company bios - La Jolla Playhouse

First Workshop Performance | June 19 – 21, 2014 | Created by Iain Gunn and Animal Cracker Conspiracy
COMPANY BIOS
Iain Gunn, Designer, Creator, Puppeteer
Iain Gunn has a degree in Literature and minor in Fine Art from the
University of British Columbia. He is currently directing, designing,
building and performing as co-artistic director and co-founder
of Animal Cracker Conspiracy Puppet Company. Past projects in
San Diego include performing with groups such as Zirk Ubu as
creator and co-founder, collaborating with dance artist Liam Clancy
and Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, and co-creating puppet
performance with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry and Spinning
Wheel Players. He has performed and taught with the San Diego
Guild of Puppetry, Center Artes, Young Audiences and (the former)
Fern St. Circus. Iain has also created large scale art installations
for Xara and The Ancient Gallery, he is continually inspired by
stretching the boundaries between a number of different art
forms; combining puppetry, toy and object theatre, dance, stiltwalking, video work, painting, and circus arts. He is dedicated
to the discovery and support of new ideas by encouraging
visionary thought and non-traditional approaches to both art and
performance. He has performed in the Museum of Photographic
Arts San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbra, at
the Loft for Art Power UCSD, and HERE NY, NY. Animal Cracker
Conspiracy has participated in both national and international artist
residencies and workshops with Bread and Puppet, North American
Creative Laboratories, La Pocha Nostra, RosenClaire and the Old
Trouts Puppet Workshop. He has received support from the Jim
Henson Foundation, Puffin Foundation, San Diego Foundation,
Sator Arts Foundation, Synergy Arts Foundation, The Puppet Slam
Network ad the Creative Catalyst Fellowship.
Bridget Rountree, Collaborator & Puppeteer
Bridget Rountree has a degree in Literature and has a background
in Fine Art. Bridget is a native of San Diego, CA. She has been
collaborating under the name Animal Cracker Conspiracy with
Iain Gunn since 2006. Their shared interest and investigation of
where fine art, puppetry, performance art, physical theater, and
mixed media intersect is a continued source of inspiration for
their work. They revel in diversity and artistic inquiry, providing
fluctuating frameworks for the creation of community, by facilitating
collaboration, investigation, and questioning the status quo. A
movement defined abstraction of the material to immaterial,
folklore to contemporary, and intellectual to intuitive. They have
performed and exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art
San Diego, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, Museum
of Contemporary Art Santa Barbra, Art Power UCSD, and HERE
NY, NY. Animal Cracker Conspiracy has participated in both
national and international artist residencies and workshops with
Bread and Puppet, North American Creative Laboratories, La
Pocha Nostra, RosenClaire, and the Old Trouts Puppet Workshop.
They have received support from the Jim Henson Foundation,
Puffin Foundation, San Diego Foundation, Sator Arts Foundation,
Synergy Arts Foundation, and The Puppet Slam Network. Bridget
is also a 2014 Creative Catalyst Fellow for her work in Visual Arts
and Mixed Media.
Lisa Berger, Director
MFA (Directing, U. of Montana; Graduate Meisner actor intensive
William Esper Studio, NYC) is a director and teacher. Her San Diego
directing credits include The Car Plays: We Wait (LaJolla Playhouse,
Moving Arts); The Whale (reading; LaJolla Playhouse); Anatomy of
Gray and Eurydice (USD); The Collector (Animal Cracker Conspiracy);
Righteous Expliots (So Say We All); A Behanding in Spokane (Cygnet
Theatre); Buried Child, Simpatico,Things We Want (New Village
Arts); Killer Joe (Compass Theatre – Patte Award); The Corpse Bride
(Stone Soup), Crimes of the Heart (Canyon Crest Academy) Buried
Child (UC San Diego); The Long Christmas Ride Home (Patte Award)
and Looking for Normal (Diversionary Theatre); Handbag (AASD);
The Pirates of Penzance (Lyric Opera Academy) and Islands of
Repair (NYC Fringe). Additional directing credits include House of
Blue Leaves, Our Town, The Boys Next Door, Picnic, Laughing Wild
and several children’s musical for the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s
Creating Original Opera program. She currently teaches at Mira
Costa College, City College and University of San Diego. She is
co-artistic director of MeisnerChekhov Intergrated Training Studio.
Tah Rei, Sound Design and Performance
Tah Rei has performed for many years in San Diego, acquiring a
degree in music at SDSU. During that time he was performing in his
own big bands, curating live art and dance events, and performing
DJ/live sets around town. He spent the last 8 years living in the
hyper creative city of Portland, Oregon. This is where his work
expanded to many facets of performance. In Portland, Tah Rei
performed with Malian fusion band DUSU. Their high-energy desert
blues brought him to perform on many stages in the Northwest.
His work with Paper Cities is an exploration of feeling through
soundscapes and story telling; integrating improve performance
with sonic character pairing. Paper Cities is an experience that
is happening in the moment hinting to the past and present.
The music reflects these feelings with elements of percussion,
woodwinds, and sound experimentation.
Ciara White, Video Design Assistant and Video Tech
Born and raised in San Diego, Ciara White is a whimsical and
uncanny visual artist. She enjoys the process of seeing imagination
transcend into reality. She was Lead Illustrator for 44th and Landis,
which exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
She has worked with Animal Cracker Conspiracy on The Collector,
which showed in San Diego and New York, and is excited to work
with them again on their new workshop at La Jolla Playhouse. Ciara
White continues to explore exciting art forms with a passion to
bring to life her wildest imagination.
Megan Ames, Stage Manager
Megan Ames is happy to be working with Lisa Berger in her latest
puppet endeavor. She is a recent graduate of San Diego State
University where she received a BA in Design Technology for
Theatre with an emphasis in stage management. Previous credits
include When Last We Flew (Diversionary); The Liar, The Gift Teller,
An Inspector Calls, Perfect Wedding and California Suite (Scripps
Ranch Theatre); Zanna, Don’t!, Doubt, Symphony of Clouds, A
Grand Night for Singing (SDSU) and Dear Harvey (USD).
Tania Lynn Yager, Assistant Stage Manager
Tania Lynn Yager is a long time veteran of the performing arts. She
has acted in such shows as Kiss Me Kate, Taming of The Shrew
and Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. She won a Best Director Award
for both The Insanity of Mary Gerard in 1991 and A Pyramid
Mirror in 1992. With a 20-year history of Middle Eastern dance
and fire dancing, Tania has founded, managed and directed such
performance groups as Hades Ladies and Company and Vaudeville
Flame Productions. Tania is actively involved in the art of puppetry.
Currently, she is the creator and manager of Twisted Heart
Puppetworks and is employed as a massage therapy and holistic
health instructor in Vista California.
Molly Maslak, Puppeteer
Molly Maslak is a graduate of the University of San Diego where
she earned her BA in Theatre Arts and English. She is currently a
teaching artist and a student at the Meisner Chekhov Integrated
Training Studio, studying under Liz Shipman and Lisa Berger. Molly
can next be seen performing her original piece Icaria and Anatole at
the San Diego Fringe Festival with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry.
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