, The "In Her Own Name" project, published two books of the inmates' writings, and developed and produced an original play based on their writings, Ain't No Man Dragged That Moon Down Yet. She has served as a guest lecturer and taught workshops at Springfield College, Westfield State College and UMass. She was formerly a member of the artist roster of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, providing teacher training and residencies in Massachusetts high schools. In 2008-09, through the Mass Cultural Council Serious Play! will conduct residencies in Commerce High School Springfield, Greenfield High School and Northampton High School. Fall training with the Intern Program and Core Ensemble will culminated with an Intern Production in Spring 2009.The premiere production of a new script "Milosevic at the Hague," written by UMass professor Milan Dragicevich and directed by Stoodley and produced by Serious Play! will open in Northampton in February 2009 at the new APE Artspace-WINDOW in downtown Northampton.

Paul de Vries

Paul de Vries
plddevries@gmail.com

Amherst
Actor/Singer/Juggler

Paul de Vries grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. He got his start acting in the Hampshire Shakespeare Company's workshops for children. He has since gone on to act in many musicals and Shakespearean shows. In January 2007, he played Gaston in the Amherst Leisure Services Community Theater's production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Most recently, he played Claudio in Measure for Measure, performed at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies. This summer, he will be portraying Tybalt in the Hampshire Shakespeare Company's production of Romeo & Juliet. He is also teaching himself the art of web design and has started his own website: http://www.pdev.us/

Jodi Leigh Allen

Jodi Leigh Allen
jodia@dance.umass.edu

Amherst
Dancer/Choreographer

Jodi Leigh Allen was born and raised in Douglas, Massachusetts. She received her B.F.A. in Dance Performance from Shenandoah University in Virginia and her M.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Ms. Allen has performed in Julie Taymor’s Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) as well as Romeo et Juliette at The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. In 2006, she was a featured dancer in several revue shows at The Occidental Grand Resort in Aruba. Most recently, Ms. Allen spent six months dancing aboard the Regent Seven Seas Voyager sailing throughout the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. She has been a member of Malashock Dance and Company in California, and was privileged to study and perform the tango with actor Robert Duvall. Her choreography has been performed at The American College Dance Festival's National Gala at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. as well as other venues both nationally and internationally. She is former Director of Dance for The Pomfret School in Connecticut. In 2008, Ms. Allen joined the dance faculty at The University of Massachusetts Amherst, returned to teach jazz at the Harvard University Dance Program, is currently teaching and choreographing at Deerfield Academy, and is a new company member of Guidance, Inc. in Groton, Massachusetts.

Eve Marie Mugar

Eve Marie Mugar
emugar@email.smith.edu

Northampton
Actor

Eve Marie Mugar has been acting since the age of 7, and hopes that theatre will forever remain a central part of her life. Although theatre is now at the forefront of her interests, piano, foreign languages, and linguistics have taken precedence in the past. Eve believes her love of language to be strongly connected to her passion for acting. She would also like to pursue directing in the future. Eve was recently the recipient of a Spotlight on the Arts award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Lexington Green at the Players Ring in Portsmouth, NH.

This summer (2008) Eve will be attending the British American Drama Academy's Midsummer in Oxford program where she will be training in Oxford, UK with the likes of Fiona Shaw, Jeremy Irons, and Alan Rickman. Eve is currently a student at Smith College where she is studying Theatre and Linguistics.

Darren Harned

Darren Harned

djh04@hampshire.edu

South Amherst

Playwrite/Writer

Darren is a writer, primarily of plays. Some of his work has received a bit of attention and, to be perfectly honest about it, Darren admits that having that attention was quite nice when it happened and that he wouldn't mind getting some more. He is too young to know what sort of stories he prefers to write, really, or what the hallmarks of his style are. Thematically, he is drawn toMURDER and LIES and DECEIT and the PAIN OF EXISTENCE, though he can also docomedy or children's entertainment if the mood strikes him and the pay is right. Interestingly, when Darren writes he does so from within the confines of a hermetically sealed bubble located in his basement. It is made out of old shopping bags. But lately Darren has been feeling like working in this shopping bag bubble is perhaps not the best thing for him, creatively speaking, and so he wants to branch out and possibly even go so far as to talk to other people. He thinks that maybe...and this is a big maybe...he could collaborate. But hedoesn't know yet. He's testing the waters. And that is why he's posting here today.

Sarah Danielle Fingerman

Sarah Danielle Fingerman

sfingerm@student.umass.edu

Amherst

Actor/Director/Producer/

Choreographer

Sarah would live in a theater if she was given the opportunity. While Sarah's experience in performing arts began through ballet and modern dance, her passion is currently very focused on directing and producing. Sarah is the current play producer for the UMASS Theater Guild's 2008-2009 season. Sarah most recently directed UMTG's production of Stop Kiss by Diana Son. Other directing credits include Black Comedy by Peter Schaffer and Soap Opera by David Ives.

Patrick Walsh

Patrick Walsh
atticus00@hotmail.com

Amherst
Director/Actor

Patrick most recently directed Closer for the Second Stage series of the UMASS Theatre Department. Other directing/ADing credits include The Pillowman, Caucasian Chalk Circle, and The ReOrient Festival. He also recently acted in A Devil Inside for the Second Stage Series and for the Theater Guild's production of Stop Kiss.

Troy David Mercier

Troy David Mercier
troy@troydavidmercier.com

Amherst

Actor/Director/
Producer

Troy David Mercier obtained his Bachelors Degree, Summa Cum Laude, with degrees in Theater and Honors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst 2006. His professional training includes physical theater work with Double Edge Theatre, SITI Company, Gardzienice Theatre of Poland, Serious Play Ensemble, and Admiration Theatre Ensemble. He has worked professionally as movement director on several regional projects in the New England Pioneer Valley, most recently "Ambush on T Street" with Court Dorsey, Al Miller, and John Sheldon, and "Voices In Conflict" with Keith Langsdale through New Century Theater.

His most recent performance credits include:

The Three Musketeers, PaintBox Theatre, Theatre 14, Northampton MA
A Number, Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre, Nothampton, MA;
Board of Review, Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre, Nothampton, MA;
Mother Goose, PaintBox Theatre, Theatre 14, Northampton MA, Eric Carle Museum, Amherst, MA;
Milosevic at the Hague, The Serious Play! Ensemble, (The JoakimInterFest) Kragujevac, Serbia;
Aladdin, PaintBox Theatre, The Shea Theater, Turners Falls, MA;
Tortoise and the Hare, PaintBox Theatre, The Shea Theater, Turners Falls, MA;
A Christmas Carol 08, 09 Deerfield Productions, Acadamy of Music, Northampton, MA;
The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Curtain Theater, Amherst, MA;
Aladdin, PaintBox Theatre, Theater 14, Northampton, MA;
Well by Lisa Kron, New Century Theatre, Theater 14, Northamption, MA;
Aesop's Fables, PaintBox Theatre, Paradise City Fairgrounds, Northampton, MA;
Little Red Riding Hood, PaintBox Theatre, Regent Theater, Arlington, MA;
The Gateway Theater Project, Chester Theatre Company, Gateway School, Huntington, MA;
Ephemera by Darren Harned, Samuel French Festival, New York;
Parang Sabil with Kinding Sindaw, Asian American Theater Festival, New York;
Oh Yes I Will! by Deb Margolin, KO Festival, Amherst, MA;
Helmet by Douglas Maxwell, Fringe Festival, New York;
The Three Musketeers, Double Edge Theater, Ashfield, MA.

My passion and strength is working to create original theatre pieces in collaboration with other artists. Physical theater training is the single most important aspect in my development as an artist in unlocking my creative potential and finding emotional depth. It is important to me to remember that if we don’t help each other, no one will; that we share the same human condition and are all destined to the same end; that along this shared journey, we have a responsibility to the human spirit to lift each other from the depths of fear and sorrow.

Thus through my work I wish to lift the human spirit, to remind the performer and the viewer that even in the depths of dark days there is beauty, magic, joy, and love, always love.

Past original productions include:

From the Attic, 08
The Shel Silverstein Project, 08
Wake of Dreams, 07
What's In Between, 06

Nafis Azad

Nafis Azad
nazad@student.umass.edu

Amherst
Photographer

Nafis is currently photographing bands, actors, models, and artists alike. His work alone is used to promote The Sankofa Dance Project of UMASS Outreach: Creative Economy; and his images have graced the pages of UMASS Magazine many times capturing theatrical, dance, and landscape images. His work can be viewed at the following sites:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maneeacc/

http://www.maneeacc.blogspot.com/

http://www.nafisazad.com/