Geoff Sobelle

Geoff Sobelle (Creator, Director, Performer) is an actor, director and creator of original performance works. A dedicated absurdist, he uses illusion, installation and home-spun mechanics to create surreal, poetic pieces that look for humanity where you least expect it. His most recent works include: FOOD (BAM Next Wave ’23), HOME (BAM Next Wave ’17, Bessie Award) and The Object Lesson (BAM Next Wave ’14, Bessie Award). His creative practice is grounded in longtime collaborative efforts with old and new pals and sometimes family.  For twelve years he was part of the Pig Iron Theatre company in Philadelphia.  His partnership with Trey Lyford as Rainpan 43 includes: all wear bowlers, Amnesia Curiosa, machines machines machines machines machines machines, The Elephant Room (created with Steve Cuiffo), and its follow up, Dust from the Stars.  Geoff is a Pew fellow, a Creative Capital grantee and a United States Artists fellow. He is a graduate of Stanford University and trained in collaborative physical theater at the Lecoq school in Paris.  He dedicates this performance to the two small French-American clowns keeping chaos alive at home.

Maruti Evans (Set & Lighting Designer) Fat Ham (Broadway + Public Theater + RSC), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare in the Park), Good Bones (Public Theater), Angles in America (Arena Stage), Real Enemies (BMP), Angles Bone (BMP), At the Wedding (Lincoln Center Theatre), Daphne (Lincoln Center Theater), Kill Move Paradise (National Black Theater), Amani (National Black Theater), and The Ring Cycle (Opera Australia). Awards and nominations: Drama Desk Sam Norkin Award for Tiny Dynamite and Pilo Family Circus, Fat Ham (Ensemble and Creative Team Obie Award). Nominations: Peculiar Patriot (Drama Desk), Kill Move Paradise (Drama Desk + Henry Hewes Design Awards), Deliverance (Drama Desk), In the Heat of the Night (Drama Desk), Slaughterhouse 5(Drama Desk), Blindness (Drama Desk), and Amani (Henry Hewes Design Award).

Tei Blow (Sound Designer) (he/him).  Recent: Wet Brain; Practice (Playwrights Horizons), Galas (Little Island); Public Obscenities (Soho Rep); David Cale: Blue Cowboy; Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! (Soho Rep); Watch Me Walk (Soho Rep); Lisa Fagan/Lena Engelstein: Friday Night Rat Catchers, Geoff Sobelle: FOOD, Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble.  Awards: Henry Hewes Design Award (2023); Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2024); Creative Capital 2016; Bessie Award for Outstanding Sound Design (2015) for I Understand Everything Better (David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group).

Suzanne Bocanegra (Costume Designer) is a visual artist living and working in New York. Bocanegra’s Artist Lecture performances have been presented in museums, galleries, and theaters across the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the Pulitzer Foundation, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and in the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Bocanegra is the recipient of numerous awards, including grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 she received the Robert Rauschenberg award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2019, a major show of Bocanegra’s work titled Poorly Watched Girls was presented at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Also in 2019, her solo show Wardrobe Test was the inaugural exhibition at ART CAKE, an exhibition space in Brooklyn. Her work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Thomas Jenkeleit (Props Designer) (they/he) is a prop & scenic designer from Queens, New York devoted to creating new, reimagined, and thought provoking work. Recent: SUMO, Henry VI, Jesa, Did You Eat? (The Public), The Fires, Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!, Watch Me Walk (Soho Rep.), Touch (East Village Basement, scenic design), Galas (Little Island), The Wind & The Rain (Vineyard Theater, En Garde), QUINCE (Domino Park, co-scenic design), Bus Stop (Classic Stage, Transport Group, NAATCO), Bull (JACK, scenic design), Franklinland, Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother?, Bodega Princess (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Drive The Speed Limit (HEREarts, scenic design), A Mother (Baryshnikov Arts), All The World’s a Stage (Keen Company), Camping, The Surgeon & Her Daughters (Colt Coeur), Sex Variants of 1941 (The Civilians).

Jecca Barry (Creative Producer) is an independent theatre, opera, dance, and film producer. She is the founder and creative producer of Fin Productions, and a co-founder of Up Until Now Collective. Jecca’s practice focuses on developing work with artists that are challenging the conventions of the performing arts industry. From 2012-2022, she served as Executive Director of the acclaimed production company Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and was a Co-Director of New York’s annual PROTOTYPE Festival from 2017-2022. Jecca has overseen the commissioning, development, production and touring of over 35 new theatre, music theatre, and opera works, and has toured those works to more than 40 national and 25 international venues. Jecca holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in avant-garde flute performance from the Royal Northern College of Music and New York University.

Steve Cuiffo (Tour Director) is a theater maker, actor, and illusion designer bridging sleight of hand, engineering, and live performance. He anchors his practice in the rigorous technique of the conjuror and the grounded methods of devised theater. As a creator, his original pieces include A Simulacrum (Atlantic Theater Company) and Elephant Room (Center Theatre Group). He designed illusions for Geoff Sobelle’s Home and The Object Lesson, as well as Thaddeus Phillips’ Around The World In 80 Toys. He engineered the analog lip sync and visual deceptions for Dana H. on Broadway, and served as Magic Director for David Blaine Live in Las Vegas. Cuiffo co-founded the creative studio Secret Arts.

Lisa McGinn (Production Stage Manager) Recent credits: Watch Me Walk (Soho Rep); we come to collect: a flirtation, with capitalism (Jenn Kidwell);  Rheology (Misha Chowdhury); A Knock on the Roof (NYTW); Geoff Sobelle’s FOOD, HOME and The Object Lesson; On Beckett: An Evening with Bill Irwin (tour);  300 Paintings (Sam Kissajukian); Underground Railroad Game (Jennifer Kidwell, Scott R. Sheppard); Those with 2 Clocks (Wilma Theatre), Ocean Filibuster  and How to Build a Forest (Pearl Damour); Detroit Red  (ArtsEmerson); Love (Alexander Zeldin, Park Ave Armory) Compass and Sleep (Ripe Time Theatre); Chimera and The Wholehearted (Stein | Holum Projects); This is Reading (Lynn Nottage, Kate Whoriskey);  LA Dance Project (European tour);  Jacuzzi and The Light Years (The Debate Society); Revolt. She said. Revolt Again and Winners and Losers (Soho Rep); Chekhov at Lake Lucille.

Kelsey Vivian (Assistant Stage Manager) (she/her) Some credits include — Off-Broadway: No Singing in the Navy, School Pictures, Amusements (Playwrights Horizons), Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons & MCC); Ulysses (ERS at The Public, Bard College); Twelfth Night (Public Works); Oratorio for Living Things (Signature Theatre, Ars Nova); The Forest of Metal Objects (The MET Cloisters); We Do The Same Thing Every Week, MEAT (Attractive Nuisance); Our Class (Arlekin Players at CSC); The Appointment (Lightning Rod Special); Montag (Soho Rep); I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan, The Mother (Atlantic Theater Company); Lear: That Old Man I Used to Know (Smith Street Stage). Opera: The Rake’s Progress (LAMF); Unholy Wars (Opera Philadelphia); Mile Long Opera (The High Line). Regional: Franklin’s Key (Pig Iron Theatre); Pride and Prejudice (Long Wharf Theatre); Julius Caesar (Vermont Shakespeare Festival); St. Michael’s Playhouse; Vermont Stage Company. Tours: Geoff Sobelle’s FOOD, HOME (Fin Productions). Upcoming: PETRA (Vineyard Theatre). For Mom & Dad, always.

Wes Halloran (Sound Engineer) (he/him) is a sound designer and A1. NYC: Spelling Bee, Gene and Gilda, The All-Sing (Beth Morrison), The Counterfeit Opera, The Gospel at Colonus, and Galas. International: Clown Show. Regional: 18 shows at Colorado Shakespeare Festival, from King Lear to Pericles; Choir Boy and Christmas Carol (Denver Center); Barrington Stage. Previously faculty at Colorado State University and University of Arizona. He has a rotund cat named Harold. Instagram: @weshalloran

Stephen Smith (Wardrobe Supervisor) is a New York City based costume designer and technician originally from Philadelphia. Previous credits include Film/TV Audrey’s Children, Manhunt, Prodigal Son, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment. Theater credits include Home (Geoff Sobelle) A Christmas Carol, Tarzan, Shrek, Zoo Story (Berkshire Theatre Group) Dance credits include Slump, Sunset o639 hours (Ballet X) Dia Monologues (Peridance Company).

Matt Steinberg (Associate Lighting Designer) (he/him) is a lighting designer, lighting programmer, and software engineer from New York City. Recent designs include On Secrets, sorry sorry ok sorry and Meg (Columbia University), Allerleirauh (Bookworm Theatrics), The Seagull, Napoli Brooklyn (AADA), A History of American Modern Dance (Venetian Arts Society). Associate lighting designer for An Enemy of the People (Theater J), Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Ogresse (Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Paris Philharmonic, SFJazz, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NJPAC), In Our Daughter’s Eyes (PROTOTYPE, LA Opera), Black Lodge (Opera Philadelphia, Ace Hotel, Malmö Opera, Stockholm Folkoperan), Angel’s Bone (Beijing Music Festival), Infinite Hotel (PROTOTYPE). Lighting programmer for Becky Shaw, Liberation, and Oh, Mary! (Broadway) and various Off-Broadway and regional productions. 2018 recipient of ETC’s student sponsorship for Live Design International. MattLSteinberg.com

Chris Swetcky (Technical Director) is thrilled to return for his third production with Geoff, having previously served as Technical Director and Production Manager on HOME and FOOD, and engineered and built the scenery and effects for all three shows. He owns No Swet Productions, his scenery and technical design company, and teaches technical theater at Tufts University. Chris brings deep experience in fabrication, automation, special effects, and technical direction to inventive theater projects worldwide.

Brian Freeland (Production Manager) (he/him) is a production manager, director, producer, writer, and sound + media artist. Production management for The Flea includes The Ritual of Breath and Amm(i)gone. Brian is also the touring Production Manager for The Flea’s production of Zora Howard’s HANG TIME Additional production management includes works for and with Illinoise (Broadway), The Flea, BAM, En Garde Arts, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, The TEAM, Under The Radar, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, The Park Avenue Armory, Mass MoCA, Ripe Time, The Bearded Ladies, Andrew Schneider, Up Until Now Collective, Bard, Curious Theatre Company, HERE Arts Center, Beth Morrison Projects, The LIDA Project, Countdown to Zero, The Brick, and PROTOTYPE Festival. www.brianfreeland.com

Sophie Bortolussi (Performer) Recent credits performer: Geoff Sobelle: Clown show, Home, Teddy Bergman, Kuperman brothers:  Life and Trust (Conwell tower, NYC) Punchdrunk: The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable (National Theatre, London), Sleep No More (McKittrick Hotel, NYC), Martha Clarke: Angel Reapers (Signature Theatre, Joyce Theatre, Arts Emerson, National tour), The Threepenny Opera (Atlantic Theatre), Garden of Earthly Delights (Minetta Lane Theatre), Kaos (NYTW), Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental: Red-Eye to Havre de Grace (Walker, NYTW, Live Arts Festival, Arts Emerson), The Martha Graham Dance Company. Resident Director: Sleep no More in NYC (2022-2023). Choreographer/ Director: Echo(e)s (Compagnie Yokai), One-In-Themselves (La Mama, NYC), The Day Shall Declare It (Imperial Arts Studio, L.A./ Marylebone Gardens, Bush Theatre, London), Nu Dance Theater. Artistic Director: McKittrick Hotel Special Events 2016-2018 (McKittrick Masquerades & Super Cinemas parties). Movement Director: Zara Gymwear Fall 2016, 2016 American Airlines Inflight Safety Video TV: guest appearance “Gossip Girl.” Awards: 2017 Stage Raw Theatre Award for “Best Choreography”, 2015 Ovation award nomination for “Best Choreography”, 2013 UK Broadway World Award nomination for “Best leading actress in a new production of a play”, 2011 World Falstaff Award for “Best Principal Performance, Lady Macbeth, Sleep No More.”. More info at: www.sophie-bortolussi.com

Nikki Calonge (Performer) is an educator and performer. Past productions include puppeteering in the Tony-award winning “Life of Pi” at the Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway; the Obie-award winning “Psychic Self Defense” at HERE Arts Center; and co-directing “The Mushroom” in the 2026 Exponential Festival. She was recently a cohort of the Object Movement Puppetry Festival and collaborating artist in the New Georges Audrey Residency with Normandy Sherwood. Nikki currently teaches movement at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She holds a B.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an M.S. from The Pratt Institute in Dance/Movement Therapy. nikkicalonge.com 

Leo Gurevich (Performer) is an NYC-based musician and theater artist from Moscow, Russia, who appears to have finally found his way into a clown show. Beginning music at an early age and not quite stopping, he trained at the Ippolitov-Ivanov State Institute of Music and later at Bard College and Conservatory, where he studied piano performance and theater arts. He has collaborated with the Russian National Orchestra, State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Kaliningrad Philharmonic, Yale Russian Chorus, and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra under Tan Dun, and is currently part of COPE, an experimental music and arts collective. He works in, around, and between concert performance, devised theater, and hybrid forms, with projects ranging from Bernstein Centennial Celebrations (Moscow Conservatory and Volgograd Opera) to Migration and Hello? at the Fisher Center, the U.S. Embassy in Russia’s Music of World War II film, lighting-score performances of Scriabin’s music, Svetlanov Universe Festival (streamed on Medici.tv), Creative Play in Malaysia, a Davis Projects for Peace-supported arts education initiative, and a new, yet-untitled ensemble music-theater piece in development. His performances and original pieces often bring together music, movement, visuals, and the absurd, trying to keep one foot in the concert hall and the other somewhere less sensible.

Gideon Irving (Performer) is a House Showman aspiring towards the ancient art of unreasonableness. He’s played and stayed in over 800 homes across every country in the world except 186 of them. Some of his tours include: New Zealand by bicycle with a trailer of instruments, New York City on rollerblades pushing a modified shopping cart and The American west on horse back leading a pack horse (Gus and Troubador). Shows he’s created include Living Here: A Map of Songs (commissioned by The Foundry Theater), The Gideon and Hubcap Show, Garmph, Twinkle Clumps, My Name is Gideon: I’m Probably Going to Die Eventually, Horse Show and The Gideon and Hubcap Show for Kids, Adults and Everyone Else ( also an album. Play it for your young ones! Songs about being yourself, eating bugs, even death and dying.) In addition to homes he’s brought shows to Ed Fringe (2015, 2016), London’s Soho Theater, New York’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Brooklyn’s The Brick. He plans to premiere his newest home show “We’ll See” in the fall and his new ensemble piece “!@#$%^&*()_+” in spring of 2030. Playing in homes is fantastic. You should try it! You can find him at www.mynameisgideon.com

Jennifer Kidwell (Performer) is a performing artist with a penchant for getting people to do things they never thought they’d do. Recent original projects – Those With 2 Clocks (The Wilma Theater), Underground Railroad Game (2017 Obie Award for Best New American Theatre Work; 2018 Edinburgh Fringe First Award; Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes nominations). Currently collaborating with Chef Laquanda Dobson on Givingthanks and with Ars Nova Workshop/Immanuel Wilkins on Recess. Recent performances – The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Co.), Ocean Filibuster (PearlDamour), Eternal Life Part 1, Fat Ham (2021 film) and Antigone (The Wilma Theater), Syllabus for Black Love (jaamil olawole kosoko), Home (Geoff Sobelle; 2018 Bessie Award), Adrienne Truscott’s Still Asking for It (Joe’s Pub), Superterranean, Fire Burns Hot: Little Reno!, I Promised Myself to Live Faster and 99 Break-Ups (Pig Iron Theatre Company). Published in “Black Body Amnesia” and movement research Performance Journal #45 and at hyperallergic.com. 2020 Visiting Artist Duke University, 2021 Visiting Artist UPenn. 2013 TCG/Fox Resident Actor Fellowship, 2015, 2021 Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, 2016 Pew Fellow, 2017 Independence Fellowship, 2020 Ruthie Award & Hodder Fund Grant, 2023 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grantee, 2025 Helen Merrill Award.

Domenica Fossati (Performer) is a Latin Grammy-winning flutist based in Brooklyn, NY. Influenced by jazz, rock, and hip hop, her work moves fluidly between art music and pop.

Her performances have found a home with composers such as Ted Hearne and Meredith Monk, and with ensembles including Bang on a Can All Stars and Wordless Music Orchestra. She has collaborated with Marc Ribot, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, and members of Snarky Puppy, among others, and has served as guest lead singer for Antibalas and Brazilian Girls.

In theater, Domenica is an original cast member and flutist for Justin Peck’s ‘Illinoise’ the musical. She is also featured on Grammy-nominated and Latin Grammy-winning recordings, including Miguel Zenón’s ‘Alma Adentro’ and Mariachi Flor de Toloache’s ‘Las Caras Lindas.’ Domenica fronts the dance music group Underground System, whose debut LP What Are You was named one of KCRW’s most underrated albums of the year. Rolling Stone described their sound as “exuberant dance music that blooms out into countless directions.” The band has opened for Femi Kuti, Tony Allen, and Bombino, and headlined Laurent Garnier’s Festival Yeah! in Europe.

She holds an M.F.A. from New York University, where she studied with Robert Dick, and is an alumna of the U.S. Department of State’s musical exchange program, OneBeat.

Elvis Perkins (Performer) made his theatrical debut as Man with Guitar in a high school production of The Grapes of Wrath. Nearly a quarter century later, thanks to high school friend and chamber music collaborator, Geoff Sobelle, he found himself again under those lights, playing Man with Various Stringed Instruments and Voice. That was Sobelle’s HOME for which he also wrote songs. Aside from making the occasional horror movie score, songwriting has been Elvis’ primary undertaking to date. He has released five albums { Ash Wednesday, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, The Doomsday EP, I Aubade and Creation Myths } with which he has toured internationally. His most recent release, 2025’s Bandcamp exclusive, Two Songs for the PCRF, benefits The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which since 1991 has provided free medical care to thousands of injured and ill children yearly. { https://elvisperkins.bandcamp.com/album/two-songs-for-the-pcrf }

Mike Dobson (Performer) is a Tony and Drama Desk award nominated multi-disciplinary artist. Broadway: Water for Elephants, Gutenberg! The Musical!, 1776, SpongeBob Squarepants (Tony award nom.) Off-Broadway: …Spelling Bee, Wonderful Town, Urinetown, Center of the YOUniverse, Unknown Soldier, Old Hats, Big Love, Room 17B (Drama Desk nom.), Sisters’ Follies, The Old Comedy, Time Step. Circus: 3am Theatre’s First Light, Spiegelworld’s Vegas Nocturne at The Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas, The Big Apple Circus, Strut n’ Fret’s Fun House at the Brisbane Festival (AUS), GOP (DE), Festival Der Traume (AUT), Reus Festival (ES), Questfest (USA). Television: The Late Show with David Letterman, Today Show, Tony Awards, Nickelodeon’s The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage! Performances/Recordings with: Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Audra McDonald, Ethan Slater, Idina Menzel, Orville Peck, Jessica Vosk, Cheyenne Jackson, Nelly KcKay, Shaina Taub, Paul Anka, Clay Aiken, Dawn Upshaw, Ira Sullivan, Encores! Orchestra, Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, PAS Percussion Week – Beijing (CN), American Composer’s Orchestra, SEM Ensemble, Christian Tamburr, Cirkestra. @dobson321