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Guest Artists 2012-2013

Walter Bilderback

Fall 2012, Director, Dramaturgy Thesis

Walter Bilderback has been the Dramaturg at the Wilma Theater since 2004. Before coming to Philadelphia, he worked at numerous theaters, including La Jolla Playhouse, the Alliance in Atlanta, Dallas Theater Center, the Center for Puppetry Arts, The American Ibsen Theater, and was the first dramaturg budgeted on a Broadway production - Lee Blessing's A Walk in the Woods. He led the Theatre program at Georgia College & State University for five years, somewhere amid this other work. He has studied and performed physical theater/devised work with Leonard Pitt, Bill Irwin, Radu Penciulescu, and Dijana Milosevic, and written plays for people and found objects. He produces and frequently directs for the Wilma's playreading series, and has directed in Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego, Ann Arbor, as well as co-creating and co-directing the Wilma Theater/Ballet X collaboration, Proliferation of the Imagination.

 

Jill Harrison

Fall 2012, Director, Playwriting Thesis

Jill Harrison hails from NYC where she has worked as a freelance director and assistant for such companies as Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Nora's Playhouse, NYC Frigid Festival, Brooklyn Playwrights Collective, and Peculiar Works Project. She holds a MFA in Directing from Temple University and a BA in Theatre from Lehigh University. Jill is a member of Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab, a former member of Directing Corps at Williamstown Theatre Festival, and an associate member of SDC.
Since moving to Philly in 2009, Jill has signed on as Associate Artistic Director at Simpatico Theatre Project and was recently named the Festival Director of Philadelphia Theatre Company's PTC@PLAY. With Simpatico she has directed the Philadelphia premier of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone and will direct the Philadelphia premiere of Sam Hunter's Obie award winning play, A Bright New Boise this season. She has also directed Charles Mee's Big Love and Stefanie Zadravec's Honey Brown Eyes, an excerpt for Temple Theaters. Other directing credits include: Nora McLaughlin's The Giant's Causeways (Frigid NYC - Audience Choice Award), Stefanie Zadravec's Leaving (Secret Theatre/NYC), Craig Lucas' Reckless and Harry Kondoleon's Play Yourself (Theatre Outlet), John Guare's Loveliest Afternoon of the Year and Steve Wojtas' Jump (Williamstown), Michael Tigar's The Zenger Trial Project (Borgata Casino/PBA Productions) and Peculiar Works Project's OFF Stage: West Village. Recent assistant credits include: Nico Muhly & Craig Lucas' world premiere opera Two Boys (English National Opera), Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts and Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park (Arden Theatre Company), Craig Lucas' Prayer for My Enemy (Playwrights Horizons), and Cusi Cram's Lucy and the Conquest (Williamstown). Jill is thrilled and honored to be collaborating with Swarthmore College's Department of Theatre.

 

Emanuelle Delpech

Spring 2013, Director, Acting Thesis

Emmanuelle Delpech is an actor, teacher and director. As an actor she was classically trained at the Ecole Superieur d'Art Dramatique de la ville de Paris, and then studied physical theatre at l'Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq. She recently graduated from Temple University and earned an MFA in Directing. A former member of Pig Iron Theatre Company, Emmanuelle has been a performer/co-creator of such productions as Gentlemen Volunteers, Flop!, Hell Meets Henry Halfway (Barrymore nomination for best supporting actress) and James Joyce is Dead and So Is Paris (Barrymore Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical). She created and performed Madame Douce-Amere, a wordless clown duet at the 2005 Philadelphia Lives Arts festival, which was also produced by 1812 Productions at the Walnut street theatre in October 2006. Emmanuelle's directing credits includes Oedipus at FDR, an urban adaptation of Sophocles Greek tragedy "Oedipus at Colonus" performed at the FDR Skate Park for the 2008 Philadelphia Live Arts festival. In June/July 2009, Emmanuelle performed with The Second City Chicago in Reverie directed by Dexter Bullard which was premiered at the "Just for Laughs" festival in Montreal. Emmanuelle worked for the Civilians' new piece The Great Immensity to share her physical theater skills with director Steve Cosson and was assistant director for its first performance at the Princeton Atelier. She worked again with Steve Cosson as a mime consultant for Anne Washburn's new play: A Devil at Noon, which premiered at the Humana Festival in Louisville in march 2011. In December 2010, The Philly Shakes Cabaret Series presented her clown adaptation of Marivaux's La Dispute and Emmanuelle directed Moliere's Tartuffe as her thesis for the Temple Repertory Theater. She has been working with Jen Child for 1812 Productions for her new project "Woman and Comedy" in a series of 3 week workshop with woman from different group age, background and ethnicities and will continue to be Jen's clown consultant for the show that will premiere in April 2013. She is thrilled to be working on an original piece FRONTIN' with James Ijames on the tradition of Blackface performances and the identity of the black performer in America and with Charlotte Ford on BANG!, a clown exploration of woman and sexuality that debuted at the 2012 Live Arts festival. Emmanuelle received a Best of Philly 2011 by the Philadelphia Magazine as Best Theater Artist. Emmanuelle is a 2012 LAB fellow and will be working with James Sugg and hip-hop artists to explore slam/spoken word and theater and eventually write an American hip-hop requiem! Emmanuelle has taught at University of the Arts, Swarthmore College and Temple University. She has been teaching clown workshops for the Volcano Institute in Toronto and also in Philadelphia. She regularly teaches workshops for directors to create devised work with the Movement Theater studio NYC. Emmanuelle is a faculty member of the Headlong Performance Institute and of the Pig Iron School for Advanced Training (emmanuelledr.squarespace.com).

 

Richard Hamburger

Spring 2013, Director, Production Ensemble

Richard Hamburger was the Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center from 1992-2007, where he also directed dozens of productions of every sort, including Shakespeare, modern classics, and a wide of American plays, including the world premieres of several new plays. He has directed extensively at theaters around the country, including Portland Stage Company, Great Lakes Theater Festival (Cleveland), the Wilma Theatre (Philadelphia), the Pasadena Playhouse, Center Stage (Baltimore), the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, the California Shakespeare Festival, and the Williamstown Festival. In New York City, he has directed at American Place Theatre, South Street Theater, and The Acting Company. He has also served as a resident director at the Juilliard Theater Center in New York City, among other work in major drama schools around the country. He also has extensive experience as a professional actor in New York and in regional theaters.

 

 

Oona Curley

Spring 2013, Lighting Designer, Directing Thesis

Oona Curley is a Philadelphia-based lighting and scenic designer. She has designed productions of theatre, dance, and devised work with Charlotte Ford, Mark Lord, Meredith Rainey, Kate Watson Wallace/anonymous bodies, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, BCKSEET productions, Inis Nua Theatre Co., Team Sunshine Performance Co., and at Theater Horizon. Her work has also been seen in New York (at La MaMa, Soho Rep, Theater for the New City, The Ontological Hysteric, The Studio at Cherry Lane), and Providence (at the Gamm Theatre, the Perishable Theatre, Brown University, Trinity Consortium). Oona's designs have earned her the Zonta Award for Theatre Arts and Brown University's Weston Fine Arts Award for Theatre Design. She serves as the resident lighting designer with FRANK Theatre Company, and the resident scenic and lighting designer with the Bearded Ladies Cabaret. She received her AB from Brown University in 2010.

 

2011-12 Guest Artists