creative team bios

For three decades, as the artistic director of Vessel, Rachel Bowditch (PhD)  has specialized in creating original devised, immersive, site-specific, and physical theatre that tackles challenging social issues from suicide, addiction, mental health, indigenous forced relocation, the death penalty, and now climate change and sustainability. She has presented her artistic and scholarly work nationally and internationally (Singapore, Buenos Aires, Argentina,  Bogota, Columbia, Santiago, Chile, Berlin, Germany, London, Haikou, China, Mexico City, Montreal, Canada, and Barcelona, Spain). In 2018, she was a Fellow at the Harvard Mellon Institute for Performance Research in “Public Humanities,” and was featured as one of the “Top 100 Creatives,” by Origins Magazine in 2015. 

Her directing work has been presented at Childsplay, Mixed Blood, Northwest Children's Theatre, the Denver Center, Mesa Arts Center, Phoenix Art Museum, IDEA Museum, and Scottsdale Public Art among others. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Theatre Journal, American Theatre, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Live Design, Rolling Stone, Channel 8/PBS, and ABC 15 News. 

She has received competitive funding from the Map Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Network of Ensemble Theatres NET/TEN Exchange Grant, the Seize the Moment (Leonardo, Global Futures Laboratory, and Humanities Lab), and a Herberger/Institute for Humanities Seed Grant. She is author of 4 books: On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and Ritual at Burning Man (University of Chicago Press, 2010); Performing Utopia co-edited with Pegge Vissicaro (University of Chicago Press, 2010); and Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field (Routledge 2018) co-edited with Jeff Casazza and Annette Thornton. Her fourth book, Inside the Performance Workshop: A Sourcebook for Rasaboxes and Other Exercises (Routledge 2023) with Paula Murray Cole and Michele Minnick. She is a Full Professor of Theatre in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University.

websites: 

https://rachelbowditch.com/

https://vesselproject.org/

Karen Jean Martinson, PhD, has developed her robust dramaturgical approach over the past two decades, creating socially-engaged theatre that considers issues of race and racial oppression, the impacts of gun violence, intergenerational trauma, the Indian Industrial Boarding School System, issues of mobility in underprivileged communities, and now the impending climate crisis. She specializes in production dramaturgy, dramaturgy for devised theatre, eco-dramaturgy, and new play dramaturgy, and has worked in professional and academic theatres in Phoenix, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Her scholarship has been featured in such journals as The LMDA Review, Theatre Annual, Theatre Topics, Cultural Studies  Critical Methodologies, and Popular Entertainment Studies. She is an Assistant Professor of Dramaturgy in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University.      

 Her scholarly and creative work explores the intersection of contemporary USAmerican performance, consumer culture, neoliberalism, and the processes of identification, interrogating issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. She also writes and talks (constantly) about dramaturgy and dramaturgical thinking. Her manuscript-in-progress, Make the Dream Real, dissects the performances of El Vez, The Mexican Elvis. She has published in such journals as The LMDA Review, Theatre Annual, Theatre Topics, and Popular Entertainment Studies. Martinson currently serves as the VP Advocacy for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the American (LMDA) and is active in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), and the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS).    

Founder/Co-Artistic Director of EPIK Dance

Sarah “Saza” Kent is the Co-Founder/Artistic Director of EPIK Dance Company (est. 2007), a group of artists who combine street and concert dance with elements of hip hop theatre, spoken word, media and song to tell stories and spread a message. With EPIK, Saza created eight original evening-length works that premiered to sold-out theaters statewide.  EPIK offered school residencies, workshops and classes throughout the community and was awarded the Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Award as well as two nominations for the Governor’s Arts Award for Arts Education.  Saza received her MFA in Dance and BFA in Dance Education from ASU, and has taught on the faculties of ASU, GCC, MCC, Dobson High & Willow Canyon High. She served as the founding Artistic Director/Spokesperson for the Be Kind People Project for 5 years where she developed and managed “The Be Kind Crew,” a hip hop dance crew consisting of over 50 dancers that visit K-8 schools nationwide to deliver the message that “It’s cool to be kind.” Saza choreographs & teaches nationally for universities and professional sports teams (NBA, NFL, WNBA), and has been featured in two national commercials (Verizon, 5-hour Energy), as well as Dance Teacher, Dance Spirit, and Dance magazines. Saza is a founding member of DBR Lab, a collective of artists from different disciplines who work with artist/composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) to design pieces that are published, performed and toured. She is the Creative Director of DBR’s “Dorsey Lane,” an artist live/work space in Tempe, Arizona. She currently resides in Northern Arizona with her husband and two daughters.

https://epikdanceco.org/

Steven Beschloss is an award-winning writer, editor, journalist, filmmaker and content strategist. He is a Professor of Practice with a joint appointment from the College of Global Futures, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is the Founding Director of the Narrative Storytelling Initiative across the university, leads the Narratives focus of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and is a Senior Global Futures  Scholar. 

His articles and essays on economics and politics, urban and international affairs, art, culture, science and education--from the U.S. and Europe--have been published by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Smithsonian, The Economist/Economist Intelligence Unit, National Geographic and dozens of other print and online outlets. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, selected Journalist of the Year in Virginia and honored for his magazine writing by the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Beschloss also serves as the founding editor of Transformations, an online magazine of essays and a publishing channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and writes and publishes America, America, focused on politics, society, democracy and justice.

In addition to authoring two recent books ("Adrift: Charting Our Course Back to a Great Nation" with co-author William Harris and "The Gunman and His Mother: Lee Harvey Oswald, Marguerite Oswald, and The Making of an Assassin"), Beschloss has served as a managing director of a Los Angeles-based media relations firm, executive managing editor of a Phoenix-based custom publisher, and co-director of a Finland-based film and TV company. His fiction and non-fiction film work (from Finland, France, Russia and the U.S.) has been translated into more than a dozen languages and seen and sold in nearly two dozen countries. 

A Chicago native and married father of two daughters, he is a graduate of Haverford College in Sociology and the master's degree program of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He also studied for one year in the graduate program in economic history at the London School of Economics. His personal website is www.stevenbeschloss.com.

Among his recent work: "Scholars Need to Act with Greater Urgency," published by Times Higher Education and republished by ASU's Global Futures Laboratory, and "A Little Civility Can Be a Dangerous Thing,"  published by the Washington Post. 

Professor Micha Espinosa, Arizona State University, School of Music, Dance, and Theatre, has used her personal history and extensive knowledge as a Chicana theatre artist and actor as a springboard to examine and contextualize the experience of Latinos/as/xs in theater and film. Her creative and academic writings linking actor training politics, pedagogy, identity development, and ethics have led to Professor Espinosa’s appointment as affiliate faculty with the School of Transborder Studies and the Sydney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University. Professor Espinosa is the award-winning editor for the book, Monologues for Latino Actors: A Resource Guide to the Contemporary Latino/a Playwrights and co-editor for the award-winning, Scenes for Latinx Actors. She is co-editor for Latinx Actor Training, published by Routledge and published numerous book chapters, book reviews, and articles.

As a performer, her career has spanned 35 years and she has worked in film, television, theatre, commercials, and print/commercial modeling. She has been privileged to work with award-winning film and theatre directors, including Oliver Stone, Peter Patzak, Tina landau, Les Waters, and Aaron Landsman, among others. A long-standing member of the Screen Actors Guild and a former local board member, Professor Espinosa is known as a national and international presence and a leading voice for social justice in the classroom. 

  Over the last ten years, her work has been rooted in activism, female empowerment, climate activism, and border consciousness. Since 2016, she has created 18 site-specific performances. She is a vocal advisor and performer for Guillermo Gomez Pena’s international performance collective, La Pocha Nostra. As the inaugural Artistic Director for Fitzmaurice Institute and as a Senior Lead teacher, she teaches throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. She has also been instrumental in helping to found the Fitzmaurice Voicework Institute (Fitzmauriceinstitute.org) through her fundraising capabilities, program, and special method creation. She has given more than 100+ masterclasses in voice and liberation practices and trained over 300+ designated teachers of Fitzmaurice Voicework. In addition, Professor Espinosa has given over 50 conference presentations and been a guest on various podcasts, including Folger Shakespeare, In a Manner of Speaking, and the Theatre of Others. 

As a voice and text coach, she has worked on 100 + productions. Highlights of recent years include Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Peter and the Starcatcher, The Copper Children, Hairspray, Mother Road, La Comedia of Errors; Arizona Theatre Company:  How to make an American Son, Man of La Mancha; Dallas Theatre Center: Our Town/Nuestro Pueblo; Milwaukee Repertory: Four Hands-Two Pianos, West Side Story, In the Heights. She was the dramaturg for REDCAT/Calarts Scene with Cranes and the director for Southwest Shakespeare's Mojada.

Professor Espinosa was awarded Arizona State University’s CLFSA Sangre de Arte Award for her mentorship of Latinx students in the Performing Arts and is the recipient of the 2022 Victoria Foundation Award for Outstanding Literary/Arts. She is a member of the United States National Theatre Conference; the advisory board for Southwest Shakespeare Company; the editorial board member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association and former board member; and on the steering committee for the Latinx Theatre Commons. Professor Espinosa has earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Stephens College and a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of California, San Diego.

Rachel Finley’s work includes spoken word poetry, stage, film and performance art.  Her most recent one-woman performance piece, American Bullet, funded in part and developed in collaboration with GableStage is set to be released on September 4, 2020 on their digital platforms as part of the Engage@Gablestage program.  Professor Finley’s most recent stage appearance was as Lena in Mad Cow Theatre’s production of Boseman and Lena.  Since the start of the pandemic, Rachel has remained active, performing in several online “staged” readings, including Play Development Project’s Touch the Moon, by Arianna Rose (appearing as Becca), and Mad Cow Theatre’s Science Play Festival by several playwrights (appearing as The Griot and Jen) among others.  

She is currently awaiting continued filming of her lead role in the pilot of Motherless, a dramatic series and the short film The Sweetest Girl for which she serves as both the casting director and intimacy director.  Rachel is a founding board member of Intimacy Coordinators and Directors of Color an organization whose focus is on promoting culturally and racially aware safe intimacy coordination practices in the professional entertainment industry.  Rachel Finley's professional directing career began in 2006 with Alliance Theatre Lab's production of Lee Blessing's Down the Road. Since then, she has directed numerous productions both on stage and on camera including her most recent productions, Venus by Susan Lori Parks at The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, For Colored Girls Who've Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough by Ntozake Shange  at The Pompano Beach Cultural Arts Center and the pilot episode of The Jaxons, a family friendly sitcom produced by Pinnacle Productions.  Since the pandemic, Rachel has also directed Judge Mablean Said, by Darius Daughtry via Zoom for New City Players.  

As a founding member of the poetry performance troupe, Chaos Theory, Rachel co-wrote Unbroken, the group’s full-length performance piece which premiered at Mainstage Playhouse in 2016. She was Florida’s first State Poetry Slam Champion and has ranked in the top 2 at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and top 15 at the Individual World Poetry Slam.  She has also served as a screenwriter on several projects for 1310 Bandits and Pinnacle Productions.  Rachel made her first inroads into the world of dialect coaching in 2018 with Theatre Lab’s staged reading of Andrea Stolowitz’s The Berlin Diaries.  Most recently, it was her great honor to serve as the dialect coach for Gritty City Repertory Youth Theatre’s Zoom Reading of Gloria Majule’s Culture Shock.  Professor Finley has taught Acting, Voice, Speech, and Theatre Appreciation at University of Miami, Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, Broward College and The Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

Clara Kundin is a theater-maker and educator. She received her B.A. in theater from St. Olaf College and continued her studies in physical theater at the École Jacques Lecoq and mask and butoh at the École du Jeu in Paris. She is a current MFA student in Theater for Youth and Communities at Arizona State University. New York Theater: Luna Eclipse (spit&vigor), The Jewish King Lear (Metropolitan Playhouse), Doomocracy (Creative Time), {my lingerie play} (Rattlestick Theater), Helena in The Rover and The Naked Tempest (Torn Out Theater), Lake Victory (GYM at Judson), The Lysistrata Project (Irondale Center). Directing Credits: Sammie & Gran (Climate Change Theater Action/ASU), Loudmouth (The Tank/Rebel Playhouse), cards. (Permafrost Theatre Collective), The Donors (site specific), and The One and Only Sarah Stonely (Thought Bubble Theatre Festival). Clara served as the Founding Executive Director of Rebel Playhouse from 2016-2019. 

www.clarakundin.com

Sam Briggs (she/her) is an educator and theatre maker from the East Coast. She has a BA in English Education from Westfield State University and an MA in English Literature from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English. She is currently an MFA candidate in Arizona State University's Theatre for Youth and Community program. Before returning to graduate school, Sam taught high school English and ran a theatre program at a regional high school in Central Massachusetts. She has produced and directed over fifteen plays and musicals with high school students and adults in both educational and community settings. Sam is the editor for AATE’s ElevAATE and the co-director of outreach for the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Her current research centers on critically-engaged drama-based pedagogy for social transformation in secondary classrooms and teacher education. 

Becca Levy is an educator, theatre artist, and stage manager who facilitates educational programming and theatrical productions that create community, celebrate culture, and foster creativity for people of all ages. She is a current MFA student studying Theatre for Youth & Communities at Arizona State University. Prior to graduate school, Becca worked as a teaching artist, stage manager, and certified yoga instructor in Chicago after earning her BFA in Stage Management from Western Michigan University. She is a proud ensemble member at Strawdog Theatre Company where she’s worked on the creative team of over a dozen productions. Other production credits include work with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Emerald City Theatre, Jackalope Theatre Company, Red Theater, and more. Becca also tours as the North American Company Stage Manager of Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience with Starvox and Seabright Productions.

 www.beccaglevy.com 

Jake Pinholster is the associate dean for enterprise design and operations in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University and head of graduate programs in interdisciplinary digital media and performance design. As a designer, Pinholster’s efforts have centered on projection and media design and technology for performance. He is an associate artist with Les Freres Corbusier, the resident video designer for the David Dorfman Dance company, and a contributor to Live Design Magazine. His professional media/projection design credits include The Pee Wee Herman Show (Broadway/HBO Special), Carrie Fisher: Wishful Drinking (HBO Special), Current Nobody (Woolly Mammoth, La Jolla Playhouse), Hoover (La Jolla Playhouse), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Center Theatre Group), Heddatron (HERE Arts Center) and many other productions at off-Broadway, regional, and academic venues. Much of his recent activity has been as a creator/director for immersive performance in unusual venues: site-specific installations, creation of performance in high end 3D planetariums, and the creation of a 360deg immersive performance/media dome. As an educator and administrator, Pinholster has been involved in a number of long-term initiatives that fuse technology, interdisciplinarity, and curricular innovation, and he has been an invited speaker on these topics at the National Association of Schools of Theatre, the Leadership Institute of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and LDI.

Douglas Clarke♦ (Scenic Designer) is a regional designer native to the Phoenix area. He’s received awards for his scenic designs of Welcome Home Jenny Sutter at Mesa Community College and for End of the Rainbow at The Phoenix Theatre Company. Also, nominations for his puppets in She Kills Monsters at Arizona State University, scenic design of Calendar Girls at Phoenix Theatre, and forRabbit Hole and Night Mother at Vintage Theatre. Douglas designed New York City premieres of Coffee and Biscuit at Fallen Swallow/Laughing Pigeon and Unity 1918 at Project: Theater. He also presented Dead Man’s Cell Phone as part of the World Stage Design exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan. Douglas received his BA & BFA from Arizona State University, and MFA from University of Maryland, College Park. Member of United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829. Additional info can be found at douglasclarkedesign.com

Coming soon!

Coming soon!

Daniel Perelstein Jaquette is a freelance sound designer, composer, and musical director. Daniel has been a professor of sound design at Arizona State University since 2019. Recent designs and original music at Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Geva Theatre, Phoenix Theater, Wilma Theater, Arden Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, People’s Light, and others. Daniel has received two Barrymore Awards, and sixteen Barrymore Award nominations in three categories, including recognition as a finalist for the F. Otto Haas award. He received an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts in 2013 to explore the relationship between sound design and the visual arts. 

 https://www.danielperelstein.com/