Resident Artists

Resident Artist

Caravana de Mujeres- OperaHub & MassOpera

MassOpera cultivates experiences for artists and audiences that challenge the status quo and reflect our diverse community. OperaHub focuses on innovation and experimentation in all aspects of opera production, and believes that opera performed in an intimate setting gains vibrancy and depth, and that affordable, accessible performance of opera should also be exciting, beautiful, and fresh.

MassOpera and OperaHub began collaborating in 2020 on a New Opera Workshop to foster the growth of new stories in opera. They had 94 applicants in response to their request-for-proposals for librettist and composer teams to pitch them on story and cast concepts. They chose Caravana de Mujeres by composer Nicolas Lell Benavides and librettist Laura Barati as their project to workshop over two years.

Together they join the cohort as part of their developmental work on Caravana de Mujeres, which tells the story of Luz, a Colombian woman in her sixties who is searching for love.

Resident Artist

The HOMies- Demetruis Fuller

Demetrius Fuller is the art department district lead inthe Chelsea Public Schools.He has been developing his HOMies framework for over10 years based on his over20 years of teaching art in Chelsea. His HOMies characters represent the shared Habits of Mind embodied by successful artists, writers, musicians, scientists, etc.

He will be holding 2 workshops and producing short videos that feature his HOMies characters. The videos will be used to educate K-12 students, in an engaging, accessible way, on the shared Habits of Mind.

Resident Artist

Anxiety Cycles: A Comedy- David Raposo

Actor, Singer, Producer, Director, and Foley Artist David Raposo will produce his original piece: Anxiety Cycles: A Comedy, a series of snap shots conveying different ways this creeping sensation takes hold in our lives. This movement-based work of non-verbal theatre uses Foley, elements of clown, mime, and devising methods to share with audiences one of the worlds binding forces: anxiety. David is joined by NCY-based actress and NYU Tisch Drama alumnus, Johanna Lee.

Resident Artist

Robin B. Goode: A Tragedy in 5 Acts- Lily Kaufman, Peter Storey, Jeremy Van Cleave

Robin never really learned to read or write too well, but still, she's robbing the rich and she's raising some hell.

A trio of artists: Actor and Producer Lily Kaufman, Poet and Playwright Peter Storey, and Musician Jeremy Van Cleave will bring us Robin B. Goode: A Tragedy in 5 Acts.

Recently back from the crusades, Robin B. Goode is about to marry the girl of her dreams when she's falsely accused of treason and her land is seized by the sheriff. Rather than submit to yet another injustice at the hands of the powerful and wealthy, she flees to the woods, gathers a band of outlaws, and steals from the rich to give to the poor. Together, her band awaits the return of the rightful Governor, who will restore justice to Colorado.

This piece combines American folk music traditions with the much-loved ballads of Robin Hood.

Peter Storey is a poet and playwright currently living in Colorado, where he fights wildfires for the U.S. Forest Service. He is the founding Artistic Director of Campfire Theatre Tours, where he stages plays that unfold in the woods connecting entertainment to the elements.

Lily Kaufman is a Norton Award-nominated actor from Boston. She has produced shows in New York City with the Caravan Stage Company and for the Venus/Adonus Theatre Festival, along with producing for the Caravan's touring season.

Jeremy Van Cleave is a professional musician, producer, educator and studio engineer. He studied Music Business at UMass Lowell and has shared the stage with some of the world’s biggest acts, including Justin Bieber, Nikki Minaj, Skrillex, Delta Spirit, and Explosions in the Sky.

Performances are Jan 20- 29, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sunday Jan 23 at 2pm in the Black Box Theatre at the Chelsea Theatre Works

Resident Artist

Puerto Rican Project- Naked Empire Bouffon Company

"Devilishly dangerous theatre." -Huffington Post

"Its performances are extremely raunchy, physical and participatory, combining social activism with dark satire." -San Francisco Chronicle

“Insanely entertaining... harbingers of essential truths.” -San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Mind-blowingly brilliant, incredibly challenging. Hysterical physical comedians and quick on their feet.” -Bloody Underrated

Naked Empire Bouffon Company was founded in 2009 with an activist mission to devise hilarious, cutting, and visually-provocative satires that catalyze urgent discourse. Bouffon is a broad performance realm rooted in satire and mockery. The hallmarks of Naked Empire’s brand of bouffon include grotesque costuming, outrageous physical comedy, audience interaction, tragic resonance, poetic imagery, and social relevance. As of 2018, the company operates both in Boston and in the SF Bay Area.

They will produce Puerto Rican Project [temporary title], a two-person anti-colonial bouffon show centered on the creators diasporic Puerto Rican identities. They have two goals: “To skewer the oppressive forces, policies, and people that have colonized Puerto Rico from the 1490s through present day, and to provoke fellow diasporic Ricans to contend with the dueling privileges and generational traumas we carry within us.”

Resident Artist

Mrs. Hawking, the Steampunk Superhero Series- Mrs. Hawking Theater Project

Mrs. Hawking is an ongoing series of steampunk adventure stage shows that have been performing a new full-length installment in the Boston area every year since 2015. The shows recast the gaslamp mystery and adventure genre with women in the lead and take a deconstructionist perspective to the setting, bringing feminist and anti-colonialist perspectives to the telling of the fun adventure. Their aim is to innovate in the realm of serialized performance while updating a beloved genre to be more inclusive, challenging, and artistic.

During their residency they will film some of their earliest episodes to make them accessible to a larger audience online.

Resident Artist

Rosalita’s Puppets- Charlotte Anne Dorre

Rosalita’s Puppets has been creating and performing original shows since 1993 presenting up to 100 shows a year all around New England, including First Night performances, and at libraries, schools and festivals. Artistic director Charlotte Anne Dorre has also created Cabaret shows performed at Club Cafe in 2019 & Feb 2020.

This December, Rosalita’s Puppets will produce “Holiday Tree” written and performed by puppeteer Charlotte Anne Dorre. A pine tree is decorated for the holidays with handmade ornaments. But this is no ordinary tree. Each decoration holds an adventure story to the past that will teach a lesson and bring true joy. Follow Evie, a woman of a “certain age,” as she shares stories from her life and her imagination and journeys from loneliness to resilient joy.

Charlotte Anne Dorre uses puppets, visuals, music, and performance to promote joy, hope, courage, and kindness and to transcend barriers bringing people together to find the common humanity in us all.

Resident Artist

Marc Hoffeditz and Isabelle Zeledón

For their developmental residency, Marc Hoffeditz and Isabelle Zeledón are developing an original, bilingual opera that explores the psychological mores and day-to-day lives of Latinx youth. Their goals are to understand, reflect, and provide for the expressed needs of the Chelsea community, including establishing artistic engagement with Latinx youth through opera, fostering community wellbeing, and providing economic development for local artists.

Marc Hoffeditz is a composer of dramatic vocal music. His musical interests include the dramatization of mundane events and the exploration of queer aesthetics through the operatic medium.

Nicaraguan-American soprano Isabelle Zeledón seeks to forge cross-cultural connections and understanding through music. In 2020 she was awarded Third Place for the Classical Singer Audience Award Competition and was a Semi-Finalist for the Premiere Opera Foundation + NYIOP International Vocal Competition. She is the Director of Operations for the Promenade Opera Project.

Resident Artist

Reground Theatre Festival

Reground was founded in 2018 as a group of theatre students who felt isolated studying theatre at a university and wanted to collaborate with more of their peers. Reground gives their artists practical experience creating, making, and playing in their chosen form. They strive to put artists first, following their lead and creating a space for creatives across mediums to assemble a community of their own.

Reground will produce their Reground Theatre Festival, enlisting the work of around 50 artists to produce 6-7 short plays. All plays will be written by students from the Greater Boston Area, and meticulously chosen to reflect Reground’s mission to provide new works which give voices to underrepresented communities, tell unique stories, and push the form in new ways.

Resident Artist

Strawberry Princess- Devon Whitney and Elise Piliponis

Devon Whitney and Elise Piliponis are devoted to theatre processes that center care, equity, and agency. As collaborators, they strive to uplift and engage in artistic endeavors that that promote authenticity, dignity, and shared humanity.

Together they will produce Strawberry Princess, an original one-woman show incorporating aspects of acting, stand-up comedy, storytelling, and (limited) audience participation. The show explores the universal struggles of identity and self-acceptance through their title character’s triumphant coming of age story as she comes to terms with her asexuality.

Performances are April 14, 15, and 16 at 8pm (with a tentative April 13 performance at 8pm) Performances are in the Black Box Theatre at the Chelsea Theatre Works.

Resident Artist

Peggy and the Mad Scenes- Libby Schap & Luke Robbins

Playwright and Director Libby Schap and Playwright and Producer Luke Robbins are returning Resident Artists! During their 2019-2020 residency they created Peggy & the Mad Scenes, a modern take on the historical account of Peggy Shippen, Benedict Arnold’s wife. The well-received, full-length, physical theater piece ran for two weeks. Based on audience feedback and their own discoveries during the process, they will develop this project further and change the lens through which it is presented. Where the initial work focused on accounts of historical men who wrote about Peggy Shippen, the new work will focus on the women present and become an all woman physical theater piece about the highest paid spy in the American Revolution.

Performances are March 4, 5, 11, and 12 at 8pm in the Black Box Theatre at the Chelsea Theatre Works