Joanna Sherman (Artistic Director) is co-founder of Bond Street Theatre. As director, choreographer and actor, she has participated in company projects in East Asia, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Under her directorship, the company received a MacArthur Foundation Award in 1990 for its interdisciplinary and intercultural programming. She has been a speaker on the role of the arts in areas of conflict at the United Nations, National Council on Women, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, UN Conference on Women in China, universities, arts councils, and arts-in-education forums. She has also designed and implemented arts projects for international relief organizations. Ms. Sherman has lectured or taught at numerous universities. Ms. Sherman has a BFA in Art and Architecture from Cooper Union, and an MA in Theatre & International Studies from New York University. She received a Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award from NYU in 2004. Her articles appear in American Theatre Magazine and The Open Page, an international theatre journal. She has been interviewed on CNN, BBC, and National Public Radio (Common Ground, Leonard Lopate, and The World). Ms. Sherman plays saxophone with the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band, and is a stilt-dancer, juggler, fire-eater and mask-maker. She is the recipient of an Exploration Fund grant from Arts International and travel grants from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Theatre Communications Group, and the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Michael McGuigan (Managing Director) has been an ensemble member of Bond Street Theatre for more than 25 years. He has been the Project and Associate Director for many of Bond Street Theatre’s cultural exchange projects, including projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil, China, Singapore, Japan, and throughout Europe and the Balkans. He directs Bond Street Theatre’s Young Audience Program (YAP) for which he adapts classic folk tales for the stage and introduces physical theatre techniques to students through his program Actor-batics. He is also the set designer and audio-visual designer for many of Bond Street’s touring productions. He has participated in all company tours since 1979. Mr. McGuigan has also performed in the Public Theatre’s Delacourt and Broadway productions of The Tempest under the direction of George C. Wolfe, and was stilt consultant for the Broadway productions The King and I, choreographed by Lar Lubovich, and Sideshow. Mr. McGuigan plays drums and percussion in the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band.

Meghan Frank (Program Director, Performing Artist) graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2003 with a self-designed major entitled Theatre for Social Change. She joined Bond Street Theatre as an intern in 2003 and quickly became an indispensable member of the acting ensemble, technical crew, and management team. As a performer and experienced educator, Meghan has traveled widely (Cuba, India, Afghanistan, Mexico, Nepal, Bosnia, Romania, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia) and facilitated many theatre-based community programs for children and young adults throughout her high school and university years, and thereafter. She is a key performer and coordinator for many of Bond Street’s international initiatives, including the Performing Artists for Balkan Peace, an ongoing theatre arts exchange project with Balkan theatre groups.

Fred Collins (Fight Choreographer, Performer) is a performer of vast experience in the art of circus and theatre. In addition to his training in Stage Combat, he is a stilt walker, juggler, actor and trained clown. He has been a member of the Bond Street Theatre since 1978, and has 14 years of experience teaching various aspects of the theatre arts in the schools. His motto is “Comedy is concentration.” His performance group, Two Too Far, features the study of clown cultures throughout the world including the use of trickster character in Native American, African and European religious events, the basis for his longer workshop residencies.

Luanne Dietrich (Performing Artist) is an actress, clown and teacher and a long-standing member of the Bond Street Theatre. She has been performing professionally for over 20 years and has been teaching the Art of the Clown and Circus to children and adults for over 15 years in the United States and abroad. She creates, develops and presents original Theatre and Clown performances as well as arts-in-education residencies in Circus Arts, Clowns and Cultures, Trickster Myths and Legends, Creative Drama and Movement, Mask-making and Puppetry. She is the Workshop Manager, as well as a teaching artist for Marquis Studios. She and partner Fred Collins make up the clown performance and teaching duo of TWO TOO FAR.

Brian Foley (Perofrming Artist) has traveled around the world with numerous circuses including Moscow Circus, Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, Cirque du Soleil, The Big Apple Circus and Circus Bambouk for whom he is artistic director. He has appeared on Sesame Street, and Directed ‘Almost, Maine’ for the Cockeyed Optimists and The Good Doctor for Hubbard Hall. He began working with Bond Street Theatre in 2006, performing in Giant Steps as part of their touring Young Audience Program. Mr. Foley has hosted the Funhouse Festival of Family Variety Theater and the opening night of the Laugh Out Loud Festival. Consults as magic designer, Commedia dell’Arte coach and circus skills instructor, and scripted instructional videos in magic and clown for the Walrus Company. Graduate of the Playwrights Horizon’s program, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Christina Gelsone (Performing Artist/Choreographer) has been an ensemble member of Bond Street Theatre since 2001. With the company, she has traveled to Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Singapore, Japan and Western Europe to perform in company productions and participate in cultural exchange projects. As an ensemble member and choreographer, she is instrumental in the creation of all productions. Ms. Gelsone is a clown, actress and professional dancer. She the is co-founder of Fools Academy, presenting educational-circus based shows for children, and a member of Full Bloom Theatre. She has been a teaching artist for the Bronx Arts Ensemble, New Victory Theatre and Adelphi University. Ms. Gelsone studied at Boston Ballet Conservatory and Hartford Ballet and has her BA in English from Princeton University. She is a graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater.

Rob Lok (Performing Artist) has been an ensemble member and actor with Bond Street Theatre since 1999. He joined the company at the initiation of the Balkan Peace Project with tours in Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria. He has also toured with the company in Afghanistan, Western Europe, Venezuela, Singapore and the US. Mr. Lok is a graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. He was the first Chinese American Clown to tour with the circus. He has also studied Butoh and Noh theatre, martial arts, trumpet, Kyogen, and additional acting work with Pan Asian Repertory. He teaches physical comedy at Adelphi University and internationally, and is a specialist in his own brand of extreme humor which he calls Kinetic Clowning. He has appeared on The Today Show, The Learning Channel, MTV, HBO, Nickelodeon, among others and was the subject of a documentary by Voice of America for distribution in China. Mr. Lok has also performed in festival tours across England, Japan, and China, and conducted artistic-social work with alternative theatre groups in Croatia and Serbia.

Sean Nowell (Musical Director, Performer) is a composer and performer with degrees in Jazz Composition from Berkley College of Music and in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music. He has been the Musical Director of Bond Street Theatre since 1998 and toured with the company to festivals in Hungary, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Romania, Colombia, Venezuela, France and Singapore. He composed music for the Bond Street Theatre productions of Cozmic Jazz and Romeo and Juliet . He arranges musical scores and performs with the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band. Sean also composed the score for Alabama Ballet Theatre’s award-winning ballet,Into the Nexus, and has played for Broadway touring productions. His jazz group, The Sean Nowell Quartet, has appeared throughout the United States and Europe. Sean also plays with downtown music groups such as Monotonic and performs across the US with the big band, Bjorkestra.

Joe Schufle (Musician) has been a lively addition to the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band since 1995. He is a professional musician who plays regularly with the Amato Opera, the Jean Cocteau Theatre, and annual for the numerous festivals in Little Italy, Chinatown, and Queens, NY. He toured his own classical brass ensemble across the United States and Western Europe throughout the 1980’s.

Kerry Watterson (Performing Artist) has an M.F.A. in Acting and Directing from the University of Arizona. Artistic Associate at New Perspectives Theater, New York City. June 2001 co-developed and team-taught Acquiring English Skills Through Drama at various villages throughout Ghana, Africa with the help of Peace Corps Ghana volunteers. Company credits include Three Graces Theatre (NYC), New Perspectives Theatre Company (NYC), Theatreworks/USA, Arizona Rep Theatre and Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Bruce Williamson (Musician, Composer, Performer) has been in Bond Street Theatre’s Shinbone Alley Stilt Band since 1995. He was the composer for Bond Street’s production of WERK which toured Brazil in 1996, and has composed pieces for the Band. He has been a jazz composer and a performer in clubs and festivals worldwide with such artists as Art Lande, Mark Isham, Jack McDuff, Fred Hersch, Gary Peacock, Paul McCandless, Bobby McFerron, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bennie Green, Dave Douglas, Tom Harell, and Jim Pepper. He has also performed in New York City with American Ballet Theatre Orchestra, Manhattan New Music Project, Partita Ensemble. Bruce has collaborated on theater projects with composer Ricky Ian Gordon and director Tina Landau (The Family Project), director George Wolfe (Caroline, or Change); with director Julie Taymor (Juan Darien, The Lion King, and The Green Bird), and with director Mark Rylance at the Globe Theater. His work has been featured in Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal’s scores for Frida, Titus, In Dreams, and The Butcher Boy. He has received two NEA grants, and has taught at SUNY Purchase, Hunter College, and Williams. BM, University of Miami; MA, Hunter College. He has been on the faculty of Bennington College since 1994.

Sima Wolf (Musician, Performer) is a performer, dancer, pianist, vocalist, and stilt walker living in New York City. Currently Sima plays saxophone in the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band and performs in other Bond Street Theatre productions, including Bond Street Theatre’s Young Audience Program with Pythagoras Plays the Blues, co-written by Ms. Wolf and Mr. McGuigan. She has performed in venues all over the world and has composed music for film, theater, and dance. She also builds musical instruments and gives concerts and recordings with Music For Homemade Instruments. Sima teaches piano privately and performs in schools with several Arts-In-Education groups.

Joshua Wynter (Performing Artist) studied theatre at the University of Buffalo and the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, and currently writes, performs and directs in New York City sketch comedy troupes; member of improv groups “Oops” and “Alan Chan Improv”. Mr. Wynter has directed inner city children for the Police Athletic League (PAL) and is currently a cast member of The Mechanical, Bond Street Theater’s newest original play.

Anna Zastrow (Performing Artist) Graduate of the New York American Academy of Dramatic Art and the Jacques Lecoq School of Theatre in France. New York company credits include Classical Theatre of Harlem, Cirque Boom, The Prospect Theatre Company, Doppelgang Productions, Jean Cocteau Repertory, Theater for the New City and Bond Street Theatre.

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