Foundations of Interactive Performance

Amanda Meyers is an LA-based creative director specializing in interactive and site-specific theatre. In 2022, Amanda founded A Party at Anna’s to pull more Gen-Z artists into the world of immersive. Recent stage management credits include Capital W and Will Coile, and original immersive works have featured live musicians, improvised scenes, audience transport, and even a noise complaint or two (successfully negotiated). When it comes to Party At Anna’s, Amanda’s mix of structure and spontaneity leads to inventive, resource-maximizing productions that punch above their weight. Having trained with Jeff Wirth and Joanna Harmon since 2022, Amanda is honored to begin passing along Interactive Performance Training to the next generation of immersive creators.

“Party Tricks” Act Creation Workshop

Dell’Arte alumna Amy Saunders, better known by her stage name Miss Behave, is a British Variety legend whose career spans more than three decades of emcee-ing, speciality acts, and genre-bending entertainment.

Act Development with Daredevil Chicken

Anne Goldmann and Jonathan Taylor created ‘Daredevil Chicken’ on the streets of Barcelona as an interactive street theatre performance. Their performances have evolved and grown since then to create performance art, cabaret acts, burlesque, clown shows, and continue to present them around the world. Combining comedy, circus skills, music, magic and absurd characters they are modern comic vaudevillians.

Director, Prison Arts Theater Program & Dell’Arte Abroad: Bali

Janessa Johnsrude is a collaborative performance artist and teacher currently serving as the Director of Dell’Arte’s Prison Arts Theatre Program and the Dell’Arte Abroad: Bali Program. In addition, she serves as Associate Faculty (Drama) for the College of the Redwood’s Pelican Bay State Prison Scholars Program. She is a graduate of Dell’Arte’s MFA program in Ensemble-based Physical Theatre.

The Honest Clown: Removing the Nose

Jason Ballweber is a Minneapolis-based actor, director, and educator whose work centers on creating new performances and championing the importance of joy in the process. His credits span a wide range of companies, including Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Sod House Theater, Three Sticks Theatre, Jon Ferguson Theater, Live Action Set, Bedlam Theatre, Minnesota Orchestra, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, and Seattle Children's Theatre. At Know Theatre of Cincinnati, he won an Acclaim Award for his direction of Sideways Stories from Wayside School. At Open Eye Figure Theatre, he co-created and directed the Ivey Award–winning Milly and Tillie, and at Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, he directed the North American premiere of Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat.

Guest Faculty — Applied Clown, Healthcare Clowning

Jeff Raz co-founded the Medical Clown Project with his wife, Dr. Sherry Sherman, in 2010. He has also performed nationally and internationally for decades, starring as an acrobat, juggler and clown in circuses including Cirque du Soleil and the Pickle Family Circus, and as an actor in theaters from Berkeley Rep to Broadway. Jeff’s three novels, The Circus Trilogy, and his recent non-fiction book An International Circus Affair, are inspired by his career. He is a graduate of Dell’Arte International, where he has also taught, and was the co-founder of Vaudeville Nouveau, the New Vaudeville Festival and The Clown Conservatory. In addition, he has directed dozens of circus, dance, puppet, and theater productions and worked globally as a communications consultant.

Mentor in Residence

This summer, Jeff Wirth serves as Mentor in Residence, available to support students as they develop their own work. Rather than leading classes, he works directly with artists on in-progress ideas, stuck moments, and evolving pieces. Bring what you’re working on. Jeff helps clarify intention, sharpen structure, and test how your work holds up in the presence of real participants. His strength is in interactive performance, with practical insight that carries across physical theatre, clowning, and experimental forms. The focus stays on your goals, with feedback you can immediately apply.

Beyond the Fourth Wall

Josh Matthews (They/He) is a teacher, actor, and clown/circus performer. He has traveled around the world with his theater company, Under the Table, performing original physical comedies. Josh Has performed at The Lincoln Center (NYC), The Big Apple Circus (NYC) and Third Rail Projects (NYC) to name a few companies. Josh has been a teaching artist and guest lecturer for the past 25 years, some of the organizations Josh has worked with have been the New Victory Theater, Word For Word theater company, American Conservatory Theater, Occidental College, Sarah Lawrence College, and New York University. Currently Josh serves as a lead clown and artistic director for Medical Clown Project medicalclownproject.org.

Director, Healthcare Clowning

Julie Douglas is an actor-creator, teacher and clown. She is currently the Director of the Dell’Arte Healthcare Clowning Program. While on faculty at Dell’Arte Julie has taught the Michael Chekhov Technique, the Alexander Technique, Clown Plus, Healthcare Clowning, Improv/Play, Mask performance and more. She also directed the 42nd Annual Dell’Arte Company Holiday Show, Nightlight, A Winter Solstice Story, which toured to rural communities throughout Humboldt county and Here Comes the Flood, with Dell’Arte’s Professional Training Program. As Head of Arts Engagement Julie facilitated a variety of activities, exchanges, service projects, and learning opportunities between local community groups and Dell’Arte. She has been seen on the stages of Humboldt in The Poor of New York, Love’s the Best Doctor, and in various cabarets at Dell’Arte as well as in NCRT’s A Christmas Carol and local drag shows. 

Adjunct Faculty, Summer — Clown Core, Clown Pro, Healthcare Clowning

Michelle N. Matlock (She/They) is a performing artist, teacher, producer, director and creative coach. Most recently she was awarded a 2023 NEA grant through KCFringe Presents to revive her critically acclaimed solo show, The Mammy Project. Her solo show has travelled to universities and theaters across the United States, Canada and South America. She has been performing for over 20 years and has had the pleasure of creating original characters for Cirque du Soleil, Circus Amok, and Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. Other notable experiences have been teaching as Adjunct Faculty at Dell’Arte International, Clown Gym, Laughter League and directing the clowns of Circus Bella in San Francisco. Michelle currently resides in Tacoma, WA

The Honest Clown: Removing the Nose

Noah Bremer is the Producing Artistic Director of Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, CA, where he is stewarding the organization into its next chapter as the country's premier ensemble-based physical theater training center, with complementary focus on international touring and local community engagement.

A veteran physical performer and clown, Noah most recently toured in a clown duo with Minnesota-based Jason Ballweber. Prior to that, he played the lead in Karera, a circus production in Guam, and served as the Interactive Performer aboard the German flagship cruise line AIDA Cosma. His Las Vegas credits include Cirque du Soleil's Beatles LOVE, where he played Father McKenzie from "Eleanor Rigby," and Spiegelworld's raunchy western Atomic Saloon Show as Reverend Peabody. Internationally, he originated the lead role of The Skywatcher in Cirque du Soleil's big-top touring production Varekai.

Finding the Life: Puppetry Fundamentals for the Working Actor

Rebekah Lane is a theatre professional and educator with two decades of experience creating collaborative theatrical work. Her love of crafting movement for the stage led her to specialize in devising, puppetry, movement theatre, and intimacy direction,  One of her greatest joys is teaching actors how to bring an object to life. She began her puppetry journey with MicheLee Puppets, where she worked as an actor and puppeteer for seven years, and later served as Director of Puppetry for ensemble theatre troupe Phantasmagoria. Puppetry has since become a touchstone of her directing practice and a subject she has taught at colleges across the country and at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

Prison Arts Theater Program

Samantha Williams-Gray is a Tlingit Indian born in the southern mountains of Oregon and raised in the wilds of Humboldt County, California. Samantha currently lives in coastal Humboldt County and works in Northern California. She earned her BA in Native American Studies from Humboldt State University, and her MA in Psychology from Meridian University. She is presently working on art projects that will conclude her training with a certification in Expressive Arts, from Tamalpa Institute. Samantha weaves together trauma-informed approaches, expressive arts, visual arts, and Indigenous wisdom and healing practices into her work. She uses the intersecting points of people, politics, history, and healing to inform her transformative approach to performance and education.