Sebastienne Mundheim (Lead Artist: Writer, Designer, Performer, Workshop Leader) is a performance-maker, installation artist, and educator with more than 30 years of experience in interdisciplinary arts and arts education. Her work integrates visual installation, puppetry, storytelling, dance, and theater. In addition to making her own work, Mundheim is a thought-partner and consultant for numerous other artists and arts organizations.
Mundheim/White Box Theatre have been commissioned and/or presented by institutions nationally and internationally including: The Rosenbach Museum and Library, The University of Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, The Arden Theatre, Theatre Exile, PA Ballet, Franklin and Marshall College, Keene State University, Vermont Performance Lab, Marlboro College, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts, and The Irish Ministry of Arts and Culture.
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Collaborators have included New Paradise Laboratories; Kate Watson-Wallace/Anonymous Bodies; Thaddeus Phillips/Lucidity Suitcase; Kun Yang Lin Dance; Tania Isaac Dance; Brian Sanders JUNK; and Ballet X. Her work has received support from the Dolfinger McMahon Foundation, Lenfest Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, The Pew Charitable Trust, Philadelphia Theatre Initiative and Dance Advance, Pennsylvania Performing Artists on Tour, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and numerous commissioning organizations.
In 2017, Mundheim received national recognition from the Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theatre Festival for Distinguished Achievement in Puppetry Design and Direction and Distinguished Achievement in Overall Production. In 2014, she won Barrymores (Philadelphia’s Excellence in Theatre Award) for Outstanding Design and for Best Ensemble for her adaptation of A Child’s Christmas in Wales. In 2013, she received an Independence Foundation Fellowship for Writing. In 2011 she was a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She received her BA/BFA from UPenn 1990 and her EdM from Harvard in 2000.
Upcoming projects include: puppet and mask creation for Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant, Arden Theatre Company, Philadelphia December 2023. Co-creator and designer for Bartok’s Monster, Annenberg Theatre, Philadelphia in collaboration with the Deadalus Quartet and Pig Theatre, January 2024. 55 Puppets and Objects: Exhibition at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington Delaware, January-May 2024.
Daniel de Jesús (Composer, Singer, Thinker) is a painter, composer and songwriter. Their visual art is influenced by medieval and baroque figurative painting, particularly Latin American Baroque. de Jesús finds inspiration from historical figures: mystics, scholars, artists, and martyrs.
Their musical practice explores tribal beats, ambient sonic spaces, and string arrangements with soaring vocals. Their work has been described as Baroque pop and Neo-Goth. Daniel de Jesús has nine studio recordings of their music and performs with orchestras and rock bands worldwide.
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Projects include: collaborations with painter and performance artist David Antonio Cruz, singer-songwriter Courtlyn Carr, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Pig Iron Theater, and play wright Andrew Albert García. They have performed at venues including Park Ave. Armory, Millenium Park Theater, and World Café Live.
de Jesús currently works as the Music Education and Community Outreach Director for AMLA at Esperanza, a nonprofit that "promotes the development, dissemination, and understanding of Latin music and culture in the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley region with an emphasis on Youth."
Harlee Trautman (Core Collaborator, Thinker, Builder, Dancer) is a Philadelphia-based dance artist, choreographer, and sculptor. Her performance-making honors embodied knowledge, deep research, and collaborative possibility. She sees art making as a means to remain infinitely curious about the natural world, the universes that we hold, and in turn hold us. For her, the body is the first and final teacher.
Harlee is an artistic collaborator for White Box Theatre and dances professionally with The Naked Stark dance company, Artist House, and Archedream for Humankind.
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Notable work has been presented at the American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Manship Theatre (Baton Rouge), the Republic (New Orleans), Mandell Theater (Philadelphia), Grounds for Sculpture (Hamilton, NJ), as well as on display at Philadelphia International Airport's D terminal. In 2023 she will debut new works in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and in Chicago.
Harlee earned her BFA from Louisiana State University. She has been a guest artist at Drexel University, Bryn Mawr College, Louisiana State, and Tulane. After six years of studying with Molly Shanahan, she will be a certified teacher of Spiral Body Technique, August of 2023.
Payton Smith (Performer, Builder, Thinker) is an interdisciplinary theatermaker. She has performed, crafted, designed, directed, and stage managed in Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, and Santa Fe. She studied Theater and Performance at Bard College and the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Payton is most interested in exploring/challenging/playing with the power of the finite across all things live arts. Recent Philadelphia collaborations have included Pig Iron Theater Company, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Annie Wilson, Alex Tatarsky, Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Philly Children's Theatre, and Urban Movement Arts. paytonesmith.com.
Candra Kennedy (Performer, Builder, Thinker) is a puppeteer, writer, and creator. She is interested in worlds microscopic and cosmic. Her one woman show Jug Baby: An Autobiography, and Weights and Measures, has toured France and the US. Described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “pure genius,” and “maybe not the weirdest Fringe show I’ve ever seen, but definitely in the top three. Even better, it’s a blast.” She is a founding member of PuppetTyranny. Candra has collaborated and performed with numerous companies in Philadelphia including: Orbiter 3, Applied Mechanics, White Box Theatre and Brat Productions.
Ain Gordon (Thought Partner, Dramaturg) is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer/director/actor, two-time NYFA recipient, Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting, and a 2023 Creative Capital Awardee. Gordon’s work often focuses on marginalized/forgotten histories and the obscured figures inhabiting that space. His work has been seen at BAM Next Wave, Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122/NY, and Dance Theater Workshop/NYLA (all NY); and Flynn Center (VT), Krannert Center (IL), International Festival of Arts & Ideas (CT), Center for the Art of Performance/UCLA, the Quick Center (CT), Williams College (MA), and the Mark Taper Forum (CA) among many others. Gordon is a former Core Writer of the Playwright’s Center (MN), has twice held the post of Visiting Artist at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (PA), a former Artist-In-Residence at NYU Tisch School of The Arts, former Resident Artist at The Hermitage (FL), and was a 2020 Pabst Endowed Writer-In-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, etc. Director of Pick Up Performance Co since 1992.
Eric Fiorito (Original Lighting Design, Technical Direction) is an artist, performer, and proud tool pusher. Born and bred in New Jersey, Eric graduated from Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1995 with a degree concentrating in Sculpture and Performance Art. A fascination with special effects makeup, animatronics, and the sculptural nature of lighting led him to a 24-year career in the motion picture film and commercial industry as a key grip, gaffer, and scenic designer/builder. Eric’s creative work has had him studying the influence of nature on labor development by examining contrasting found objects and exploring human interaction in self-created environments. Eric has been living and creating in Frenchtown with his wife and two children for over a decade and is constantly reminded of the warmth and wondrous nature of this community.
Peter Jacobs (Projection Collage) has worked and exhibited in the mediums of collage, photography, mixed media, video and installation for over 35 years. He explores formal concepts of displacement, radical juxtaposition, color theory and spatial relationships and muses with magical realism, architecture, poetry, humor, emotion and politics. His work has been installed on the streets of Montclair, a park in the mountains of France, a biennial in Poland, and in numerous galleries and museum exhibitions. He was a featured artist on the PBS series, State of the Arts and has received the top New Jersey Council of the Arts grant for his work in collage. Currently, his ongoing series, The Collage Journal is approaching it’s 19th year in which he has created a collage every day, uninterrupted, from the daily newspaper.
Caitlin Virginia (Management, Collaborator) is an artist of music and language. Compelled by their curiosity about what lies in between things, Virginia explores harmonies, contrasts, and frequencies. They have worked on compositions in various mediums including theatre, photography, sound and music production, and movement. In theatre, they have performed, directed, dramaturg'd, and sound designed, with emphasis on Commedia dell'Arte and cabarets. They've performed in shows at L'Etage, Knauer Performing Arts Center, Winterthur Gardens, and Calabria, Italy. After a three year hiatus due to the pandemic, gratitude is not enough to express how Virginia feels to be a part of the theatre again | caitlinvirginia.com
Mackenzie Hall (Stage Manager Two for ArtYard) Mackenzie (she/her) is an emerging artist with experience in direction, dramaturgy, choreography, theatrical intimacy, stage management, and teaching theatre to children. Mackenzie studied at Elon University (BA in Drama & Theatre Studies) and Accademia Europea di Firenze. She has also trained with Theatrical Intimacy Education, Ashley Hiester School of Music, and Dan Callaway Studio and worked for The National Women’s Theatre Festival based in North Carolina. Mackenzie is currently a teaching artist for Pennsylvania Youth Theatre and Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem, PA. Select SM credits: Matilda (PYT), Wanda’s World (The Swain School).
Elizabeth Jacobs (Builder, Thinker) is a maker, painter, sculptor, print maker, driven by curiosity, inspired by the natural world. She received her BFA from SUNY Purchase and her MA in Arts Education from NYU. She has taught art for over 40 years, owning and operating The Clay Studio in Montclair.
Vanessa Hernandez Artunduaga (Studio Maker, Performance Experimentation, Thinker) Visual artist from New Jersey, focused on automatic drawing in pencil and charcoal; painting in egg tempera; sculpture and mask-making involving wire, fabric, and dried organic material; and experimentation with movement and character. Also Editor at Large for Seeds of the League Program (the Art Students League of New York's community youth program).
Eppchez Yes (Studio Maker, Performance Experimentation, Thinker) eppchez! is a Quaker, gender-expansive, Cuban & Jewish theater maker, vocalist, and designer. In 2016 eppchez started up Alma's Engine; a process-focused production company. Ey has self-produced 5 original plays through Alma’s Engine and collaborated as a writer, performer, and/or deviser with Philly companies such as Pig Iron, Simpatico, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Swimpony, and Applied Mechanics among others. eppchez has institutional connections to Wesleyan University (BA in theater & creative writing), Headlong Performance Institute, Play Penn (where ey is currently a member of The Foundry an emerging Philly playwright’s group), Azuka Theatre’s New Pages writer’s group, and Green Street Friends Meeting where ey worships on Sundays a few blocks from eir home in Philly’s Germantown neighborhood.
Special Thanks
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Ann Brusky, Laura Bickford, Doug Brusky, Jenny Wallace, Patricia DuChene, Ann Deuser, Karin Oliver-Kreft, Camille Staats. ArtYard Clayre Saxon, Michael Gilheany, Jessica Hough, Dawn Ferguson, Ngena Hohn, Meghan Van Dyke, Elsa Mora, Nancy MacCauley, Mary Lotus, Leah Cahill, Rich Cahill, Erin Arthur. Brian Sanders, Jeanette Brown, Samantha Tower, Jamie Merwin, Arden Kass, Isabella Fehlandt, Kate Coots, Anna DeCaria, Elizabeth Jacobs, Bonnie Berkowitz, Patty Dominguez, ArcheDream for Humankind, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Linda Richardson, Guna & Robert Mundheim, Jim Toia and students of Lafayette College, Lonnie & Mary Trautman, and Kea Tawana.
And a very special thanks to Jill Kearney!