who we are / back
Mary Birnbaum (artistic director, director) As an undergraduate at Harvard College (cum laude AB, English Language and Literature, 2007) Mary directed over 10 plays including THE WAY OF THE WORLD (Loeb Mainstage). After graduation, Mary spent a year in Paris at the physical theater school L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq. There, she directed and devised SE BALADER, a performance walk based on the effects of Parisian Nostalgia for one audience member and 11 actors. Upon returning to New York, she worked as the directing intern on Billy Elliot (dir. Stephen Daldry) on Broadway, directed SCHOOLED: or m. moliere's the learned ladies for art.party and assistant directed Verdi's FALSTAFF (dir. Stephen Wadsworth) at Juilliard Opera Company. She has also directed two music videos for international pop icon, Petros, available on youtube.
Jess Burkle (associate artistic director, performer): Directing and design credits include Rhinoceros, Knock: or the Triumph of Medicine, and The Maids (HRDC); performance credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedda Gabler, Caligula (HRDC), L'echange (Avignon Festival OFF), Camino Real (Columbia Stages); artistic collaborator for Traumland (Yale Summer Cabaret), Veritas (Columbia Stages), and SCHOOLED (art.party); writer, translator, and comedian; Hoopes Prize Nominee for Knock, Top 10 Most Creative by The Harvard Crimson, Winthrop House McCord Prize for Achievement in the Arts, Signet Society of Arts and Letters member. Education: A.B. Harvard College, Romance Languages and Literatures (2006).
Leticia Frazao (executive producer) Production credits include: SCHOOLED (various NYC apartments), more than 10 productions as stage manager, producer and Executive Director of Bare Bodkin Theatre Company (Tufts University), the Scotsman Fringe First winner The Laramie Project in the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at the Cochrane Theatre in London, England in 2003. Leticia spent a year at Town & Country magazine and works at Redbook. Education: Tufts University, BA in Art History and Communications (2007).
David Ingber (performer) comes from Boston, MA, and has proudly appeared in every art.party theater show. He does musical improv and stand-up comedy, and he writes musicals. Favorite recent performing credits: SCHOOLED, or m. moliere's the learned ladies, Jihad: The Musical, A Political Party, JARADOA Theater radio plays, Eight is Never Enough Improv, Don't Touch the Foot. Favorite recent writing credits: Now That You've Seen Me Naked, God Loves My People Best, A Political Party, and Fantasy Football: The Musical? (upcoming). His life is an art party.
Jojo Karlin (performer, makeup designer) is thrilled to be a part of art.party.theater.company. Originally from Hopkinton, MA, she lives in New York, acts, sings, and bakes cookies for her friends. Credits include: SCHOOLED, Cupcakes, Lemonade and Strippers, Bryant in the Park (art.party), Max and Ruby (Theaterworks/USA), Best Party Ever (Richmond Shepard Theater), Theatrino (Italy tour). Jojo worked for Vanessa Redgrave on the Broadway of The Year of Magical Thinking and served as Marketing Director for Foothills Theater in Worcester, MA. As an undergraduate at Harvard (A.B. magna cum laude in Literature), Jojo performed in nearly 30 plays including Ping Chong's Reason, Iolanthe (Fairy Queen), and She Loves Me (Amalia), and won the Doris Levi Cohen Prize for Musical Theatre. Upcoming: National tour of Cabaret (Fraulein Kost). Jojo is the art.party fireguard.
Carolyn McCandlish (performer) first joined forces with art.party for its inaugural production, SCHOOLED. Since then, she has also appeared in art.party's Cupcakes, Lemonade, and Strippers: Midwestern Plays and Bryant in the Park. Other New York credits include: Stomp and Shout (An' Work It All Out) (Babel Theatre Project, Innovative Theatre Award Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble), Summer Shorts, Fall Briefs (Turtle Shell Productions), Happy Hour (45th Street Theatre), and multiple readings and workshops. Film credits include: 10 Hours a Week, Thanksgiving, and Forget About Tomorrow. Before settling in New York, Carolyn played Samantha Darko in the American Repertory Theatre's stage adaptation of Donnie Darko. She is a graduate of Harvard College, where she performed in numerous shows (including The Marriage of Bette and Boo directed by the A.R.T.'s Marcus Stern), and the William Esper Studio, where she completed a two-year Meisner training program with Terry Knickerbocker.
Roberta Pereira (artistic associate) Credits include: Executive Producer of Yale Summer Cabaret 2007, Associate Managing Director for Yale Repertory Theatre, producing a festival of international work including American premiere of SCLAVI/The Song of an Emigrant by Czech company Farm in the Cave, A Whole Lotta Ish (A.N.T. Fest at Ars Nova), Usher (Outstanding Musical Award at the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival), the production concept of the opera Ainadamar (winner of the 2009 Opera America Director-Designer Showcase) and all the auxiliary events for the 2006 Dublin International Theatre Festival. Currently, she is Associate Producer at Anne Bogart's SITI Company in New York City. Her work with SITI Company includes the World Premieres of Virginia Woolf's Freshwater and Charles L. Mee's Under Construction. Education: Wesleyan University, BA, Yale School of Drama, MFA in Theatre Management.
Daniella Rabbani (performer) is a New York based actress, singer and voice over artist. She recently appeared Off Broadway in the critically acclaimed Gimpel Tam and at Michael Dorf's Oyhoo Festival at 92Y Tribeca. Credits include: Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors with the Vermont Shakespeare Company, The Play's the Thing with the Actor Shakespeare Company of NJ, Atonement directed by Liz Swados and SCHOOLED with art.party. Daniella's voice can be heard guiding you through The Ellis Island Immigration Museum, The Chaggall exhibit at NYC's The Jewish Museum and in Paris' Grand Palais. Ms. Rabbani has apprenticed under movement guru Jena Nacrason and is in her second year of choreographing for The New Acting Company in Greenwhich Village. She is on faculty as a movement teacher at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting where she graduated and is the recipient of the Center for Arts Education Grant for the Salk School of Science's community based theatre program. Daniella is a proud member of art.party.theatre.company and AEA.
Alexandra Tsocanos (designer) graduated from NYU in 2007 (B.A., Cum Laude) with the self-designed major, "Anthropology through the Visual Arts." She has since endeavored to develop an on-going conversation about how people use the visual arts to tell stories about themselves and others. Creating photo-installations and constructing fashion designs out of unconventional and recycled materials, she examines the relationship between people and their given and created spaces. As a costume designer, she explores cultural and psychological nuances through fashion and uses exciting and innovative ways to express and connect to characters. Costume Credits include: Bryant in the Park (art.party), SCHOOLED (art.party), Can-Can (Westtown School). Her original, hand-crafted designs, sold under the name Cosmic deBris, can currently be purchased at the East Village, NYC boutique, AuH2O.
Mary Birnbaum (artistic director, director) As an undergraduate at Harvard College (cum laude AB, English Language and Literature, 2007) Mary directed over 10 plays including THE WAY OF THE WORLD (Loeb Mainstage). After graduation, Mary spent a year in Paris at the physical theater school L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq. There, she directed and devised SE BALADER, a performance walk based on the effects of Parisian Nostalgia for one audience member and 11 actors. Upon returning to New York, she worked as the directing intern on Billy Elliot (dir. Stephen Daldry) on Broadway, directed SCHOOLED: or m. moliere's the learned ladies for art.party and assistant directed Verdi's FALSTAFF (dir. Stephen Wadsworth) at Juilliard Opera Company. She has also directed two music videos for international pop icon, Petros, available on youtube.Jess Burkle (associate artistic director, performer): Directing and design credits include Rhinoceros, Knock: or the Triumph of Medicine, and The Maids (HRDC); performance credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedda Gabler, Caligula (HRDC), L'echange (Avignon Festival OFF), Camino Real (Columbia Stages); artistic collaborator for Traumland (Yale Summer Cabaret), Veritas (Columbia Stages), and SCHOOLED (art.party); writer, translator, and comedian; Hoopes Prize Nominee for Knock, Top 10 Most Creative by The Harvard Crimson, Winthrop House McCord Prize for Achievement in the Arts, Signet Society of Arts and Letters member. Education: A.B. Harvard College, Romance Languages and Literatures (2006).Leticia Frazao (executive producer) Production credits include: SCHOOLED (various NYC apartments), more than 10 productions as stage manager, producer and Executive Director of Bare Bodkin Theatre Company (Tufts University), the Scotsman Fringe First winner The Laramie Project in the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at the Cochrane Theatre in London, England in 2003. Leticia spent a year at Town & Country magazine and works at Redbook. Education: Tufts University, BA in Art History and Communications (2007).
David Ingber (performer) comes from Boston, MA, and has proudly appeared in every art.party theater show. He does musical improv and stand-up comedy, and he writes musicals. Favorite recent performing credits: SCHOOLED, or m. moliere's the learned ladies, Jihad: The Musical, A Political Party, JARADOA Theater radio plays, Eight is Never Enough Improv, Don't Touch the Foot. Favorite recent writing credits: Now That You've Seen Me Naked, God Loves My People Best, A Political Party, and Fantasy Football: The Musical? (upcoming). His life is an art party.Jojo Karlin (performer, makeup designer) is thrilled to be a part of art.party.theater.company. Originally from Hopkinton, MA, she lives in New York, acts, sings, and bakes cookies for her friends. Credits include: SCHOOLED, Cupcakes, Lemonade and Strippers, Bryant in the Park (art.party), Max and Ruby (Theaterworks/USA), Best Party Ever (Richmond Shepard Theater), Theatrino (Italy tour). Jojo worked for Vanessa Redgrave on the Broadway of The Year of Magical Thinking and served as Marketing Director for Foothills Theater in Worcester, MA. As an undergraduate at Harvard (A.B. magna cum laude in Literature), Jojo performed in nearly 30 plays including Ping Chong's Reason, Iolanthe (Fairy Queen), and She Loves Me (Amalia), and won the Doris Levi Cohen Prize for Musical Theatre. Upcoming: National tour of Cabaret (Fraulein Kost). Jojo is the art.party fireguard.Carolyn McCandlish (performer) first joined forces with art.party for its inaugural production, SCHOOLED. Since then, she has also appeared in art.party's Cupcakes, Lemonade, and Strippers: Midwestern Plays and Bryant in the Park. Other New York credits include: Stomp and Shout (An' Work It All Out) (Babel Theatre Project, Innovative Theatre Award Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble), Summer Shorts, Fall Briefs (Turtle Shell Productions), Happy Hour (45th Street Theatre), and multiple readings and workshops. Film credits include: 10 Hours a Week, Thanksgiving, and Forget About Tomorrow. Before settling in New York, Carolyn played Samantha Darko in the American Repertory Theatre's stage adaptation of Donnie Darko. She is a graduate of Harvard College, where she performed in numerous shows (including The Marriage of Bette and Boo directed by the A.R.T.'s Marcus Stern), and the William Esper Studio, where she completed a two-year Meisner training program with Terry Knickerbocker.Roberta Pereira (artistic associate) Credits include: Executive Producer of Yale Summer Cabaret 2007, Associate Managing Director for Yale Repertory Theatre, producing a festival of international work including American premiere of SCLAVI/The Song of an Emigrant by Czech company Farm in the Cave, A Whole Lotta Ish (A.N.T. Fest at Ars Nova), Usher (Outstanding Musical Award at the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival), the production concept of the opera Ainadamar (winner of the 2009 Opera America Director-Designer Showcase) and all the auxiliary events for the 2006 Dublin International Theatre Festival. Currently, she is Associate Producer at Anne Bogart's SITI Company in New York City. Her work with SITI Company includes the World Premieres of Virginia Woolf's Freshwater and Charles L. Mee's Under Construction. Education: Wesleyan University, BA, Yale School of Drama, MFA in Theatre Management.
Daniella Rabbani (performer) is a New York based actress, singer and voice over artist. She recently appeared Off Broadway in the critically acclaimed Gimpel Tam and at Michael Dorf's Oyhoo Festival at 92Y Tribeca. Credits include: Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors with the Vermont Shakespeare Company, The Play's the Thing with the Actor Shakespeare Company of NJ, Atonement directed by Liz Swados and SCHOOLED with art.party. Daniella's voice can be heard guiding you through The Ellis Island Immigration Museum, The Chaggall exhibit at NYC's The Jewish Museum and in Paris' Grand Palais. Ms. Rabbani has apprenticed under movement guru Jena Nacrason and is in her second year of choreographing for The New Acting Company in Greenwhich Village. She is on faculty as a movement teacher at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting where she graduated and is the recipient of the Center for Arts Education Grant for the Salk School of Science's community based theatre program. Daniella is a proud member of art.party.theatre.company and AEA.Alexandra Tsocanos (designer) graduated from NYU in 2007 (B.A., Cum Laude) with the self-designed major, "Anthropology through the Visual Arts." She has since endeavored to develop an on-going conversation about how people use the visual arts to tell stories about themselves and others. Creating photo-installations and constructing fashion designs out of unconventional and recycled materials, she examines the relationship between people and their given and created spaces. As a costume designer, she explores cultural and psychological nuances through fashion and uses exciting and innovative ways to express and connect to characters. Costume Credits include: Bryant in the Park (art.party), SCHOOLED (art.party), Can-Can (Westtown School). Her original, hand-crafted designs, sold under the name Cosmic deBris, can currently be purchased at the East Village, NYC boutique, AuH2O.