Company Members | Saucy Lackeys | Trailblazers | The Board | The First Ten
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our performing ensemble of actors, dancers, and musicians |
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 Tonya Beckman received her MFA from Ohio University’s Professional Actor Training Program and has worked at Shakespeare Theatre, Kennedy Center, Round House, Folger Theatre, Studio Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Theater J, as well as regionally at Fulton Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Purple Rose Theatre, and Human Race Theatre, among others. Shows with Taffety Punk include the Riot Grrrls' Romeo & Juliet, Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing; suicide.chat.room, Owl Moon, Tiny Alice, and our Bootleg Shakespeare performances at the Folger. She has coached dialects for Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Constellation, Longacre Lea, and Theatre Lab. Tonya teaches acting, voice, dialects, and audition at Theatre Lab.
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 Lise Bruneau trained
at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Credits include: Merry
Wives of Windsor, Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Blithe
Spirit, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, & Elizabeth
I in Mary Stuart at Center Stage; The Winter’s
Tale, Shakespeare Theatre; Les Liaisons Dangereuses & The
Angel in Angels in America at ACT in San Francisco. Dybbuk for
A Travelling Jewish Theatre; Topographical Eden & the
world premiere of Edna O'Brien's Triptych at the Magic.
She has also appeared at Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, and the Wilma in Philadelphia. |
 Daniel Flint received his MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at GWU. He appeared as Edward Kelley in Taffety Punk's World Premiere of Burn Your Bookes, and strolled across the stage as Queen Hecuba in the Bootleg Troilus and Cressida. DC credits include: All's Well That Ends Well at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Understudy for the one-man play I am my Own Wife at Signature Theatre and The Solid Gold Cadillac at The Studio Theatre. Other Credits include: Richard III directed by Bartlett Sher at the Intiman Theatre, and Measure for Measure directed by Charles Marowitz. |
 Kimberly Gilbert trained at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting. Her Taffety shows include Bootleg Cymbelline, Cardenio Found, The Skinhead Hamlet, Damaged Goods, Let X, and Then It Faster Rock'd. She is also a company member with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company where she rocked out in The K of D, Martha Josie and the Chinese Elvis (Helen Hayes Nomination, Lead Actress), Big Death and Little Death, and Cooking With Elvis. Other DC stages that she has melted faces off on have been Round House Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, Source Theatre, Scena Theatre, & Washington Shakespeare Company. She is a native of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, the Land of 'not-fer-nuthin'. Self Portrait |
 Marcus Kyd trained
at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting
in Washington DC & Emerson College in Boston. He is an actor, musician, and director. As an actor he has been onstage at the Folger Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage, Round House Theatre, Theater J, The Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, Center Sage, Metro Stage, the Kennedy Center; in the film portion of the acclaimed multi-media opera The Nitrate
Hymnal (produced by WPAS & Anti-social Music). Marcus sang and played
guitar for The Most Secret Method. The band released a single, and EP, and two full length records & toured
extensively through North America and Europe. |
 Erin Mitchell received a BFA in Dance/Choreography from VCU. While living in Richmond, VA, she danced, choreographed, and taught for the Latin Ballet of Virginia. Upon arriving in D.C. she worked at the Kennedy Center, and co-founded the Taffety Punks, choreographing The Phoenix and Turtle, and Two Dances. She wandered around for a bit before landing in Kalamazoo where she choreographed and danced with Wellspring. While there, she founded and managed the Rad Fest (the Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival). She also taught at Western Michigan University's Department of Dance. She is now back in DC and we are very excited to have her back. |
 Joel David Santner trained at the Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting. He is an actor, director, writer and filmmaker. Taffety Punk acting credits include suicide.chat.room, Owl Moon, Burn Your Bookes and Two Noble Kinsmen and Troilus and Cressida Bootlegs. Taffety Punk directing credits include the Bootleg Hamlet, Buggy & Tyler for the Car Plays and the Reals Bootleg. Joel has also worked at The Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Factory 449, Studio 2ndStage and Round House. He is the director of the Taffety Punk Generator, and the director of Yellow Bow Tie Productions — his film company. He first feature film, Bare Knuckle, will be completed in December 2012 and his short film, Mirror Image, was an honored selection in the 2012 DC Shorts Film Festival. |
 Esther Williamson trained at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting. She is an original Riot Grrrl, appearing as Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet and Isabella in Measure for Measure. She has also appeared in every Taffety Punk Bootleg so far. She has appeared onstage as an actor and/or musician at Ford's Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Book-It Repertory Theatre and others. Esther teaches acting for teens and adults at The Shakespeare Theatre and is a proud member of the St. Paul's K St. parish choir. |
 Paper Bag has enjoyed a repertory of challenging roles with the Taffety Punks. Often called our most versatile performer, his portrayals include God in The Devil in his Own Words, Dick Cheney in And Then It Faster Rock'd, Doc X in Let X, The Ghost of Hamlet's Father in The Skinhead Hamlet, and the Braggart Gentleman in the Bootleg Hamlet (Q1). We would say he is an original company member, except that he's just a bag really. |
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elite band of artistic collaborators |
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 Amy Carr-Taylor Since arriving in DC from NYC in 2007, she has worked at Folger Theater (wardrobe/costumes), The Studio Theater, Adventure Theater, and The Kennedy Center. For the T-Punks she designed Hamlet: The Badass Quarto, assisted the costume designer on Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure and Burn Your Bookes. Her NY Assistant Directing and Costume credits include: A Doctor in Spite of Himself, A Rehearsal at Versailles, Quality Feedback (Random Arts), Don Juan in Outer Space (Royal Corsican Theatre Co.), with Directing credits for: Nancy, to a Point (Strawberry One-Act Festival), The Waiting Room (Wonderland One-Act Festival), & The Sword in the Stone (Ryan Repertory Co.). In DC she has also designed costumes for Live Broadcast (2011 Capital Fringe Festival). |
 Kathy Cashel has been collaborating with Taffety Punk since our 2006 Shakespeare dance rock concert The Phoenix and Turtle. Soon thereafter she was playing guitar and singing in Cardenio Found, and then in The Devil in His Own Words where she provided the score and live sound manipulation. More recently Kathy was our onstage minstrel, providing live music throughout the Riot Grrrls' Much Ado About Nothing. She has two full length solo albums available on Exotic Fever Records. Before her solo work she played guitar and sang for the Norman Mayer Group. |
 Chad Clark is a composer, musician, sound engineer, and producer. He composed the score to T-Punk's suicide.chat.room, which included performances by his band Beauty Pill (Dischord Records) set against Paulina's choreography, real text from the internet, and various live distortions applied to the text during delivery. In 2011 Beauty Pill was commissioned by Artisphere to compose an album in public view. This experiment led to the exhibit album "Immersive Ideal." Chad has led Beauty Pill through several manifestations yielding three published records and countless more ongoing experiments. The band is perhaps the perfect musical laboratory. |
 Chris Curtis is a director and light and sound designer, and he continually blows our minds with his smarts and ingenuity. He co-directed last year's workshop of Daniel's The Golem, and worked as Joel's assistant director on Gwydion Suilebhan's Buggy & Tyler in our Car Play trilogy while designing lights for the show. He also co-directed Oxygen with Lise. Recent lighting designs for Taffety Punk include Owl Moon, Riot Grrrls: Julius Caesar, and last few Bootleg Shakespeare shows at the Folger. Other area designs include columbinus and The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? at Silver Spring Stage, where he also recently directed Rabbit Hole, and has occasionally even acted. |
 Paulina Guerrero is originally from the Washington DC area. Paulina choreographed Taffety Punk's suicide.chat.room, Owl Moon, Burn Your Bookes and our Bootleg King John and The Two Noble Kinsmen, in which she also danced. She also appeared in Two Dances, and The Phoenix and Turtle, and early manifestations of The Rape of Lucrece. Her original work "From Your Representatives, With Love" headlined our 2011 Dance Craze Festival. She has danced & toured nationally with companies in NYC & DC including Grove Dance Theatre, chi.cha.co, Beth Soll Dance Company, Michelle Handelman Multi-media, & Lisa Stott. Paulina co-directed Proving Ground Movement–an experimental dance laboratory and was co-choreographer for "on your soapbox slipping" in the 2007 Capital Fringe Festival. Paulina served as our choreography master from 2007 through 2011. |
 Scott Hammar has designed the costumes for many Taffety Punk shows including Measure for Measure, Burn Your Bookes, suicide.chat.room, Julius Caesar, Owl Moon, The Devil in His Own Words, The Faithkiller, and Let X. He has also designed costumes for Pinky Swear’s Freakshow, River Run Theater’s Rough Guide to the Underworld and the Dallas Theater Center and Callier Theatre of the Deaf and served on the faculty of Choate Rosemary Hall’s Theater Arts Department for three years. Scott has a B.F.A. in Directing and an M.F.A. in Theater Design under the guidance of Irene Corey. He has been the Production Stage Manager for Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center for the last 18 years. |
 Liz Maestri is a playwright, actor, director, and dancer who appeared in our original staging of suicide.chat.room. She also served as assistant director to Marcus on The Faithkiller, and Burn Your Bookes. In 2010 we presented the world premiere of her play Owl Moon, and since then we remain hungry for her writing. Her Somersaulting play, adapted from the comic by Sammy Harkham, was the second project to go through the Taffety Punk Generator. She currently serves as our Director of Keepin' It Real — which essentially gives her most of the power here in spite of Marcus and Erin's lofty titles. Read Liz's amazing thoughts here. |
 Kelsey Mesa directed the headliner in our “Car Plays” Trilogy — dREAMtRIPPIN' by Thomas Michael Campbell. She has served as assistant director on Taffety Punk productions Owl Moon, The Rape of Lucrece, and the Riot Grrrl's Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, and Measure for Measure. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she directed a production of Brooklyn Boy and worked on Into the Woods, On the Town, and The Royal Family. She also serves as our minister of propaganda. |
 Ryan Nelson is an artist, musician, and teacher. He is currently playing in two bands, Soccer Team (on Dischord Recordsand Lovitt Records) and Minutes. Previous bands include Beauty Pill, The Routineers, and The Most Secret Method. Ryan designed our logo and is our primary artist for fliers and program art, and almost anything else we need. He also played drums in And Then It Faster Rock'd, scored several original dance works, and engineered our first seven-inch single. He can pretty much do anything. |
 David Polk trained at Virginia Tech where he earned a BA in Theatre Arts. Stage Management credits include Pangea Let X, The Devil in His Own Words, Bootleg King John with Taffety Punk Theatre Company, Camping with Henry and Tom and The Princess and the Pea at Dunwoody Stage Door Players (Atlanta, GA), and The Real Inspector Hound at Virginia Tech’s Summer Stock Theatre (Blacksburg, VA). He is currently the General Manager at the Folger Theatre. |
 Jupiter Rex (or Josh Carr-Taylor) is a punk from Baltimore (mohawk and all) where he learned piano, guitar, and composition. After high school he moved to New York and studied acting while learning voice. Later on he discovered his love of electronic music and sound engineering, and production. He has composed and designed sound for various productions in the NYC and DC areas. For Taffety Punk he performed the original score in The Golem. He also scored and designed sound for Oxygen, Burn Your Bookes, Measure for Measure, suicide.chat.room most of our Bootleg Shakespeare plays. You can listen to his music online at www.reverbnation.com/jupiterrex. |
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Founders and Trailblazers
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| Taffety Punk Theatre Company was founded by Lise Bruneau, Marcus Kyd, Amanda MacKaye, Erin Mitchell and Christopher Marino. |
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 Amanda MacKaye is an original company member and co-founder of Taffety Punk. A DC native, she was introduced to punk music at the tender age of 9 by her brothers. At 15, she co-founded Sammich Records, which released 8 records before her graduation from The Field School. Following two national tours as a road manager she worked for Dischord Records and performed in Desiderata, The Routineers and working with musicians Two If By Sea & Benjy Ferree, as well as the author, Billups Allen on booking & management. Amanda served as a company member and ultimately president of the Board of Directors and is primarily responsible for the fact that we didn't implode within a year of our founding.
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 Christopher
Marino is an original company member and co-founder of Taffety Punk. He trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic
Art in London, the Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical
Acting, and Bard College, NY. Credits include The Castle,
Primary Stages; Titus Andronicus, Soho Rep; Madonna,
Village Theatre Company, The Duchess of Malfi, Shakespeare
Theatre; The Tempest, Macbeth at Mill Mountain
Theatre; Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Baltimore
Shakespeare. He has also appeared at the Utah Shakespearean Festival,
the Kansas City Shakespeare Festival, the Actors Shakespeare
Company. He is a certified associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, & former
Aritistic Director of the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival.
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 Sean Peoples is our hero. A consummate musician and producer, Sean actively mines sonic extremes and brings forth untold gems. He shares these discoveries on his label, Sockets Records. Sean was also a member of DC's infamous Fatback DJ Collective, dedicated to making you dance. He scored Taffety Punk's first full length play — Gwydion Suilebhan's Let X, and shared the set with us when we presented The Phoenix and Turtle on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. He was the source of all sound and all manipulations of sound in our early experimental productions of The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare. |
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Board of Trustees
Ian Armstrong—William Colgrove—Gregg Henry—Jeannette Gunderson
Philippa Hughes The First Ten
These brave people were the first to donate $1,000 or more to a group of struggling upstarts like ourselves.
To them we are eternally grateful.
Philippa Hughes • Sam Fleming • Christine Farley • Anthony Nelson • Cathleen Nelson
Ryan Nelson • Merribel Ayres • Anne Mayerson • One Anonymous • Two Anonymous
Photo credits: Tonya by C Stanley Photography. Lise and Marcus by Clinton Brandenhagen; Daniel, Joel, Esther, and Kathy by Teresa Castracane; Chris C and Jupiter R by Ellen Houseknecht; Amanda MacKaye by Olivia Alonso, Christopher by Allen Beland |
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