Staff
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Joanna Sherman, Founder and Artistic Director
As a director, choreographer, musician and actor, Joanna has initiated and participated in company projects in East Asia, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Under her directorship, Bond Street Theatre received a MacArthur Foundation Award in 1990 for its interdisciplinary and intercultural programming. Ms. Sherman has directed and taught internationally, and has been an advocate and speaker on the role of the arts in peacebuilding at the United Nations, National Council on Women, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, UN Conference on Women in China, numerous universities (Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, Columbia, University of Arhus in Denmark, Kabul University in Afghanistan, Universidade Federal do Pará in Brazil, Tenri University in Japan, and others), and other conferences and forums. She has been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and published in American Theatre magazine, the Open Page, the book The Children of Afghanistan. She has also designed and implemented arts projects for international relief organizations. Ms. Sherman has a BFA in Fine Arts 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, Torch of Hope Award from the Barondess Foundation, and Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women. 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. Ms. Sherman also plays tenor saxophone with the Shinbone Alley Stilt Band. |
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Michael McGuigan, Managing Director
Michael is an ensemble member of Bond Street Theatre since 1979, performing as actor, director, designer, percussionist and technique instructor; he also serves as the Bond Street’s managing director. He regularly performs in the company’s cultural exchange programs, including projects in Afghanistan, Myanmar, India and Turkey, and performed throughout Asia, South America and Europe east and west. He is also the percussionist and raconteur for the ensemble’s Shinbone Alley Stilt Band. He is the author and director of BST’s production The Mechanical, and a collaborator on Volpone with Thukhuma Khayeethe in Myanmar and Beyond the Mirror with Exile Theatre in Afghanistan. He has written four plays for BST’s young audiences program. In 1985 he co-founded The Palenville Interarts Colony, an interdisciplinary artist colony that supported hundreds of artists throughout its ten-year history, and directed its community-outreach programming. Mr. McGuigan has conducted programs for the Balkan Youth Reconciliation Seminar (Romania), UN Conference on Women in Beijing (China), Youth for Peace and Justice Tour (Montreal), Belfast Community Circus (Northern Ireland), PLAN International (Pakistan), and the Jerusalem Festival (Israel). He has developed arts-in-education and conflict-resolution programs for Bond Street Theatre, UNICEF, the United States Institute of Peace, and as Cultural Envoy for the US Embassy in Burma. Mr. McGuigan performed with the Acrobuffos in the Big Apple Circus, the Public Theatre’s Broadway production of The Tempest, the Public Theatre's Delacorte Theatre production of The Winter's Tale, Odin Teatret’s Stilt Congress in Denmark, and was stilt consultant for the Broadway productions of The King and I and Sideshow. |
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Ilanna Saltzman, Project Director
Ilanna has worked with Bond Street Theatre since 2011 as an intern, actor, teaching artist, Communications Director, and now Project Director for ongoing programs in Guatemala. With the company, she has created and toured the YAP shows Amelia and her Paper Tigers and Se Necesita Soñar. She performed as a chorus member in the BST show Bhopal, which toured throughout the U.S., India, and Nepal. In Delhi, India, Ms. Saltzman partnered with the Tehelka Foundation to teach theatre workshops to street children. Ms. Saltzman has performed in New York City and regionally with the Ume Group, Epic Actors Workshop, and her Cuban salsa team, Fuákata. She studied Commedia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italy at the Accademia dell'Arte and Shakespeare at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. She holds a B.S. in acting and directing from Skidmore College, where she directed numerous original and scripted works. |
Mariam Kosha, Project Director
Mariam has more than 10 years of program experience working with several National and International organizations including RIGHT TO PLAY, IRD and Integrity Watch Afghanistan. Ms. Kosha has a Masters in Sociology and she is currently in the process of getting her second Masters degree in Management Studies with a specialization in General Management.
Mariam has more than 10 years of program experience working with several National and International organizations including RIGHT TO PLAY, IRD and Integrity Watch Afghanistan. Ms. Kosha has a Masters in Sociology and she is currently in the process of getting her second Masters degree in Management Studies with a specialization in General Management.
Sita Osmany, Project Finance Officer
Sita has more than 7 years of program and finance experience working with several National and International organizations including HealthNET and ActionAID. Ms. Osmany has a CA Certificate and a Bachelors in Management Studies with a specialization in General Management.
Sita has more than 7 years of program and finance experience working with several National and International organizations including HealthNET and ActionAID. Ms. Osmany has a CA Certificate and a Bachelors in Management Studies with a specialization in General Management.
Sayed Karim Zhwandoon, Field Director
Zhwandoon has worked with Bond Street Theatre since 2008. Zhwandoon has more than 20 years of experience working in theatre, film and television. Zhwandoon has edited and produced several films and television shows in Afghanistan. He also studied Islamic studies at Alhejrat Waljehad Madrasa Peshawar. Zhwandoon has also trained and worked as an engineer, holding an Engineering Diploma in Electronics from the Technical College of Peshawar.
Zhwandoon has worked with Bond Street Theatre since 2008. Zhwandoon has more than 20 years of experience working in theatre, film and television. Zhwandoon has edited and produced several films and television shows in Afghanistan. He also studied Islamic studies at Alhejrat Waljehad Madrasa Peshawar. Zhwandoon has also trained and worked as an engineer, holding an Engineering Diploma in Electronics from the Technical College of Peshawar.
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Anna Zastrow, Project Director
Anna Zastrow has been actively involved with Bond Street Theatre as an actor, educator and director since 2008. She has performed in The Mechanical in NYC and Baltimore, and Bhopal in the U.S. as well as India and Nepal, and traveled as artist educator to Myanmar on the State Department's Cultural Envoy program and to Afghanistan for the Theatre for Social Development project. She led Bond Street Theatre’s programs in Haiti, which launched in 2011 to provide post-earthquake relief in the displaced persons camps and support community groups in using theatre to promote non-violence. Ms. Zastrow's first venture with Bond Street Theatre came in 1999 when she performed in the company's international exchange project incorporating actors, dancers and musicians from China, Trinidad, Africa and the US. Additionally, Anna spent three months in Thailand and Cambodia in 2008 working with street-working children and other youth in crisis, a project she produced under the auspices of Loka Humana in association with Bond Street Theatre and Clowns Without Borders. In 2010, she worked with youth in the slums of Jakarta (Indonesia) and in Sumatra with families affected by the earthquake, and also joined Clowns Without Borders for their earthquake relief program in Haiti. Ms. Zastrow has worked as a teaching artist for over ten years and as a performer for over twenty with numerous contemporary and classical theatre credits in national and international theatre venues. Over the years, she has also gained extensive administrative experience as a legal assistant in law firms. Ms. Zastrow is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France, and holds a B.S. degree from The New School for Public Engagement. |
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Emma Dolhai, Communications and Development
Emma Dolhai has worked with Bond Street Theatre since 2014, first as an intern, then testing the company's training manual, and now overseeing communications and development. She has conducted program development and marketing for a variety of NYC-based, national and international non-profit groups and community-based organizations. Ms. Dolhai is the director of three original shows, having most recently directed Welcome: A new American musical, an interview-based folk musical about the American response to the ongoing global refugee crisis. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from New York University, and is an avid whitewater kayaker in her spare time. |
Partner Artists and Educators
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Interns, Past and Present
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