In support of Electric Eye Ensemble's online auction I've donated a monologue coaching session.  My normal rate is $80, but the starting bid in the auction is $35, so this is a great deal.  The auction ends Monday, November 20th!

Learn more here! https://www.32auctions.com/EarthriseAuction

Other items I'm excited about are: 3" tatoo, Headshots, Studio time with a Sound Engineer, and Tickets to Manhattan Theater Club.

We're showing Earthrise again at the Dixon Place puppetry festival Puppet BloK, and to raise money to pay our collaborators, we're having a party!

Earthrise Party: Saturday, October 14th 7pm
More info and tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/earthrise-party-tickets-38066525001?aff=efbeventtix

Earthrise Performance: Wednesday, October 18th 7:30pm
​More info and tickets: http://dixonplace.org/performances/no-1-chinese-plus-as-fast-or-faster-plus-the-healing-shipment-prologue-plus-earthrise/

On Christmas Eve 1968 the astronauts of Apollo 8 took a picture of the Earth and changed the world. It gave humanity a new perspective on our planet’s fragility and isolation in the universe. But now, 49 years later, the image of Earthrise is unimpressive. Using puppetry, movement and design elements, this piece seeks to reawaken the sense of wonderment and hope that the photo initially inspired.

Ensemble: Leah Ogawa, Evelyn Dumont, Renata Soares
Director: Sarah Plotkin
Puppet Builder and Puppetry Supervisor: Andrew Murdock
Sound Design by: Joshua Langman and C. Swan-Streepy
Movement Supervisor: Julia Corrigan

This past summer was incredibly busy and productive, but it wasn't one in which I got to show a lot of work. Instead my team and I hunkered down to collaboratively revise Welcome to the Doll Den, the devised musical we've been working on for the last year and a half.  It was a unique way of working that was new to all of us, and ended up being a wonderful and thought provoking experience.

Here's how it worked: We got together as a group once a week to work on different aspects of the piece. This meant actors, designers, writers - everybody.  Sometimes there were more people available to meet and sometimes there were less, but always we had a sense of community and a shared goal - we were working together to make this the best script it could possibly be.

We called these our Collaboration Meetings ("Collab Meetings" for short), and they focused on topics such as Memphis Speech Patterns, Civil Rights, Character Development, and of course Music.  They were an opportunity for us to crowd source the intense amount of research and work that had to go into the development of the show, and support one another in making new discoveries. 

By the end of the process we came out with a full-length show complete with 6 new songs, which we presented at a reading in late August.  The collaborative revision process had a huge effect on what we presented and it is a way of creating that I will carry forward with me in all of my future work.  If you'd like to read some blog posts from other people on the team about this unique collaboration process you can check out the Welcome to the Doll Den Blog.

Based on the great feedback we got at the reading we are now entering another round of revisions in preparation for a major production in the spring.  To get updates about that and all of my work with Electric Eye Ensemble, join our mailing list!

Every year Sarah Lawrence College, where I went for undergrad, has an event showcasing the work of their alumni at Dixon Place in NYC.  There's free food, cheap drinks, and a lot of really great work. This year I'll be showing a short segment of a piece I'm working on with Electric Eye Ensemble called Earthrise.  On Christmas Eve 1968 the astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission took a picture of the earth, dubbed "Earthrise,” that changed the world.  This piece is a short segment of a longer play that examines the implications of Earthrise on the environmental movement and the world.

The event is Sunday, May 14th at 7:00pm.  More info here: 
​https://www.facebook.com/events/635546986652781/

Join us on Saturday, February 18th and Sunday, February 19th at the Tank in NYC for our first full-length production of Welcome to the Doll Den!  For tickets and more info: http://electric-eye-ensemble.com/welcome-to-the-doll-den/.

In Memphis, Tennessee we meet the first all-girl radio station, WGAL.  It’s 1955 and the "Jockettes" are making radio for women from their studio, the Doll Den. But as time marches forward the shtick gets old and the women want more.  What happens when an all-women's station is so good men start listening?  Inspired by real events, Welcome to the Doll Den tells a story about masks, identity, and the cost of success.

The Juniper Tree is a devised theater performance incorporating character masks and puppetry, adapted from the Grimm's fairy tale of the same name.  Having worked on it now for almost a year I can say it's a truly beautiful and unique piece of puppet theater. Our next performance will be at Dixon Place as part of the of Puppet BloK festival on Wednesday, September 14th.  We'll also be premiering an all new original score.  Get your tickets here before the sell out!


Puppet design by: Andrew Murdock
Mask design by: Sean Devare
Directed by: Sarah Plotkin

Ensemble:
Jessica Annunziata
Sean Devare
Monica Lerch
Andrew Murdock
Leah Ogawa

Musicians:
Melanie Rose Thomas
Lily Desmond

Tickets are live for Electric Eye Ensemble's work-in-progress production of Welcome to the Doll Den ​at Dixon Place on Tuesday, June 14th!  
http://dixonplace.org/performances/fulton-rib-plus-welcome-to-the-doll-den/

It's being presented with another short piece called Fulton Rib and I think it will be an exciting, eclectic night!

Electric Eye Ensemble goes into rehearsals for our newest production on May 11th!  This is an exciting new show about the first women-run radio station in the country, and their coverage of the Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike in 1968. It's a time in history that has greatly shaped the culture we live in today, and I am so excited to start exploring it.

We have work-in-progress showings on Friday, June 3rd at the Drama League Theatre Center in Tribeca, and on Tuesday, June 14th at Dixon Place.  Tickets coming soon!  Here's more info about the cast and production team on our website: http://electric-eye-ensemble.com/welcome-to-the-doll-den/

This is a great new puppet piece that I'm performing in at La MaMa this month. We're opening on March 24th, and the show runs through April 10th.  Check out the La Mama website for tickets.  The puppets are fun and weird and totally unique, and the projection design is beautiful!  I'm so excited to be working with the amazing artists at Inkfish on this production!

The Digger: A Subterranean Allegory is a satire about the risks of mankind's technological obsession. Part man, part machine, The Digger is a new-world pioneer who strives to find the source of life hidden in an underworld dominated by greed, lust, fraud, and treachery. Facing otherworldly demons and those within, The Digger's search for meaning becomes a sacrificial journey that pushes him to transcend his earthly attachments. But will that sacrifice ultimately include the one he loves?
Inkfish is a collaborative, interdisciplinary puppet theater company that uses historical, literary, biographical and verbatim source material to create theater about contemporary social and political subjects for adult audiences. We believe that theater can not only hold a mirror to the audience allowing them to see their lives in previously unexplored detail, but may also open a window to a new world with its own set of rules.