Theatre Faculty
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Genevieve Bennett is a free-lance director and teacher based in Minneapolis. Credits include Hedda Gabler, The Bear (The Southern Theater); Beyond the Owing (Red Eye); Bee Eater (Bryant Lake Bowl); The Good Doctor (Jon Hassler Theater); Anna Bella Eema, Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet (Theatre Unbound); The Seagull (Twin Cities Chekhov Festival); Camille (Old Arizona.) She is the chair of the theatre program at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and has guest directed for the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater Actor Training Program. She received an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and a BFA with Honors in Theatre from the Experimental Theatre Wing/Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Paul de Cordova has been an actor and teacher in New York and the Twin Cities for the past 17 years. In New York, he appeared with Keen Company, 3 Graces, the Metropolitan Playhouse and Extant Arts. In the Twin Cities, he has worked with the Guthrie, Children’s Theater, Pillsbury House Theater (Associate Company Member), Illusion Theater, History Theater, Jungle Theater, Frank Theater, Park Square and Skewed Visions. He has been active in the voice over industry lending his talents to national campaigns. Paul also uses his skills as an actor to train people working in the private sector, travelling around the country to help people get better at what they do in the corporate world. As a teacher, Paul has worked with the Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theater, New Victory Theater (NYC), Dreamyard (NYC) and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. He is passionate about helping aspiring artists achieve their potential and is grateful that SPCPA provides such a unique opportunity for both its students and its artist/teachers.
Annie Enneking has been a performing artist in the Twin Cities for twenty-eight years. She has acted with Workhaus Collective, Walking Shadow, Playwrights’ Center, Theatre de La Jeune Lune, the Guthrie, Frank Theatre, and The Children’s Theatre. She danced professionally with Danny Buraczeski’s Jazzdance, Paula Mann Dance, and Shawn McConneloug and her Orchestra. Annie is a singer-songwriter and musician, currently recording her third album. This is her fourth year as a teaching artist at SPCPA; she also teaches at the Children’s Theatre in their Theatre Arts Training and Neighborhood Bridges programs. Annie is a fight choreographer and an Associate Fight Instructor with Dueling Arts International. Annie was a finalist for the 2009 Bush Fellowship, a recipient of the 2010 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and a 2010 Playwrights’ Center McKnight Theater Artist Fellow.
Jon Ferguson is from Durham, in the Northeast of England, and trained in London. He is a director, writer, and actor. Jon has worked with some of the leading physical theatre and clown companies in the UK and US. He has taught physical theatre, clowning, and collaborative play creation throughout the UK and US, including Theatre Royal Bath, Bristol Old Vic, UofM / Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. Jon has developed work with Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Dominique Serrand, Live Action Set and with Told by an Idiot and Hoipolloi Theater in the UK. Some awards for Jon’s independent theater work include: “City Pages Artist of the Year”, “Outstanding Experimental Theater Production” – Star Tribune, “Time Out London Critic’s Choice”, “London Sunday Times Ensemble Award”.
Soozin Hirschmugl has been creating as a puppeteer, visual artist, and spectacle/pageant director in the Twin Cities for the last 18 years. She has worked as a staff artist and company member with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, and The Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont. She is a founding member of Barebones Productions, which created the Annual Barebones Halloween Pageant and Pyrotechnic Show, and Chicks on Sticks, an all women stilting troupe in Minneapolis. Soozin has worked with Open Eye Figure Theater, Bedlam Theater, and has been selected for the Art Shanty Projects on three occasions. She is a recipient of Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant (1998), Blacklock Nature Sanctuary Fellowship (2006), a Jim Henson Project Grant (2007), a Jerome Travel Study Grant (2010), Puppet Lab New Puppetry Works Fellowship Jerome/HOBT (2010) and was commissioned to create a new children’s production for the Minnesota Zoo (2011). She has been teaching visual arts and puppetry for 15 years at the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, Bread and Puppet, the Ordway Children’s Festival, and Leonardo’s Basement.
Lucinda Holshue received her MFA from the University of California-San Diego. She has held positions as the resident vocal coach at the Guthrie Theatre, core faculty member at the University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Training Program and has coached at Jungle Theatre, CTC, Theatre Latte Da, Walking Shadow, and Torch.
Suzy Messerole is a freelance director that has been working in the Twin Cities for the past 15 years, as well as the co-Artistic Director of Exposed Brick Theatre. Her artistic passion is directing new work. At the History Theatre, she has directed the world premieres of Jeany Park’s 100 Men’s Wife, Kevin Kling’s A Tale of Twin Cities and Aamera Siddiqui’s American as Curry Pie, which she co-directed with Meena Natarajan. Other favorite projects include Stacey Parshall’s Shipside for Exposed Brick and Allison Moore’s Split for the University of MN/Guthrie Theatre BFA program. Suzy is a recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant, through which she wrote Venus Nefanda, and a Jerome Foundation Naked Stages Performing Arts fellowship, through which she co-created Draw Two Circles with frequent collaborator Aamera Siddiqui. She has performed at the 2006 Women Playwrights International Conference in Indonesia, the 2008 Asian American Theatre Conference Showcase in Minneapolis, and the 2009 WPI Conference in India. She is currently directing Four Destinies for Mu Performing Arts.
Sara Schwabe is an actor, singer, and vocal coach recently relocated to the Twin Cities following a faculty appointment at Arizona State University. With a belief in uniting the performer’s voice, body, and mind, Ms. Schwabe teaches from a variety of disciplines. She has trained with SITI Company, Peter Sellars, David Barker, Rachel Bowditch, Bonnie Eckard, Micha Espinosa, and Joan Melton. As an actor, Ms. Schwabe has worked throughout the Southeast and Arizona. She was a resident artist with the Actors Co-op (Knoxville, TN) from 1998 – 2008. She is also the co-founder of the Global Cabaret interactive performance events, and is the leader of Sara Schwabe & Her Yankee Jass Band. Ms. Schwabe was a featured speaker at the VASTA voice conference in Mexico City 2010 and the recipient of the Meritorious Achievement in Acting award from the Kennedy Center in 2011. Ms. Schwabe is a member of VASTA, NATS, and Phi Kappa Phi. She received an MFA in Performance (Acting) from Arizona State University and holds a BA in Vocal Performance from the College of St. Benedict.
Dario Tangelson is an Argentinean-born performer, director and theater teacher who first came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship. In Argentina, he participated in theater, film and television, while teaching mask technique at the IUNA and Lanus universities. In New York, he collaborated with ensemble theater companies such as International Wow, NTUSA, Flying Machine and Repertorio Español and continued his teaching work through the Museo del Barrio and The New School University. He moved to Minneapolis over three two years ago and has performed with Jon Ferguson, Mixed Blood, Live Action Set, Interact and the Guthrie and has taught mask technique workshops for Macalester College and the U of M/Guthrie BFA Program as well as workshops and acting classes through the Guthrie.
