"Bienvenidos Blancos" by Team Sunshine Performance Corporation
Swarthmore's rich alumni, faculty, and staff connections provide our theater students with unique opportunities to work with professionals in many different fields. Each year we are able to bring in artists from Philadelphia and beyond to enliven our productions and offer unique opportunities for our students.
Read on to learn more about just a few of our recent guest artists!
John Jarboe (she/her) is a director, singer, writer, and host serving you herstory, queer community making, and a whole lot of glitter. She is the founding and producing artistic director of The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, transforming opera, cabaret, and live performance and creating work that will make you sing, dance, and question. She has written, performed, and directed original work for La Mama ETC, Joe’s Pub, Opera Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Wilma Theater, Lincoln Center, and The Guggenheim’s Works & Process series. John delighted our students in Feb 2024 with "The Poison Cookie Jar", a workshop about the history of the cabaret form.
AZ Espinoza (they/them) is a transmasculine feminist who makes magic through theater. Their play "All My Mothers Dream in Spanish" had its world premiere at Azuka Theatre in 2023, and their play Homeridae has been developed nationally and was an Honorable Mention finalist for the Terrance McNally Award. They are the co-founder of theBlackBestFriend, a producing collective that uplifts Black multiplicities. They have been a theater educator at the Wilma Theater, Temple University, Haverford College, and the University of the Arts, and they are a student of liberation everywhere, and for everyone. AZ is serving as the guest artist and dramaturg for Jules Kyung '24's production of "Angels in America" in May of 2024.
Jack Isaac Pryor is a writer, theater and performance studies scholar, educator, and artist who is deeply committed to these practices as sites of research and experiment. Their research centers on live art as it intersects with questions of time, space, history, and memory. This research takes them into the convergent fields of performance studies, cultural studies, queer and transgender studies, critical race and ethnic studies, disability studies, trauma studies, and affect theory. Jack will be acting as Production Dramaturg for Rose Palmieri's Honors Preparation in directing, "Much Ado", in the spring of 2024.
Cat Ramirez is a Philly-based director and producer who specializes in new plays, devised work, multidisciplinary performance, and event production. They have turned boiler rooms into dilapidated mansions, studios & galleries into living achieves of local Asian American histories, and bars into dreamscapes for queer love stories. Cat directed the reading of Eva Nahass' original play, "See You At Home", in October 2023.
Eli (they/them) is a trans* non-binary actor, fight director, Intimacy Director, dancer, musician, and artist based in Philadelphia. Their fight and intimacy work has been seen on stage at theatres including Arden Theatre Co., People’s Light & Theatre, Theatre Exile, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Artists Collective, Quintessence Theatre, The University of the Arts, and Muhlenberg College. They supported Raya Tuffaha '23 in creating her Fight Scenes Night in February 2023.
Severin Blake (they/all/we) is an artist by birthright. The identity markers they encompass and expand beyond are Black, mixed race, trans, human. They are an educator, a healer, facilitator, director and producer based in Lenape Territory, c.k.a Philadelphia, PA. They are a constellation of celebration and contradiction living in between worlds. Severin values, love, liberation, tenderness, and resourcefulness. They believe art is not a passive experience but an interactive one. They facilitate intentional spaces of bravery, vulnerability and joy making. Severin was the guest artist for Marie Inniss '23, and supported Marie in the creation of her original cabaret show, "Sweet Melodies and Salty Air", in the early spring of 2023.
Director, creator and producer Sam Tower is the Co-Artistic director of Ninth Planet, a theater company making experimental theatre that centers people of color, women, queer and trans* people in Philadelphia. Sam supported Raya Tuffaha '23 in the creation of her solo performance project in October of 2022.
Andalyn Young works across performance, writing and design. As a performer, she has created work with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, The Eva Steinmetz Project, Lightning Rod Special, Antigravity Performance Project and poet Kyle Dacuyan, among others. Andalyn served as the Movement Director for "The Wolves", directed by Alex Torra in November 2022.
Learn more about our past guest artists, from Philadelphia and beyond!
