ABOUT ME
I grew up on the tiny island of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which you can find on the Aleutian chain that stretches out into the Bering Sea. It was cold, damp, and somehow the perfect place for my childhood. The community was small enough that we pretty much all knew each other. There was only one school for K-12, with the Preschool in a tiny red building right next to it.
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Although there was a strong arts community, there wasn't any theatre. My mother started what was supposed to be a children's theatre, but almost immediately grew to be the community theatre for the whole island. She was an inspiration to me, and is responsible for exposing me to the world of performance and how it brings people together.
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Since then, I explored all the theatre I could -- musicals, Japanese theatre, puppetry, masks. Upon graduating high school at 17, I didn't want to follow the traditional college track. Instead, I attended a study abroad program at the Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italy, where my life was changed. I was exposed to the world of physical theatre, clown, and commedia dell'arte.
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As an adult, I founded my own theatre company, Tut'Zanni, along with my co-founder Dory Sibley, and 4 more of our classmates from the program, Patrick Berger, Molly Tomhave, Liam Mulshine, and Allegra Libonati. They have become my partners in crime as we traipse about the world performing and teaching commedia dell'arte and physical theatre to students, teachers, and artists.
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Along the way, I continued making masks and researching commedia dell'arte and its place in the world today. I keep notebooks full of handwritten notes, occasionally blog, and have published a book, Exploring Modern Commedia dell'Arte: A Step-By-Step Guide to Mask Work and Physical Theatre Development in Commedia dell'Arte, for those looking for a resource for looking into the world of modern commedia dell'arte and physical theatre.