ARTISTS
The Play Society convenes artists/teachers from around the world —
each offering a distinct perspective and dynamic approaches to performance and creation,
united by an ethos of play and collaboration.
Through the training, participants will find support and challenge --
to deepen their sensitivity, artistry and sense of possibility on stage,
and to bring their newfound tools & capacities for vital expression & playful investigation
to their performance practices and into their creative communities.
JUSTINE WOLF WILLIAMS
Justine (she, they) is an actor-creator, theater & filmmaker, and celebrated teacher of play, clown, ensemble-based and devised performance. In the US, she has developed new work and appeared on stages at Ars Nova, NYTW, The Public Theater, Dixon Place, Abrons Arts, Shakespeare Theater of NJ, Yale Rep and Berkeley Rep, among others. Film work has premiered at Woodstock Film Festival, New Directors/New Films and Maryland Film Festival, and she was an artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she created a media and performance-based work for the museum.
Internationally, Justine has presented new work at the Sibiu International Theater Festival, the National Arts Festival in South Africa, and has collaborated with companies in France, Poland, Israel, Macedonia, Brazil and South Africa. She has completed residencies and fellowships with Queer|Art, New Georges, Lighthouse Film Festival, The Orchard Project and NY Women in Film & Television, and is currently writing a book on Play.
She has been at the Yale School of Drama since 2013 teaching Acting as Play, Collaboration, and advising & facilitating new play development. She completed her MFA at CUNY in Performance and New Media.
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KATIE DOWN
Katie is a sound artist, experimenter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, music psychotherapist, and voice teacher.
Her music intersects the realms of sound art, free improvisation, folk, Jazz, and "world" music. Her homemade and constructed instruments include glass percussion, toys, broken things, and steel cello. She also plays ukuleles of all shapes and sizes, and likes to sing with people. Her band, The Ukuladies, performs original comic tunes and lots of bawdy songs from the 20s and 30s.
​Katie is an accomplished theater-maker and collaborator, and has created numerous sound scores for theatre, dance, and independent films. Her sound designs for theatre and dance have garnered Drama Desk nominations and an award for best sound design from Connecticut Critic's Circle for her work at Long Wharf Theatre. She is the recipient of several grants, artist residencies, and composer commissions, including Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Jerome Foundation, BAM, Watermill, Chashama, Music Omi, and Meet the Composer. ​
She hosts and curates workshops and events at Sound Well Barn in Upstate NY, an intimate artist retreat center she co-founded that convenes people around creativity and well-being.
EMMANUELLE DELPECH
Emmanuelle was classically trained at L'Ecole Supérieure d’Art Dramatique de la Ville de Paris (ESAD), studied physical theater at l’Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, and earned her MFA from Temple University in Directing.
Emmanuelle was a member of Pig Iron Theatre Company for 8 years as an actor-creator, and is a core faculty member of their MFA program in Devised Performance, in association with Rowan University. She teaches regular workshops with Pig Iron in Red Nose Clown, The Body at Play, and Neutral mask.
As a teacher, Emmanuelle has also taught at Williams College, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, University of the Arts, Arcadia, and Temple University. Other workshops include: Volcano Institute in Toronto, Movement Theater Studio in NYC, and for the Yale School of Drama.
As an independent artist, Emmanuelle creates and performs in her own pieces, and collaborates with actor-creators to devise and create their own work. As a consultant, Emmanuelle worked with The Civilians on The Great Immensity, and on Anne Washburn’s A Devil at Noon.
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