Class of 2009
Garrett Ayers is a theatre artist from Three Rivers, Michigan. He comes to Boulder from New York
City where he spent the last five years working both for The Wooster Group and with
his own company, Project: Theater. Garrett also trained and was a participant in the
2002 work-team selection at The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
in Pontedera, Italy. He holds a BA in theatre performance from Western Michigan University.
Margot Bassett is a dancer, singer, actor, yoga instructor and baker. She received her BFA in dance
from Wesleyan University in 2001 and was a 2002 recipient of the Jerome Fellowship
for Performance Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Margot has performed with Rosy Simas
Dance Projects, Katsura Kan, Hijack and Body Cartography Project, to name a few. Her
original work has been shown at the Walker Art Center, Bedlam Theatre, Intermedia
Arts and the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater, among others. In addition, Margot co-founded
the collaborative performance group, Bright Eye Productions, and often performs as
her alter-ego, Karyn, of the legendary lesbian folk duo Karyn & Sharyn.
Kyra Bowman started as a technician at Actor's Theater of Houston and a student at Chris Wilson's
Studio for Actors while in high school. From there she graduated from Macalester College
in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a degree in theater. While at Macalester, Kyra had the
opportunity to study abroad at the Moscow Art Theater in Russia. After a brief stint
in Scotland, she moved to Chicago. There she trained with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
and The Actor's Gymnasium and worked on original pieces.
Lauren Brenner is thrilled to be training with the MFA community at Naropa University. Before moving
to Boulder she worked as an actress and performance artist in Chicago, Illinois, where
she co-created and performed in several productions with Big Theatre, of which she
was a founding member. In Chicago she also worked with About Face Theatre doing education
and outreach, and performed with other companies such as Redmoon, Blind Faith and
Backstage. She is a graduate of Northwestern University with a bachelor’s degree in
theatre, and is a certified yoga instructor.
Téana David grew up in Victoria, Canada, but lived most recently in San Francisco where she created
and performed many works as a company member of FoolsFURY. Committed to telling necessary
stories by using the entire body as an instrument, she is a co-writer and performer
in The Wonders with Traveling Jewish Theatre, which received a Steven Spielberg Righteous Person’s
Grant to tour to underrepresented communities throughout the United States in 2007.
Other acting credits: California and Napa Shakespeare Festivals, and Berkeley Repertory
Theatre where she understudied and performed the role of Laura in the Glass Menagerie
(w/ Rita Moreno; dir. Les Waters). Téana also directs short films and designs video
projections for the theatre. She holds a BFA in musical theatre with an emphasis in
movement from The Boston Conservatory and has trained extensively with SITI Company.
Sally Seagull Foster is an actor, educator and writer with experience in Theatre of the Oppressed, writing
center administration, primary and higher education, and community and academic theatre.
She comes to Naropa from the University of Missouri where she directed the Online
Writery, trained writing and learning center tutors, taught courses in creative writing,
composition, and learning strategies, performed as Mrs. Wire in Tennessee Williams’
Vieux Carré and Catherine Petkoff in Shaw’s Arms and the Man and belonged to MU’s Difficult Dialogues performance ensemble. She also wrote and
performed The World is Right Wild, a one-woman show based on fragments from Sappho.
Michael Frayne received his BA in music composition and guitar from University of California at
Santa Cruz in 1995. As a sound designer at LucasArts Entertainment, he designed and
produced soundtracks for dozens of games, including Escape from Monkey Island and Knights of the Old Republic. Over the past ten years, he has practiced ritual, poetry, traditional storytelling,
song and the Bardic tradition with teachers such as Doug von Koss, Michael Meade,
Elizabeth Ellis, Robin Williamson, Malidoma Some and Robert Bly. In recent years,
he has performed as a storyteller and singer at men’s gatherings in California and
at the Minnesota Men’s Conference.
Audrey Nadia Jajich began making solo work while she was at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
This led her to pursue the solo form, and work and perform with the Rachel Rosenthal
Company in Los Angeles. There, she worked in ensemble and created original work. She
later lived and worked in New York City where she was affiliated with the Franklin
Furnace Art Archive and performed in the NYC downtown avant-garde art and butoh genres.
Prior to Naropa, she lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for three years where she studied
with Alan Arkin and Ruth Zaporah. She was most recently seen as a dancer in Metamorphosis at Wise Fool New México and as a solo monologue artist in Carol Kessler's Vagina Monologues during spring 2007.
Meyung Kim hails from New York City. She is a director, writer, singer and performer. This year
she performed original songs at Het Bethanienklooster in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and
at Cornelia Street Cafe and the Open Center in Manhattan. She has directed and performed
original shows in NYC at the American Living Room Festival and the NY International
Fringe Festival. She has collaborated and performed with Synaesthetic Theater, Immigrants
Theater Project and with Richard Caliban's Cucaracha. She has also performed in NYC
at The Culture Project, La MaMa, The Vineyard Theater, Here, NADA, Dance Theater Workshop
and Theater for the New City.
Luke List is a proud Hoosier from Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2006, Luke celebrated the completion
of his BA in theatre from Butler University, while Butler celebrated its sesquicentennial
year. While at Butler, Luke had the opportunity to study theatre and ethnomusicology
in New Zealand as a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholar. From this experience
he went on to serve in Ukraine with the United States Peace Corps. He has performed
with The Susurrus Performance Group, The Indianapolis Civic Theatre, The Children's
Museum of Indianapolis and most recently in the Boulder Fringe Festival.
Nita Mickley, a Boulder native, is an actor, violinist and visual artist who received her undergraduate
degree in theater at Barnard College in New York City with a year spent in London
at BADA along the way. She has performed and designed works in London, NYC, San Francisco
and most recently Los Angeles in theater, film and television. Her interests and training
lie in creating theater and performance that is supportive of the actor as fully embodied
artist. Teaching, performing, directing and designing are current passions that she
plans on continuing into the future with an emphasis on inspiring creativity and expression
in others.
Barrett Ogden has worked in theatre, film, television and voice-over. He is a teacher of the Feldenkrais
Method and acting. Barrett haunted English castles with his Shakespearean troupe,
trained in Denmark with Odin Teatret, appeared at New York City’s HERE (with Nicolai
Kinski) in Nosferatu and as St. John the Divine in Barrabas, at XM Studios in a live commemorative broadcast of The War of the Worlds. In 1999, Barrett cofounded Handcart Ensemble, a NYC theatre company. He is thrilled
to be attending Naropa’s Contemporary Performance program, and is looking forward
to further developing as a collaborative/solo performing artist, director and teacher.
Kathryn Elizabeth Ross was born October 8, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica. She earned her BA in English in
1995 from Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, and completed additional training
at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Kathryn is licensed as a Professional
Educator at the middle and high school levels by the state of Colorado. Her primary
interests lie in areas of directing, dramaturgy and design for the stage.
lisamoyadeva (lisa adeva samoy) comes to boulder by way of new orleans where she danced with ann burr and company,
studied contact improvisation with jean jaubert and was introduced to butoh by vanessa
skantze. lisa is a director, performer, dancer, musician, cook and poet activist.
she has directed and performed in independent theatre in orlando, new orleans, boulder
and is a three-time producer/director of v-day worldwide campaign productions of the vagina monologues by eve ensler. lisa is also an anti-capitalist and therefore writes in predominantly
the lowercase.
Taavo Smith has been variously a sketch comedian, actor, playwright, butoh dancer and clown,
but these days is most interested in collaborative original work between forms. He
grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earned his BA at Macalester College in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and subsequently moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he co-founded the performance
duo One Continuous Mistake. Favorite productions include a two-man adaptation of The Three Sisters, an ensemble-directed Endgame, and a collection of his short plays produced in Melbourne as Have/Hold and in Chicago as Many Things Are Destroying Me.
Bradley Spann is an actor and writer. He earned his BA in journalism from Humboldt State University
in California. He was a member of the Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles for
five years and has worked with The Evidence Room, The Met Theatre Company and The
Bookshop Theatre Company. Favorite roles include: Diouf in The Blacks (The Evidence Room); Philoctetes in Philoctetes, Orestes in Song of Joy and Destitution and Armstid in As I Lay Dying (The Open Fist Theatre Company).
Sharon Stern received her BA from the University of Miami in 2001, and has been performing in
South Florida ever since. She appeared in the Florida premiere of the Off-Broadway
show, Jewtopia, and performed in the critically acclaimed Stop Kiss, named Best Show of 2004 by the New Times Miami. Sharon also performed for Cirque
Productions as a clown and character actress. She was a founding member of Leave ‘Em
Laughing Improv Comedy Troupe. Her most recent role was as Pierrot, the sad clown
in The Steadfast Tin Soldier, written and directed by Slava Dolgachev of the Moscow Art Theatre. Sharon is also
an advanced certified yoga instructor and an avid swing dancer.
Benjamin Stuber is a New York-based theatre artist working across the disciplines of acting, dance,
design, puppetry, direction, choreography and adaptation to create original material
for the stage. His work concerns highly visual movement-and-text-based adaptations
combining fiction and non-fiction sources. He completed his MFA in Theatre: Contemporary
Performance at Naropa (2009) and holds a BA in Theatre and Dance from Oberlin College
(2003). In addition to performance, Benjamin works as a stage designer and is a practitioner
and teacher of Butoh, The Six Viewpoints, and the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.
Affiliations include co-founder of the performance company, One Continuous Mistake
and member of Convergences Theatre Collective, a national network of contemporary
theatre artists and master teachers. For more information, check out benjaminstuber.com.
Chaunesti Webb Lyon is a proud native of Durham, North Carolina, where she performed with regional theater
companies and worked with a children’s theater. In addition to performing, Chaunesti
is a founding member of New Traditions Theater. She received her BA in communication
studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Favorite roles include:
Varya in The Cherry Orchard, Leah in Beautiful Thing, Yvonne in The Story and Karenjune Sanchez in Sonnets for an Old Century.
contact
Liz Acosta, Administrative Specialist
School of the Arts
303-546-3519
lacosta@naropa.edu
NAROPA UNIVERSITY
2130 Arapahoe Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302
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