Lián Amaris (Writer, Performer, Producer) has performed at a number of internationally recognized spaces for experimental theater including Performance Space 122 and Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Her 2007 72-hour performance art event with R. Luke DuBois, Fashionably Late for the Relationship (covered by The New York Times, The New York Post, Reuters, Allure Magazine, and The Denver Post) has been presented in film and installation form at the San Jose Museum of Art, The Guggenheim, and several national festivals. Amaris has Master's degrees from New York University in Performance Studies and Interactive Telecommunications, and a BA in theater from UMass at Amherst. Recent favorite directing credits include Ellen McLaughlin's The Trojan Women, Sarah Kane's 4:48 Psychosis and Kafka's Shortest Works, a re-imagining of 10 stories by Franz Kafka. Amaris is the Artistic Director of the Vector Art Ensemble, with co-founder Thomas Naughton.

Richard Schechner (Director) directs both new and classical plays around the world. In New York, he founded The Performance Group (TPG) and East Coast Artists (ECA). With TPG, Schechner directed Spalding Gray in six productions from 1970 to 1979: Makbeth (after Shakespeare), Commune (group devised), Sam Shepard's The Tooth of Crime, Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, Terry Curtis Fox's Cops, and Jean Genet's The Balcony. With ECA and in India, China, and South Africa, Schechner directed Chekhov's Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, Aeschylus's Oresteia, Seneca's Oedipus, Shakespeare's Hamlet, August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Saviana Stanescu's and Schechner's Yokastas Redux. In addition to his directing, Schechner is University Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and editor of TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. He is the author of many books including Environmental Theater, Between Theater and Anthropology, The End of Humanism, Performance Theory, The Future of Ritual, and Performance Studies An Introduction.

Joy Brooke Fairfield (Assistant Director) is a theater director who specializes in new play development and ensemble-generated work. After graduating from Harvard she worked in Seattle as a literary manager, directed the northwest premieres of Sheila Callaghan's We are Not These Hands and Aditi Kapil's Love Person and was the regional producer for Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days Festival. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley.

Yasmine M. Jahanmir (Rehearsal Stage Manager, Props Mistress) has a Master's from Performance Studies at NYU. She has been acting, directing and producing off-off Broadway Theatre with NativeAliens Theatre Collective for the last 3 years. She is also an avid synchronized swimmer. Thanks to Lian, Richard and Joy for this wonderful experience and thanks to D for being you.

Michael Kelsey Best (Production Stage Manager, Sound Board Operator, Production Assistant) is currently the Master Carpenter at Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA and an Assistant Production Manager for Boston-based Company One. He is also the Scenic Designer for the Academy of Children's Theatre based in Colorado Springs, CO. Prior to his work in the Massachusetts theater community, Best served as Technical Director and Designer for Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument, CO for a year and a half. He has a BA in Theater and Environmental Policy from Colorado College with a focus in Scenic and Sound Design. Including Swimming, Best has worked with Amaris on eight of her productions.

Lucian Ban (Sound Designer), pianist, bandleader, composer & arranger, has been twice nominated in 2005 & 2006 for the prestigious Hans Koller "Best European Jazz Musician Preis" Award. He has released 7 albums as a leader for American and European labels and most recently he presented "Enesco Re-Imagined" at Merkin Hall, a contemporary extravaganza re-interpreting in a radical way the music of the famed Romanian composer George Enesco. He has composed music and scores for more than 30 theatre & dance production and his sound and music for "Philosopher Fox" was nominated for The Innovative Theater Award in 2005.

Angrette McClosky (Scenic Designer) is a freelance set designer for theatre and film working out of Brooklyn, NY. Recent credits include set design for The Bacchae at the Warsaw International Theatre Festival, assistant set designer for the 2009 Broadway revival of Guys & Dolls, and work in the exhibition design dept. at the American Museum of Natural History.

Melissa Mizell (Lighting Designer) has designed for theater, art, opera and dance around the globe. She has designed for several solo performers including Mike Daisey, Danny Hoch, and Rinde Eckert. Recent New York designs include Kiss Me on the Mouth for InViolet Rep, Gentleman's Wish and Couldn't Say for the MITF- with which she was nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design in 2008, Usher and Julius Caesar for Fringe NYC and Dancing at Lughnasa at Juilliard. She has her MFA in design from the Yale School of Drama.