Faculty
Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel (School Director) is a co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of the OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company. Since 1995, Quinn has been one of the leading artists with the company, co-creating nearly all of the company's 25 original works of theatre and touring them to venues and festivals in Brazil, Germany, Scotland, England, Romania, Poland, Peru, Italy, Ukraine, Lithuania and Ireland, among others. Additionally, Quinn and Pig Iron regularly present their work in New York City and have toured throughout the States including engagements in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Princeton, Providence, Cambridge, Atlanta, Tampa, Logan (Utah), among others. He has directed, designed and performed with the company since its inception. Quinn received an Outstanding Direction Barrymore Award nomination for Welcome To Yuba City, which was nominated for 6 Barrymores including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Overall Production. Quinn received an Outstanding Choreography Barrymore for his collaborative work on Cafeteria and also won for Outstanding Ensemble for Mission To Mercury. The company has been recognized as “one of the few groups successfully taking theatre in new directions” by the New York Times who also named Chekhov Lizardbrain, in which Quinn performs and was one of the co-creators, as one of the Top 10 Productions of 2008. Pig Iron has been named Theatre Company of the Year by the Philadelphia Weekly, City Paper and Philadelphia Magazine. Welcome To Yuba City was featured on the cover of American Theatre magazine in February 2010, as was The Tragedy of Joan of Arc (January, 2000) which Quinn directed. Quinn was a Henry Luce Fellow in Bali, Indonesia in 2000-2001 where he served on the faculty of the State College of Indonesian Arts and studied Balinese dance, mask work and music. In 2002, he and his Pig Iron co-artistic directors (Dan Rothenberg and Dito van Reigersberg) were named Pew Fellows in Performance Art. In 2007, he received one of 6 national Fox Foundation Actor Fellowships.
Quinn has taught courses in acting and movement theatre since 2001 at Swarthmore College. Additionally, he has been on the faculty of the Headlong Performance Institute since its inception in 2007 and has taught at Princeton University since 2005. Quinn has taught workshops at the Alternative Theatre Festival in Budapest, Les Kurbas Theatre in Lviv, Ukraine, Princeton University, Stanford University, UVA, Wesleyan university, Utah State, Georgetown, American University, and UPenn, among other workshops. Additionally, he has taught professional theatre training workshops in Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco for the past 12 years.
Jean-Rene Toussaint is a French actor, director, and internationally recognized theater/voice teacher. He is the founder and director of the Stemwerk International Centre for the Voice in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), founded in 1988.
Here Jean-Rene offers guided vocal exploration for individuals, couples, and groups, as well as certification in his methods for aspiring voice teachers and theatre artists. In recent years, he also has established a center for summer intensive voice retreats in Avanos, Turkey. His unique voice work is the result of 25 years of research and development, stemming mainly from working with deaf adults and children and from extensive world travel researching the primitive
voice. His particular technique is based essentially on the movement of the body, on delineating the difference between 'voices to be' and 'voices to do', and listening based on bodily perception. He has directed theater groups and theater schools in France and the Netherlands since 1975 (in France 1975-1987; in the Netherlands 1988-2005) He has collaborated with artists such as Jerzy Grotowski, Robert Wilson, Annick Nozati and companies such as Theatre du Radeau, Theatre de Feu, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater and The Roy Hart Theatre, among many others.
Emmanuelle Delpech is an actor, teacher and director. She was classically trained at the Ecole Superieur d'Art Dramatique de la ville de Paris, and studied physical theatre at l'Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq. She is currently a 2nd year MFA student in Directing at Temple University. A former member of Pig Iron Theatre Company, Emmanuelle has been a performer/co-creator of such productions as Gentlemen Volunteers, Flop, Hell Meets Henry Halfway (Barrymore nomination for best supporting actress) and James Joyce is Dead and So Is Paris (Barrymore Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical). She created and performed Madame Douce-Amere, a wordless clown duet at the 2005 Philadelphia Lives Arts festival, which was also produced by 1812 Productions at the Walnut street theatre in October 2006. Emmanuelle directed Oedipus at FDR, an urban adaptation of Sophocles Greek tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” at the FDR Skate park for the 2008 Philadelphia Live Arts festival.
In June/July 2009, Emmanuelle performed with The Second City Chicago in Reverie, directed by Dexter Bullard which was premiered at the “Just for Laughs” festival in Montreal. Emmanuelle worked for the Civilians' new piece The Great Immensity to share her physical theater skills with director Steve Cosson and was assistant director for its first performance at the Princeton Atelier. She worked again with Steve Cosson as a mime consultant for Anne Washburn's new play A Devil at Noon, which will premiere at the Humana Festival in Louisville in March 2011. In December 2010, The Philly Shakes Cabaret Series presented her adaptation of Marivaux's La Dispute. Emmanuelle will direct Moliere's Tartuffe for the Temple Repertory Theater this June. She is thrilled to start working next fall on an original piece with James Ijames on the tradition of Blackface performances. Emmanuelle has taught at University of the Arts and Swarthmore College. The last 2 summers, she taught a Clown workshop for the Volcano Institute in Toronto. Emmanuelle currently teaches a 2-semester Lecoq Class at Temple University for undergraduate and graduate students and is a faculty member of the Headlong Performance Institute.
Dito van Reigersberg, a co-founder and co-artistic director of Pig Iron Theatre Company, has performed in almost all of Pig Iron’s productions since 1995, including the OBIE-winning original pieces Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Lizardbrain. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. His most recent role for Pig Iron was Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night during the 2011 Live Arts Festival. He has also created and performed for Headlong Dance Theatre, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Azuka Theatre Company, Act 2, and Mauckingbird Theatre Company. He is a Barrymore Award recipient for Best Ensemble for Mission to Mercury (Pig Iron) and a nominee for Best Actor in a Musical for Hedwig (Azuka), and has been named a Pew Fellow (2002) and a Knight USA Fellow (2010). His alter-ego Martha Graham-Cracker is famously ‘the tallest drag queen in the world” -- her monthly cabaret series at L'Etage in Philadelphia has been running for over 6 years. He has been named a Pew Fellow and a Knight USA Artists Fellow.
Geoff Sobelle has been a company member of Pig Iron since 2001. He is the co-artistic director of rainpan 43, a renegade absurdist outfit. Geoff was awarded an Independence Foundation Fellowship and grants from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative to create all wear bowlers, (Innovative Theatre Award, Drama Desk nomination), the rube-goldberg kinetic junk play, machines machines machines machines machines machines machines, and Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl. He was named “Best Theatre Artist 2004” in Philadelphia Magazine, received a 2006 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and is a 2009 Creative Capital grantee. He is a graduate of Stanford University, and trained at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France.
Sarah Sanford studied at École Jacques Lecoq prior to joining Pig Iron on Shut Eye in 2001. Since then she has appeared in PITC creations including The Lucia Joyce Cabaret, Hell Meets Henry Halfway, Love Unpunished, 365 Plays/365 Days, Welcome to Yuba City, and Twelfth Night. In addition to her Pig Iron work she has performed with numerous Philadelphia regional theatres, and internationally with The Riot Group, Jo Stromgren Kompani, and Volcano. As a director Sarah has directed both original pieces and scripts (Appetite, Boom Bap Tourism, Old Times, Three Tall Women). Sarah was awarded the 2010 F. Otto Haas Award for Best Emerging Theatre Artist, and in 2009 was named Philadelphia Magazine’s “Best Up and Coming Theatre Artist.”
Dan Rothenberg is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Pig Iron Theatre Company. Dan has directed almost all of Pig Iron's original performance works, including Poet in New York, Gentlemen Volunteers, Isabella, Pay Up, The Lucia Joyce Cabaret, and the OBIE Award-winning Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Lizardbrain. In 2001, Dan co-directed Shut Eye with Joseph Chaikin. Other projects include creation of audio works to accompany the paintings of Alexandra Grant at MOCA in Los Angeles, improvisation research with Headlong Dance Theatre and Miguel Guttierez, and ongoing collaborations with Stockholm's Teater Slava and the alt-comedy group The Berzerker Residents. In April 2010, Dan directed the English-language premiere of Toshiki Okada's Enjoy for Play Company in New York. In September, Dan Directed and co-created Cankerblossom in the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. Pew Fellowship in Performance Art (2002).