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Justine has produced, developed and performed in the company’s works, I Go Grootvlei (The Topsy Center, South Africa), CLOWNS (The Public Theater/NY International Clown Theatre Festival) and Ridiculosity (Grahamstown National Arts Festival). Justine spent three seasons as a company member with The Shakespeare Theater of NJ/NJSF; Two years touring the Middle East and Europe with the physical theatre company, Tmu-Na Theater of Israel, co-creating Big Life and Child's Country. She has also worked with The International WOW Company and The Labyrinth Theater Company. Other shows include The Illusion (Chautauqua Theatre Company), The Phoenecian Women (Synapse/The Ohio Theater), Frankenstein (LaMama), and Beyond the Horizon (The Brick), as well as readings with Young Playwrights, the Rattlestick, Chautauqua and others. Justine devises, writes and performs in her original work, namely, her solo show, Falfurious (The Culture Project), Dogs Can Fly (The Irish Repertory Theater) and the short film, The Mechanism (directed by Evan Cabnet). She sings with the Balkan/Appalachian choir, Dragana, playing at Joe's Pub, The Living Room and other NY venues. Justine received her BA in Theater from Brown University and completed her conservatory training at The Actors Center. She has trained in Viewpoints with Anne Bogart and The SITI Company and in clown/bouffon with Philippe Gaulier and Christopher Bayes.
Co-Artistic Director of The Glass Contraption since Fall 2005, she has produced, developed and performed in Clowns (The Public Theater/NY International Clown Theatre Festival) and Ridiculosity (Grahamstown National Arts Festival) with The Glass Contraption. As both performer and writer, her solo works have been featured in the NY Solo Play Lab, the Estrogenius Festival at MTS, and in Chicago's Annual Single File Solo Performance Festival, among others. She has worked with the Moonwork Theatre Company and Women's Expressive Theater, and her work is also featured in various national network commercials, voiceovers and on the Chris Rock Show. She is a teacher of Creative Writing workshops designed to access and open a writer's unique voice, and has been a writer/actor/director/mentor with the 52nd Street Project since 1999. In 2005, she was the Education Specialist and a producer of Women's Expressive Theater's RiskTakers Film Series, helping to create both structure and content for the program's inaugural season. She is also a founder of In the Company of Women, an organization which gathers women together for purposeful conversations that explore topics relevant to a woman's experience of being human. She has studied physical comedy and clown, mask and movement, with Master teachers Christopher Bayes, Philippe Gaulier, Gregor Paslawsky, Jane Nichols, Richard Crawford, Kenny Raskin, Felix Ivanov and Per Brahe. She is also a published poet and a graduate of Hofstra University with degrees in Theatre and Creative Writing.
Chris began his theater career with Theatre de la Jeune Lune working for five years as an actor, director, composer, designer and artistic associate. In 1989, he joined the acting company of the Guthrie Theater appearing in over twenty productions. He has directed Red Noses by Peter Barnes, Four by Feydeau, The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Moliere One Acts, and The Love of Three Oranges by Carlo Gozzi at the Juilliard School; The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, The New Place by Carlo Goldoni, We Won't Pay... by Dario Fo, and his new adaptation of Molière's The Reluctant Doctor of Love for New York University's Graduate Acting Program; The Raven by Carlo Gozzi at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing; Ubu Roi at both NYU's Experimental Theater Wing and Fordham University; and Timeslips at HERE. Additionally, he has staged several original works including Wreckage at P.S. 122, The Big Day (a clown show) and The Fiasco Bro. Circus at the Juilliard School, Zibaldoné at HERE and the Present Company Theatorium, The Fools/Los Locos Del Pueblo at Touchstone Theater, and Necromance, A Night of Conjuration at Dixon Place. Outside New York, directing credits include shows at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, the Court Theater in Chicago and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and Yale Repertory Theater. Chris has received numerous awards and grants including a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant, a General Mills Foundation Artist Assistance Grant, and both a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship Grant and a Career Opportunity Grant. He was a 1999/2000 Fox Fellow. He has served on the faculty of the Juilliard Drama School, the Actor's Center (founding faculty and master teacher of physical comedy/clown), the Academy of Classical Acting at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., NYU's Graduate Acting Program and Tisch School of the Arts and Brown University/Trinity Repertory's Theater Consortium. He is currently the Head of Movement at the Yale School of Drama.
Liam's off-broadway credits include: Trouble in Paradise (Hourglass Group); Aunt Dan and Lemon (The New Group); Don Juan (TFANA); Two Noble Kinsman (The Public Theater); Street Order (EST); Juno and the Paycock (The Roundabout Theater). Regional: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (CTG @ the Kirk Douglas); The Comedy of Errors, The Winter's Tale, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Pericles (The Old Globe); Moving Picture (Williamstown); The Lady From the Sea (The Intiman). Television: Rescue Me; Boston Legal; Late Night with Conan O'Brien; Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order. Film: The Royal Tenenbaums. Liam received his MFA from NYU's Graduate Acting Program. While at NYU, he appeared in Zibaldone, directed by Christopher Bayes and featuring the music of Aaron Halva and Chris Curtis.
Katie has created and performed numerous sound scores for theatre and dance companies and international festivals throughout the U.S. and Eastern and Western Europe, working collaboratively with theatre and film directors, choreographers, and musicians. She has worked regularly for Ripe Time, Target Margin, Tap Fusion, and Pilgrim Theatre Performance Research Collaborative as well as Classic Stage Company, P.S. 122, SoHo Rep, The Culture Project, LaMaMa, Dance New Amsterdam, The Duke at 42nd, Hudson Guild Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE, DTW, Ohio Theatre, Danspace, WAX, Clark Studio Theatre at Lincoln Center, The Jose Qunitero Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, and others. Music direction, sound design and original scores for: Serendib (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Matermorphosis (Serious Play Theatre Ensemble); Susan Lori Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays (Hourglass Productions/Public Theatre); Machinal (SUNY Brockport); Redevelopment (Vaclav Havel Festival, NYC); Death in Vacant Lot (South Wing Theatre Company); The Rivals (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival); Trouble in Paradise (Hourglass Productions); Faust (Target Margin Theatre); Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights (University of Rochester International Theatre Program); Innocents, The Secret of Steep Ravines, The Holy Mother of Hadley, NY, The Trojan Women (RipeTime); The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (Butane Group); Ondine (Deep Water Prod.); A Girl Joan (Erica Berg – The Culture Project); Henry VI (Judith Shakespeare Co.); Caucasian Chalk Circle (NYU); Tibetan Book of the Dead, Letters From Sarajevo (Pilgrim Theatre); Tap Fusion’s Seven Blessings (Duke at 42nd), and others. Internationally, Katie has performed at the Ohrid Summer Festival in Macedonia, Trn Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the Malta Festival in Poznan, Poland. She has toured twice with chashama’s international program where she co-conducted voice, movement, and clowning workshops with young people from Media Artes in Macedonia, the Up-Beat Hvar Music Festival in Croatia and Trn Fest in Slovenia. Artist residencies and grants include The Watermill Arts Center, Music/Omi, Makor Artist in Residency, chashama AREA Space Grant, The Composer Librettist Studio at New Dramatists.
Rima loves the interaction between music, theater, dance and image. She has created and performed original music for Ondine, at Soho Rep (2004), The Seagull at Second Stage with White Heron Theater Company (2004), the puppet play Savage Nursery, at HERE directed by Erin Orr (2004), Mean Solar Day with the Nimbus Theater Ensemble (2002), and The Story of Rats with Wax Factory (2001). A consistent collaborator with The Collapsible Giraffe, she created original scores for Witch Mountain, Black Tarantula, Damfino and Stein-Stein. She composed the music for Cyclone (and the Pig-faced Lady), a new musical workshopped at The Women's Project and the York Theatre. Dance collaborations include Sine with Harakti Multimedia and two pieces with OctaviaCup Dance Theatre: Warp Lake and Lexxxichoreography. She also played in the house band with the Bindlestiff Family Circus Variety Show. Rima conducts numerous interdisciplinary arts residencies in NYC public schools. For six consecutive summers, she created new music theater works with the students at Harwick College Summer Music Festival. Rima composes and arranges music for her band, The Luminescent Orchestrii, and sings with Dragana, a five-woman Balkan choir. She earned her Masters in Music Composition from the Manhattan School of Music.
Andy most recently appeared in The Glass Contraption's Clowns directed by Christopher Bayes and presented by The Public Theater and the NY International Clown Theatre Festival. Other Bayes' projects include A Pair of Moliere Shorts for the Brown/Trinity Consortium, and the world premiere of The Moliere Impromptu at Trinity Repertory Theatre. Trinity projects include: A Moon for the Misbegotten and Richard III, both directed by Amanda Dehnert. Additional credits: Off the Grid at the Guthrie (dir. John Miller-Stefany), Life is a Dream (dir. George Drance) at St. John the Divine, Cut to: The Deal (dir. Phylis Ravel) at Theatre X, and the world premiere of Courting Vampires at Brown's New Play Festival. Andy received his MFA from Brown University/Trinity Rep's Consortium and is a proud member of its inaugural class. He is a proud Iowan, now based in New York City.
Piper began working with The Glass Contraption in 2005 performing in their first show, I Go Grootvlei, at the Topsy Center in South Africa. Piper has worked both regionally and in NYC performing at The Guthrie Theater, Lincoln Center, HERE, the Bowery Poetry Club, in numerous shows with Four Hard Gulps. She received her MFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and is currently working towards her MA in Special Education. Piper teaches 5th grade at a public school in Red Hook.
Virginia specializes in working with companies and individuals to develop, create and stage new theatrical works focusing on solo performance and physical theatre. Directing and development credits include The Orange Girl (US Comedy Arts Festival at Aspen), Great White American Teeth (The Irish Repertory Theatre), Planet Banana (Ars Nova), Pentecostal Wisconsin (59E59, Ars Nova, The Guilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Canadian Fringe Tour, Best Solo Show Winner at the Ottawa Fringe Festival, Wild Side Festival in Montreal, the Theatre at Monmouth in Maine), Dad 2.0 Starring Tom Schillue (Ars Nova), Happy Hour in It Takes 3 (Ars Nova, The Comedy Central Theatre in LA, The Guilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Barrow Group Theatre), Tramp: A Clown Show (Touring: Maine, New York, California), How to Be a Man (Chashama’s Palace of Variety), Thought Prints Starring Mentalist and Magician Bobby Torkova (the NY Fringe Festival), I’m Down (UCB LA), and Neal Medlyn Loves You For Real (Ars Nova). A long-time assistant to master clown and director, Christopher Bayes, Virginia is working with him on a new book detailing his approach to clown. She also assistant directed his production of Ruzzante (NYU’s Graduate Acting Program) and Clowns (developed by The Glass Contraption and presented at the Public Theatre and the NY International Clown Theatre Festival). Virginia works closely with the NYC-based clown theatre company, The Glass Contraption, where she leads their company clown labs, directs shows and teaches clown workshops for the public. Her teaching credits also include co-creating and leading the New York City Clown Lab.
Anne Louise's theater credits include Theatre For a New Audience's Don Juan and Waste (both directed by Bartlett Sher), Coriolanus and The Iphigenia Cycle (directed by Joanne Akalitis); Also in New York: Wordsworth, Train Story by Adam Rapp, MEAT and Dead Reckoning. Regional Theatre credits include: A Midsummer Night's Dream (co-production The Shakespeare Theatre in DC and The Aspen Institute), Two Gentlemen of Verona (The Shakespeare Theatre in DC); Three Tall Women and She Stoops to Conquer (Baltimore Center Stage); Intimate Apparel (Philadelphia Theatre Company); Crimes of the Heart (Syracuse Stage); As You Like It (Milwaukee Shakespeare Company); A Kiss for Cinderella (Cleveland Playhouse); Tatjana in Color (CATF in West Virginia); A Blizzard in August (directed by Christopher Bayes at Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis). Anne Louise is a graduate of Duke University and The Juilliard School.
Pete began his career in technical theater at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis building mainstage and Lab productions as well as touring with three national shows as a carpenter and rigger. He has continued his work as a carpenter and rigger with numerous touring companies and summer stock theaters. Pete received his BFA in Technical Direction from North Carolina School of The Arts and currently runs his own business, Quincy Street Custom, building custom furniture and organizational units for city living.
Torkova is a magician who really knows how to make his money perform. His award-winning act, The Money Magician, features a seemingly endless production of money out of thin air. Torkova's talents have taken him around the world - performing in China, Japan, Hong Kong, England, Mexico (at the famed Magic Castle), on cruise lines, corporate events and private parties. Most notable of these exclusive parties were those given by Dustin Hoffman, Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and Malcolm Forbes. A scholar of magic and its history, Torkova has acted as magic consultant to Off-Broadway and has had articles published in various trade journals. He consulted on the newly released best seller Magic for Dummies by David Pogue.
Sophie Amieva, Varin Ayala (Little Kevin Jr.), Maggie Cino, Mike Crane (Clamp), Tim Ellis (Celery), Rima Fand (Babushka), Johnny Green, Connie Hall, Jen Harmon (Tiny), Ian Hersey (Cry Baby Keith), Adrian Jevicki, Peter Lettre, Kate Marks (Sugarcane), Bob McClure (Ted), Sarah Miller, Carine Montebertrand (Ladle), Cat Mueller (Banana Sue), Sarah Petersiel (Rabbit, or Mrs. Sheridan, girl coach), Paco Tolson, Rebecca White (Nugget), Justine Williams (Tater), Anne-Louise Zachry (Pruney)
Justine Williams
Catherine Mueller
Jill Samuels
Gus Rogerson, The 52nd Street Project
Megan Sandberg-Zakian, The Providence Black Repertory Theater
Marilyn Horowitz, Head of ArtMar Productions
Daniel Goldstein, Brown, Goldstein and Levy
Laura Williams, The Spanish Apostolate
Elise Long, Head of Spoke the Hub/Gowanus Arts
Leslie Shepard, Dean of the Baltimore School for the Arts
Donald Hicken, Head of Theater, Baltimore School for the Arts
Sara Ciarelli
John Kirtley
Alex Sheers
John and Judith Miodownik
Greg and Karen Mueller
Elizabeth Williams
