we come to collect

Jenn Kidwell’s work questions our way of being with sharp intelligence and wry humor. With Scott Sheppard, Kidwell wrote and performed Obie Award winning Underground Railroad Game. Recent projects include Those With 2 Clocks, Eternal Life: Part One, and Fat Ham (film) at The Wilma Theater, Ocean Filibuster (PearlDamour), Syllabus for Black Love (Jaamil Olawole Kosoko), Home (Geoff Sobelle), Adrienne Truscott’s Still Asking for It (Joe’s Pub). Published in movement research Performance Journal #45 and hyperallergic.com. 2013 TCG/Fox Resident Actor Fellowship, 2015 Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, 2016 Pew Fellow, 2017 Independence Fellow, 2020 Ruthie Award & Hodder Fund Grant, 2023 FCA grantee.

Photo: courtesy of IW Douglas

Jarvis covers a lot of musical ground in the artistic world. The classically-trained, New York-based musician has had the opportunity to collaborate with many major artists — most notably Shawn Mendes, PJ Morton, Marin Alsop, Gary Shocker, and many others. He was also part of NBC’s Emmy Award-Winning and Grammy Award-nominated production of “Jesus Christ Superstar—LIVE” featuring John Legend. Jarvis was also part of the Emmy Award-winning Hip Hop Nutcracker broadcast for PBS. He currently serves as Artist Manager at MKI Artists and is holds the viola chair in the national tour of Les Misérables.

jaamil.com

jaamil olawale kosoko is a multi-spirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent originally from Detroit, MI. jaamil’s practice is conceptual and process based, fluidly moving within the creative realms of live art performance, video, sculpture, and poetry. Through rooted ritual and spiritual practice, embodied poetics, Black critical studies, and queer theories of the body, kosoko’s work seeks to conjure perpetual modes of freedom, healing, and care when/where/however possible.

Juliette Jones (Composer, Arranger, Violinist) is a multi-genre live and studio recording violinist, BMI composer and founder of Rootstock Republic (Performance Ensemble)—a broad-based string production company that specializes in consulting, contracting, music preparation, and live performance; co-led by Jarvis Benson (Violist, Music Supervisor).

Under the company, Juliette has scored, recorded and contracted for a number of live, televised and multimedia events including the People’s Choice Awards, the New York Film Festival, NBC’s Grammy-nominated and Emmy-award winning broadcast of “Jesus Chris Superstar” live and the Oscar-nominated film, ‘Mudbound.’

A graduate of The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Juliette’s commercial credits include Apple and Samsung; and as a performer, she has worked with a veritable list of “who’s who” including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Billie Eilish, H.E.R., Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, DJ D-Nice, Common, Lizzo, Robert Glasper, Janelle Monáe, Hans Zimmer, John Legend, Adele and One Republic; and dancer-choreographers, Camille A. Brown, Michelle Dorrance and Marjani Forte-Saunders.

Adam Lazarus is an award-winning theatre creator, actor, director, and acting instructor whose work has been showcased around the world. Adam brings a dark and comic sensibility to all of his work and is known for dynamic and implicating solo performances, including the international thought disrupter Daughter; the radical race oration The Art of Building a Bunker (co-written with Guillermo Verdecchia), and the vicious bouffon love play Wonderland. Adam has acted as a creation director for countless actors, musicians, speakers, comedians, dancers and performance artists, helping them to spark and form characters and narratives, worlds and images.

Jordan McCree (they/he) is an artist based in Philadelphia. Their most recent collaborations include: Good Person of Setzuan (Wilma Theater), Grief Hotel(Clubbed Thumb), Cost of Living (Philadelphia Theatre Company), The BFG (Arden Theater Company), Sandblasted (Theatre Horizon), The World Takes (short film, Eight Flow Studio), Eternal Life Part 1 (The Wilma Theater), The Karamazovs (film, Village Park Productions), Fat Ham (2021 World Premiere, The Wilma Theater). They were one of the 2022 grant recipients to the 1/52 Project. They are also a member of Philly–based, Barrymore Award winning, hip hop collective, ILL DOOTS. Their music is available everywhere!