"rECHOllection" was an outdoor, open-ended immersive experience held in Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, MD on October 30 and November 6 and 7, 2021.

How do you make an immersive experience during a pandemic?

First, you need many clever collaborators. To be clear, this work morphed and evolved throughout 2020 and 2021, ever-changing to meet the need for safety, but with a desire to get creative people working. There were Zoom workshops, Zoom meetings, Zoom rehearsals, dropping off props on stoops for perfomers to experiment with at home, backyard rehearsals, outdoor meetings, choosing an outdoor venue, more outdoor rehearsals, and, finally, performances in Druid Hill Park, with safety protocols in place. The actual pandemic we were experiencing greatly informed the fictional pandemic in this near-future artwork, which consisted of a temporal rift opening in the park where we, Baltimore citizens of 2021, could walk among Baltimore citizens of 2032. This future time consisted of a bleaker reality, with degraded environmental quality and more sinister pandemics. And yet, despite these conditions, the future community members of Baltimore still found ways to connect, express themselves, and attempt to heal from their collective loss of memory and companionship.

This highly collaborative work was developed with a large ensemble cast and a Core Creative Team of four members. "rECHOllection" was produced by Submersive Productions, where I serve as Co-Artistic Director.

Core Creative Team: Mika Nakano, Trustina Sabah, Susan Stroupe, Glenn Ricci

Contributing Artists: Deana Fisher Brill, Alex Ciardullo, Sierra Ho, Megan Livingston, Ursula Marcum, Stephanie Parks, Jess Rassp, Elizabeth Ung

Attendants: Josh Aterovis, David Brasington, Deana Brill, Andrea Clayville, Connor Kertiss, Natanya Washer, Rachel Wilson

Production Manager: Betse Lyons

Show Runner: Cyd Cohn

"See Also" was a devised, site-specific, immersive experience that was run as a part of the "In the Stacks" series held at the George Peabody Library, in Baltimore, in Februrary of 2020. Following threads (both figurative and literal) around the Peabody Library in a choose-your-own-adventure style, participants encountered visual art, soundscapes, and performers portraying character composites based on historical women and non-binary individuals from the collections of the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries and University Museums. The performance culminated in the world premiere of a work by contemporary female composer Briay Conditt.

This highly collaborative work was developed with a large ensemble cast and a Core Creative Team of ten members, of which I was a part. I also participated as a puppet and prop fabricator, puppeteer and designer. "See Also" was produced by Submersive Productions, where I serve as Co-Artistic Director.
Core Creative Team: Josh Aterovis, David Brasington, Kim Le, Bella Lucero, Ursula Marcum, Mika Nakano, Jess Rassp, Trustina Sabah, Glenn Ricci, Dani Turner
Ensemble: Josh Aterovis, David Brasington, Zipporah Brown, Tara Cariaso, Marissa Dahl, Jessie Delaplaine, Hannah Fenster, Emily Hall, Betse Lyons, Ursula Marcum, Mika Nakano, Jess Rassp, Trustina Sabah, Lisi Stoessel, Susan Stroupe, Dani Turner, Elizabeth Ung, Katharine Vary, Kaya Vision,  Natanya Washer, Caitlin Weaver, Jacob Zabawa
Costumes: Deana Fisher Brill
Lighting: Michael Logue, Mara Falbo-Wild
Sound: Glenn Ricci, C. Swann-Streepy

As with so many other artists, all of my collaborative creative projects were halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. I decided to use the time as a residency of sorts and delve further into puppetry. I read, researched, took virtual workshops, and experimented with forms of puppetry that could be created and performed by one person.

I continue to make work for online puppetry performance, with a focus on shadow puppetry and toy theater.

Excerpts from three of these projects are included here:
"The Legend of the World's Most Magical Substance," revised in 2022 and part of the National Capital Puppetry Guild Slam online,  August 20, 2022.
"The Return," part of a virtual artistic celebration of the solstice in December of 2020, produced by Baltimore artists Michele Minnick and Juanita Rockwell.
"Bound Up Together," originally performed via livestream for the virtual Women’s Suffrage Puppet Pageant, hosted by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, on September 26, 2020.

Vital Matters is a Baltimore-based laboratory for change led by Michele Minnick. On December 11, 2021, in collaboration with Single Carrot Theatre and Submersive Productions, Vital Matters gathered theatre makers, artists, and community members from around Baltimore for "Winter Seeds," an evening of short play readings, entertainment and conversation related to climate change. This unique event, which took place at The Voxel, was a part of Climate Change Theatre Action. I participated as a puppeteer, and two of the puppets were previously designed and fabricated by me.

LISTEN TO VANESSSA NAKATE
By: Aleya Kassam
From: Kenya
Director - Trustina Fafa Sabah
Actor - Anna Mwalagho
ASL Interpreter - Renuka Purimetla
Actor - Dana Woodson

ORIGINAL SONG: I WILL
Songwriter and Performer - Deletta Gillespie

THE PENGUIN
By: Nicolas Billon
From: Canada
Director - Genevieve DeMahy
Actor - Paul Diem

GENNY & M.D.
By: Submersive Productions
Puppets - Ursula Marcum
Puppeteers - Ursula Marcum, Jess Rassp
Emcee - Michele Minnick

FRIENDS FOR LIFE
By: Himali Kothari
From: India
Director - Shobha Subramanian
Actor - Nadia Nazar
Actor - Kiren Balakrishnan

ORIGINAL SONG: I SCREAM
Songwriter and Performer- Jamie Gansell

A WINDOW
By: Whiti Hereaka
From: New Zealand
Director - Katie Hileman
Actor - Dana Woodson
Actor - Griffin DeLisle
Actor - David Brasington

THE OYSTERS
By: Miranda Rose Hall
From: Baltimore/USA
Director - Sarah Gretchen Doccolo
Actor - Dana Woodson
Actor - Jessie Delaplaine
Actor - Sarah Gretchen Doccolo
Puppets - Jess Rassp
Puppeteers - Ursula Marcum, Jess Rassp

LIFEDAY
By: Jessica Huang
From: USA
Actor - Deletta Gillespie

MASS/RABBLE, was an experimental, movement-based performance presented on April 4-7 and 12-14, 2019 at the Baltimore War Memorial, as the culmination of a two week residency through the War Memorial Arts Initiative. Devised with an ensemble of 28 performers of different ages, ethnicities, and gender identities, this piece, conceived by Lisi Stoessel and led by Stoessel and Yuko Kaseki, used elements of Butoh dance, mask, embodied sound and immersive audience techniques to explore themes of overpopulation and how masses of bodies are affected by politics, displacement, and violence in our current era.

I was one of the Core Ensemble Members for this piece, as well as a Mask Fabricator. MASS/RABBLE was produced by Submersive Productions, where I serve as Co-Artistic Director.

Ensemble Members: Samantha Ankrom-Chickering, Francisco Benavides, Caitlin Bouxsein, David Brasington, Tina Canady, Tara Cariaso, Jessie Delaplaine, Nadya Elson, Hannah Fenster, Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey, E’Tona Ford, Rae Anna Hample, Bryan Hargraves, Katie Hileman, Max Huck, Tavia LaFollette, Kim Le, Mika Nakano, Marissa O’Guinn, Jessica Rassp, Trustina Sabah, Alexander Scally, Susan Stroupe, Kaya Vision, Natanya Washer, Caitlin Weaver, Matthew Williams and Jacob Zabawa
Costume Design: Deana Fisher Brill
Lighting Design: Helen Garcia-Alton
Sound Design: Glenn Ricci

As a participant at the O'Neill Puppetry Conference I was an Ensemble Member for two workshop performances. The first, "Unsettling," was under the direction of Tracy Broyles. This workshop production explored ideas of migration, immigration and who and how those who came before are remembered. Ensemble Members: Ruth Burack-Lamberson, Andrew Cano, Erin Chmela, Lily Gershon, Cindy Hartigan, Heather Henson, Gina Leigh, Jess Rassp and Joel Schechter.
"Whiskey" was under the direction of Erin Chmela, who was also the concept originator and puppet fabricator for the piece. This production exemplified the complicated relationship of one man to his favorite intoxicant. Ensemble Members: Chris Caswell, Martin Kettling and Anthony Marotta.

Designed with small audiences in mind, The Institute of Visionary History and the Archives of the Deep Now was produced by Submersive Productions and took place in a one-room installation that was introduced as a "thin place," a place where one can more easily transcend our present reality and contact other planes, places, and times. Audience members were inducted as researchers, then led to the room to conduct an experiment where they inhabited the world with the performers. In addition to the performance, the room was activated using light, projections, sound and object theater. Six original "Episodes" were devised with eight different performers for this run throughout the fall of 2018 in The Peale Center in downtown Baltimore. Each Episode took place in the same installation, which was modified for each show. In collaboration with the Creative Core Team of Josh Aterovis, Glenn Ricci and Susan Stroupe, I designed the room and served as Prop Master and Wall Operator for each of the Episodes.

Costumes: Kristina Green
Lighting , Projections and Sound: Glenn Ricci
Devisers/Cast:
Tina Canady, Rachel Wilson - "Episode 1" (Episode 1)
Mika Nakano - "Project P.S." (Episode 2)
Kim Le - "Altar Ego" (Episode 3)
Cori Dioquino - "Waters of Oblivion" (Episode 4)
Elizabeth Ung - "She Who Sees and Hears the Cries of the World" (Episode 5)
Francisco Benevides, Lisi Stoessel  - "A Horse by the Tail in the Night" (Episode 6)

In 2019, we presented revised versions of Episode 2 by Mika Nakano and Episode 3 by Kim Le.

Written and performed by artist Michele Minnick, "BATS!" was a mixed media, interactive contemplation on the nature of fear and madness. With a high level of audience engagement and participation, the story unfolded with the use of text and live accordion music by Minnick, projections and soundscapes by Glenn Ricci, original drawings by Chelsea Demitras and puppetry in the Marquee Lounge at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore in 2018. As a part of the Production Team, I served as Puppet Fabricator and Puppeteer, as well as Props Manager and Set Dresser. Puppeteers Caitlin Bouxsein and Jess Rassp were also members of the Production Team. The show was produced by Submersive Productions, where I serve as Co-Artistic Director.

"H. T. Darling’s Incredible Musaeum: The Treasures of New Galapagos, Astonishing Acquisitions from the Perisphere" was a four story immersive adventure that activated The Peale Center in downtown Baltimore - the first purpose built museum in the United States - consisting of two full award-winning runs, one in the spring and one in the fall of 2017. The "Musaeum" was filled with a number of "specimens" from a distant planet, brought back by intrepid explorer H.T. Darling. 

During the performance, multiple narratives were happening in the building simultaneously, and the audience was invited to inhabit the world with the performers and choose their own path. Over twenty performers and artists devised and collaborated to create this project. I fabricated several of the puppet specimens and was part of the team of puppeteers during both runs. I also served as the Props Master, Set Dresser and Co-Producer for the show. The show was produced by Submersive Productions, where I serve as Co-Artistic Director.

Creative Core Team: Glenn Ricci, Lisi Stoessel, Susan Stroupe
Devisers/Cast: Josh Aterovis, Caitlin Bouxsein, Francisco Benavides, David Brasington, E'Tona Ford, Emily Hall, Marie Claire Macadar, Brad Norris, Martha Robichaud, Trustina Sabah, Lisi Stoessel, Sarah Olmstead Thomas, Katharine Vary, Alex Vernon
Puppeteers: Francisco Benavides, David Brasington, Jessie Delaplaine, Kim Le, Ursula Marcum, Jess Rassp, Trustina Sabah, Lisi Stoessel, Alex Vernon
Set Design: Lisi Stoessel
Costume Design: Stephanie Parks
Lighting Design: James Johnson
Sound Design: Glenn Ricci

"The Mesmeric Revelations! of Edgar Allan Poe" was an immersive theater experience based on the women in the life and fiction of Poe, staged in the Enoch Pratt House in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore. A collaborative, multi-disciplinary work that incorporated performance, soundscapes and art installation, thirty artists devised and created "a world both bizarre and beautiful" for two separate runs in the Spring and Fall of 2015. As Co-Producer, Prop Designer/Fabricator and Set Dresser, I created objects and installations to be encountered and discovered by audience members during their visit.

Cast/Devisers: Jessica Baker, Siobahn Beckett, Caitlin Bouxsein, David Brasington, Sarah Doccolo, Nick Genna, Shannon Graham,  Tanner Medding, Jenna Rossman, Alexander Scally, Lisi Stoessel, Ann Turiano, Natanya Washer, Caitlin Weaver
Directors: Michele Minnick, Glenn Ricci, Susan Stroupe
Costume Design: Stephanie Parks
Ligting and Scenic Design: Kel Millione
Sound Design: Glenn Ricci