OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

MOLLYE MAXNER (Director / Playwright / Choreographer) Ms. Maxner’s work has been produced in the US, Turkey, Taiwan, Germany, and the Republic of Georgia. She has directed or assistant directed for Franklin Stage Company, Forum Theater, Theater for Young Audiences at the Kennedy Center, and Playwright Horizons. Ms. Maxner is the recipient of the Kenan Fellowship at the Kennedy Center; a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant in Choreography; a DanceWeb Europe Scholarship for Vienna’s ImpulsTanz Festival; and numerous other grants from the Northampton Arts Council and the US Embassy in Turkey. Ms.Maxner has worked extensively in Turkey, teaching and choreographing numerous works. In 2002, Ms. Maxner spearheaded the SILICON DANCE PROJECT, the first-ever collaboration between the Ankara State Opera’s Modern Dance Company and a U.S. theater company. Ms. Maxner is part-time visiting faculty for the UNC School of the Arts. Her newest movement / theater work, Still Life with Rocket, premiered at Theater Alliance of Washington DC in June 2017. 

NANCY BANNON (Playwright / Jude) Nancy is a performer, writer, and director. Original theater work includes Cornfield, Puncture, The Pod Project (all immersive events, NYC) and, as movement director, Romeo and Juliet on Broadway and Murder Ballad and Pas De Deux at Studio Theatre in Washington, DC. She is currently enrolled in an MFA in Film (directing) program in NYC with Christine Vachon from Killer Films. Her original feature screenplays have been recognized by the Sundance Screenwriters Lab (second round qualifier 2013, 2015), Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios (quarterfinalist), the Slamdance Film Festival (grand prize finalist) among others and have been optioned by production companies. As an actor, she was recently seen in Occupied Territories in DC and will continue with that production in its upcoming incarnations. Ms. Bannon is the recipient of three Princess Grace Awards, a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award, and is a graduate of The Juilliard School. She has served on the faculties of SUNY Purchase and Rutgers University and teaches Actors Process at the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in DC.

www.nancybannon.com

KELLY MAXNER (Choreographer) has choreographed  /directed for the Golden Mean Theater (LA), Great Lakes Theater Festival, Dallas Theater Center, One Arm Red (NYC), the Ankara State Opera and Ballet’s Modern Dance Turkey, Dans Fabrikasi (Istanbul), and Theater Alliance of Washington DC. He won the Helen Hayes for choreography for Occupied Territories and is a two-time Helen Hayes Award Nominee for his choreographic work on Ovid and Mary’s Wedding (Theater Alliance). He is a nominee for the Leon Rabin Award for choreography for A Christmas Carol. Kelly has taught acting clinics to the acrobats for Franco Dragone’s production of House of Dancing Water in Belgium and Macau. As a performer, Kelly has performed in Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt and across the USA. Kelly is on faculty in the Drama Department at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Kelly holds two BFA degrees from the UNC School of the Arts: the first in Contemporary Dance, and the second in Drama (Directing). He holds an MFA in Choreography from Smith College. 

BRIAN MACDEVITT (Producer / Production Design) As a Lighting Designer, recent shows include Broadway Productions of The Front Page, Blackbird, A Fish in the Dark, A Raisin in the Sun, Betrayal, Death of a Salesman, and The Book of Mormon (Tony Award). Other credits include Fences, A Behanding in Spokane, Race, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Tony). He has also received Tony Awards for Into the Woods, The Pillowman, and The Coast of Utopia. At the MET Opera, he designed lighting for The Enchanted Island, Dr. Atomic, EtAl. Dance lighting credits include designs for Merce Cunningham’s Nearly Ninety, The Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Tere O’Connor Dance, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, and Nancy Bannon.

JEREMY SKIDMORE (Producer) Jeremy is the Artistic Director of RhinoLeap Productions based in Asheboro, NC. RhinoLeap tours professional theatrical productions across North Carolina and leads residencies with high school students in areas of the state that have cut their theatrical programming.  Prior to moving to North Carolina, he was appointed as the Interim Artistic Director of the Malibu Playhouse in California, and for fifteen years before that he was based in Washington, DC.  While in DC, Jeremy co-founded and served as President of the Capital Talent Agency, as Artistic Producer of the Source Festival, and as Artistic Director of Theater Alliance.  Having directed for many Washington area theater companies, his productions have been nominated for 34 Helen Hayes Awards. Outside of Washington, DC he has directed, produced, or taught all over the United States as well as England, Ireland, Norway, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Tanzania, and Brazil.  He has a BFA in directing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and an MBA from American University in Washington, DC.