Instructors

Aitor Basauri is joint artistic director, performer, and co-founder of Spymonkey. He is a performer, director, and one of the most eagerly sought-after teachers in the world for clown and physical comedy, a visiting tutor at the École Philippe Gaulier in Paris and Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque du Monde Foundation in Las Vegas. He teaches clown around the world in London, Berlin, Barcelona, Zurich, New York, Los Angeles, Colombia, and Mexico.

Ato is an actor, theatermaker, and educator. On Broadway he has appeared in Slave Play (Tony nomination), Hair, and Lysistrata Jones. Off-Broadway credits include The Rolling Stone at Lincoln Center Theater (Drama League Award nomination), Slave Play at NYTW (Lortel Award nomination), The Total Bent at The Public (Drama League and Lortel Award nominations), and Transfers at MCC. Film/TV: The Same Storm (upcoming), Worth, BlacKkKlansman, ‪The Kindergarten Teacher, Detroit, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, When They See Us (Netflix), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix), and The Good Fight (CBS). Ato is on the faculty of the Completely Ridiculous Training Center.  He is also a member of the Actors Center, and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Yale School of Drama.

M.B Boucai, PhD, combines theory with practice. After studying at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, they competed a PhD in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, have taught nationally, have worked as a director, performer, writer, producer, and are co-creator of the critical camp collaborative DIVERSITY FELLOWS!

If you want to queer clown, up-end genre, or re-orient any type of classical method, Boucai’s body-based, identity-informed approach will help you in the process.

Michael Breslin is a writer and performer whose play Circle Jerk, co-written with Patrick Foley, is a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist. With Foley, he is a creative director of Fake Friends, a theater and media company who also recently developed and produced the acclaimed internet show This American Wife, which was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and more. They are commissioned by Ars Nova, Seaview Productions, and FourthWall Productions. The duo is developing two television shows. Recently, he executive produced and co-wrote the book to Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, which raised $2 million for the Actors Fund.

Shannan Calcutt is sought after as a performer, comic act designer, director, writer, instructor, and show creator. A multi-award winning performer and instructor, she has conducted workshops in clown and play worldwide. Her critically acclaimed solo shows were broadcast on CBC Radio and Canada’s Bravo! network. CBC declared her “a national treasure.” Calcutt has played an eclectic range of venues from the Sydney Opera House, to San Francisco’s Bimbo’s 365 Club, to Saskatoon’s Wash ‘n Slosh Pub. Millions of spectators witnessed her attempting to sell her homemade breast implants—Scotch Baggies—during her fifteen-year run at Cirque du Soleil’s sensual sensation, Zumanity. She has designed and directed comic acts for Cirque du Soleil, Spiegelworld, the philanthropic event One Night for One Drop, and Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast, the world’s biggest theater stage. Most recently, Shannan joined the cast of Spiegelworld’s Atomic Saloon Show at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Shannan has a master of fine arts in writing for dramatic media (UNLV), a bachelor of fine arts in performance (UVIC) and is a graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. She is fluent in English and sarcasm. More blah blah blah about Shannan at shannancalcutt.com.

Jenelle Chu (she/her) is a Canon Crash Course instructor. Specializes in scene study, voice and dialect, career, and MFA applications. Chu is an actor, singer, and aspiring educator and director. Her credits on Broadway include Junk (Lincoln Center Theater) and Bernhardt/Hamlet (Roundabout). She has been seen regionally at Shakespeare & Co, American Conservatory Theater, Papermill Playhouse, and Bucks County Playhouse. Other credits in New York City include shows at the Flea Theater and 52nd Street Project. Film/TV credits: Elementary, Instinct, Madam Secretary, New Amsterdam, Prodigal Son, and the short film White Flags with AC Productions. Chu has studied with master acting teacher Michael Howard and on-camera coach Bob Krakower. She holds a BM in vocal performance with an emphasis in opera voice and an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Her ancestry comes from Guangdong, China and Cholon, Saigon, Vietnam. She was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and is fluent in conversational Cantonese Chinese.

Hailed as one of the greatest clowns of all time, Avner Eisenberg is often a featured performer in comedy, magic, clown, and theater festivals. He studied with Jacques Lecoq from 1971 to 1974. Since then, he has developed a unique physical approach to comedy and acting that he teaches in workshops around the world.

He has been described by New York Magazine as “a clown for the thinking man.” His show Avner the Eccentric was a hit of the 1984–85 Broadway season. He appeared again on Broadway in Ghetto and The Comedy of Errors. Avner is widely known for his scene-stealing portrayal of the holy man in the Michael Douglas film The Jewel of the Nile.

Avner continues to tour his one-man show internationally and has won awards at the Edinburgh Festival, the Monte Carlo International Circus Festival, and the Festival Internacional de Pallassos in Barcelona. He won the “Snow Star” for comedy in Switzerland and the “Lachmesse” award in Germany.

During the pandemic Avner has taught over 300 students from 34 countries in a series of online Principles of Eccentric Performance.

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With twenty years of experience writing, performing, and directing within the art of mime, Dean Evans holds a unique perspective on the art and its practice. Steeped in the techniques of Marcel Marceau, Stefan Niedzialkowski, and Etienne Decroux, he is a Los Angeles-based professional performer, writer, and director. He was named one of the top fifty “players” by Newcity magazine. He has performed with the Second City, iO, the Goodman, and Cirque du Soleil, and as a solo artist around the world. He is an ensemble member of the renowned performance art collective the Neo-Futurists. He is known for his physical performance and characters, including the entity who goes simply by Honeybuns. Honeybuns has enjoyed their own career performing in New York City, Chicago, Moscow, Austin, and Los Angeles.

Dean has created over a dozen full-length theatrical productions, various immersive experiences and alternate realities, three full-length circuses, and dozens of comedic characters. He has appeared on NBC, Russia’s минута славы, the Onion Network, and various commercials and television. Recently Dean choreographed mime vignettes for the television show Ultra City Smiths now on AMC. Dean has been on faculty at Columbia College, the Second City Training Center, Aloft Circus Arts, and the Actors Gymnasium. He has taught as a guest artist at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Big Apple Circus clown care unit, UIC, Oberlin College, the Ohio State University, Lake Forest College, and more. Dean was the founder and artistic director of Chicago Physical Theater. To learn more, visit deanevans.net.

Patrick Foley is an actor and writer working in theater, film, and TV. His play Circle Jerk, co-written with Michael Breslin, is a 2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. With Breslin, he is a creative director of Fake Friends, a theater and media company credited with pioneering digital theater, who recently developed and produced This American Wife, which was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, and ArtForum, and named as one of the “Best Performances of 2021” by the New Yorker. He executive produced and co-wrote the book for Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, which raised $2 million for the Actors Fund. Foley and Breslin are commissioned by Seaview Productions, FourthWall Productions, and Ars Nova, where they are resident artists. They are developing two television projects.

Amanda (Mandy) Huotari is an international touring performer/creator, teaching artist, and yoga teacher. She was recently awarded the 2021 Maine Arts Commission’s Performing Arts Fellowship for artistic excellence and her “joyful spirit for ferocious play.”

From 2006-2021 she was executive artistic director of Celebration Barn Theater, Maine’s center for physical theater training, creation, and performance. Dedicated to inspiring creativity and community, she annually produced 30+ performances and hosted 200+ artists from around the globe in workshops and residencies. 

In 2019 she toured from Honolulu to Montreal with her latest solo show, Pretty Face: An American Dream (directed by Aitor Basauri, co-founding director of Spymonkey, the UK’s premiere physical theater ensemble). Funded in part by a grant awarded from the Maine Arts Commission (MAC), an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Pretty Face: An American Dream received Artists’ Choice accolades and was awarded “Best Comedy-Physical Theater” at the Indy Fringe Theater Festival.

With a BFA in acting from Emerson College, she studied physical theater at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in France. She also trained intensively in Commedia dell’Arte with Antonio Fava in Italy. At Celebration Barn, she studied with master artists including Tony Montanaro, Keith Johnstone, Avner Eisenberg, Laurie Carlos, and many others.

She has served as an adjunct acting teacher at Southern Maine Community College, and has been a guest teaching artist at numerous colleges and universities including Dartmouth, Bowdoin, and Bates.

A Yoga Alliance-certified yoga teacher, Mandy completed her 200-hour training with Sacred Seeds Yoga School directed by Jacqui Bonwell. She is currently deepening her studies in David Vendetti’s 500-hour Yoga Liberation Front training.

Performance highlights include appearing at the White House, Seattle’s Moisture Fest, Bogota’s Teatro R101, the New York Clown-Theatre Festival, and that gig where she was paid to sit on the buffet table at a medical conference, dressed in a human liver costume.

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Two major influences sparked Post’s child hood desire to go into show business: the sight of his Italian grandmother, Assunta DiMenna, spontaneously dancing and singing at any family occasion (including funerals), and the classic vaudeville, juggling, and specialty acts featured on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1978, in an obsessive quest to find a teacher who could help him blend his love of character work with the magical techniques of the movement arts, Post traveled to the woods of Maine to take a workshop with the visionary theater artist Tony Montanaro. This began the foundation of Post’s unique creative style and his longtime artistic collaboration with Tony.

Post has created over thirty works for which he has received numerous awards and fellowships from such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council. PBS produced a documentation of his stage performance that was shown internationally, winning the Central Education Network Award for Best Performance Program. Post is also an alumnus of the Affiliate Artists program and has toured his one-man performance to forty-six US states, Canada, Mexico, Russia, the Mediterranean, and Japan.

Post Comedy Theatre was presented by Broadway’s New Victory Theater to rave reviews and sold-out houses. In addition to his touring, Post has helped direct various productions, including Cinderella, Coppelia, and The Nutcracker for BalletMet Columbus, as well as theater productions of Noises Off and Urinetown. He also serves as an adjunct professor in theater at the Ohio State University.

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Sohina Sidhu (she/her) is the lead Workshop organizer. Specializes in MFA applications, career coaching, voice and dialect. Sidhu is an actor and artist originally from California. While at the Yale School of Drama, she was seen in YELL!, Kiss (Yale Repertory Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing, Death of Yazdgerd, The Seagull, and The Tempest among others. She conceived and directed The Red Tent at Yale Cabaret, directed NOVIOS: Part 1 at the Yale Cabaret, and appeared in The Trojan Women at Yale Summer Cabaret. Other credits include The Seagull, Caenis (Pace Gallery, New York City). Television credits include Evil (CBS All Access), Little Voice (Apple TV+), and Prodigal Son (FX); Film credits include: The Society (short), Dating & New York (Independent Feature). Sidhu holds degrees in acting from University of Southern California’s School of Drama and film from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts; and an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, which she received in 2019.