Sifiso Mabena is an NYC-based, Zimbabwean multidisciplinary theatre maker who is a skilled actor, singer, puppeteer, playwright and deviser. Her work often explores displacement in diasporic communities, history, identity and femininity. Riddle of the Trilobites (Flint Rep; New Victory Theatre), Red Hills (En Garde Arts), Art of Luv Part 6  (Abrons), Molly’s Dream (The Public: Fornes Marathon), Shoot Don’t Talk (Labapalooza, St Ann’s Warehouse), Ocean Filibuster (Abrons). International: Winter’s Tale (National Arts Festival, SA), The Comeback (HIFA, ZW), Love in the Time of Malaria (NAF, South Africa). As a playwright, Sifiso has collaborated with The Royal Court Theatre and the British Council (ZW). Her work has been performed at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Winner HIFADirect 2011), the Intwasa Festival, and the Chimanimani Festival. More recently Sifiso co-directed The Othello Project for Shake on the Lake. www.fisopearlmabena.com IG: @fisopearl

Marcella Murray (Director & Co-Maker; she/her) is an NYC-based theater artist from Augusta, Georgia. She is a playwright, performer, and puppeteer. Her work is inspired by the ways in which people tend to segregate and reconnect. Her work tends to focus on themes of identity within a community and forward momentum in the face of trauma.  Performances include Sonntags wird gelogen Or We Only Lie on Sundays (Leonie Bell/The Brick), The Slow Room (Annie Dorsen/Performance Space NY), New Mony (Maria Camia/Dixon Place), and Shoot Don’t Talk (Andrew Murdock/St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab). Along with David Neumann, she co-created  Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Obie Special Citation) which opened at Abrons Arts Center(co-produced by Chocolate Factory) in January 2020 and the digital piece Primer for an Impossible Conversation at MCA Chicago in 2021. Marcella is currently 1 of 4 curators of the Object Movement Puppetry Residency and is a 2022 Resident Artist at La MaMa. 

Julliette Holliday (Co-Maker & Performer; she/her) is an NYC-based multi-hyphenate artist, writer, composer, actor, dancer, deviser, director, and producer. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she is the former artistic programming associate for the New Victory Theater and the composing fellow for the 2021 NYC workshop of Ari Afsar and Lauren Gunderson’s new musical We Won’t Sleep. Julliette’s work explores theater-making methodologies that dig into the forgotten pieces of Black history and the tangible magic of Black futures. Eavesdropping on things said in the street, journaling about conversations between friends, highlighting historical texts, and collaging with fading photographs, Julliette’s artistic process is a paper-mache puzzle. Often inspired by the mundane and its unassuming enchantment, she tends to intersect her writing with movement to expose the depths of life’s everyday experiences. She is currently devising a new movement piece, Pretty please, I’m sorry, with her collaborator Caroline Burkhart. Julliette is a Miranda Family Fellowship recipient. 

John Wade (Stage Manager) John Wade is a reader and writer critically thinking about decolonization, fashion, architecture and spirituality.

Glenn Potter-Takata (Projections; he/him) is a dance and multimedia performance artist originally from Los Angeles. His practice centers a Japanese diasporic experience, and he constructs performances around concepts related to bifurcation, duality, and Buddhist ideas of embodiment. Glenn is a current Movement Research artist-in-residence and a 2022 Bronx Dance Award recipient. He has developed work through residencies at Gibney Dance Center, Amanda + James, and Lehman College/CUNY Dance Initiative, and has presented work at WestFest, Triskelion Arts, HERE Arts, Dixon Place, Arts On Site, Abrons Art Center, and with Pioneers Go East. Glenn received his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied multimedia performance under Tei Blow.

Giovanni DeVal (Sound Design; gio) is a hybrid artist who sound designs, performers, and auteurs’ narrative work for the theatre. Previous sound designs include: Harmless, created by Dan Hurlin, In the Woods Where the Men Work by Sarah Finn, and Food for the Gods by Nehprii Amenii at La MaMa’s Puppet Festival.  In addition to his sonic work, gio is a multi-disciplined performer who improvises, acts, and models. He was featured in Macy’s Easter Campaign,  just wrapped on a made-for-tv film cast by Liz Lewis Casting Partners, where he was the romantic male lead, and gio will also be featured in upcoming commercial work cast by Heery Loftus Casting. gio’s narrative work includes: “Passion Fruit,” which was exhibited at the Tank’s Crimson and Clover Festival, and he’s currently devising a solo piece, Performance Anxiety, directed by Sifiso Mabena. gio possesses an MFA in theatre and deeply enjoys time with his canine companion, Kobe. 

Karen Loewy Movilla (Props Design; she/her) is a Colombian artist based in New York City. She converges digital forms with crafted objects, like a giant fabric Uterus, to tackle myths and untruths placed on femininity, such as the concept of girlhood, dismissal of  pain, and  gender as biological. Her work celebrates hyper femme aesthetics, female and trans biology, and maligned attributes of “womanhood”.  Her pieces use digital media, embodiment, spoken word, and puppetry to confront academic texts,  inherent biases, and oppressive systems. Her work has been seen in film, commercials and theater such as Blanche & Stella, costume designing for Meat Suit and prop design for Sunflower. As well as assisting Jian Jung with Nosebleed and Bodies They Ritual.  She will be presenting Tia Talk at  Ars Nova’s AntFest. She is a 2021 MFA graduate at Sarah Lawrence College. Find more on https://www.karenloewymovilla.com/