director — theater

The Comeuppance leaned into the play’s uneasy collision of comedy, nostalgia, and dread, allowing the humor to sharpen rather than soften the reckoning underneath. At its center, the production explored how differently people carry the same past. What one person remembers as defining, another barely remembers at all. Laughter became a way into that discomfort, exposing the distance between who these friends once were, who they believe they became, and what they have spent years avoiding.

The production placed the characters in a dark, stripped-down space where fragments of celebration lingered at the edges. Balloons and mylar streamers became traces of memory, reminders of who these friends had once been. When Death entered, each character was isolated in a pool of light while the world around them slowed, with distinct sonic textures pulling each private reckoning into focus. Beneath the rest of the play, sound created a quiet, constant pulse until the end, when that world was stripped away and only two people remained.

The Pillowman placed the audience inside a mirrored interrogation room, where they could see themselves reflected as witnesses—watching, reacting, and laughing as violence unfolded. Judgment was never handed down; it was reflected back. By leaning into the comedy embedded in the writing, the production sharpened the violence rather than softening it.

The stories were staged using masks and shadow puppetry, borrowing the visual language we associate with children’s storytelling—an expectation of innocence deliberately violated by the brutality being described. This collision let the play’s dark humor emerge fully: laughter arrived, then curdled, as the audience questioned why they were laughing at all.

#Crazyland is a comedy about an older gay writer, a younger crush, and a secret he really shouldn’t be keeping. As he hides the relationship from his boss and best friend, the play leans into the humor of insecurity, age, and the messy ways people try to feel relevant—and wanted.

The staging resisted sentimentality, allowing comfort to emerge through proximity, shared silence, and restraint. The encounter existed as a brief suspension in time—two people aligned by grief before returning to separate lives.

Unleashed used two canine characters to explore instinct, power, and escalation within a shared public space. The work functioned as a study in how impulse and dominance surface when social structures break down.

Getting dressed becomes a battleground as Mark and Tristan prepare for a wedding they resent—the wedding of Mark’s ex-boyfriend, now marrying into political power. Drag is wielded as provocation. As tenderness flips into cruelty, the comedy exposes how love, jealousy, and protest share the same impulse: to be seen, even when it hurts.

Concert of the Mind was developed as a live exploration of perception, memory, and the limits of cognition. The piece transformed feats of mentalism into a communal experience—inviting the audience to test the boundaries between skill, intuition, and belief. Through mass memorization, musical improvisation, and visual reveal, the performance highlighted the scale and precision of human cognition, inspiring awe and curiosity.