What is the Chicago Physical Theater Festival?
Physical Theater Festival Chicago brings to our city audience-beloved, virtuosic live performances from around
the world that inspire theatergoers and local artists to reimagine what a live theater experience can be and do across
cultures, languages, and genres.
Launched in 2014 by Alice da Cunha and Marc Frost the festival was founded to introduce a more progressive, physical approach to theater-making in Chicago.
Now in its 13th year, the festival showcases award-winning, ensemble-created works spanning traditions such as clown, mime, improv, puppetry, object theater, circus, dance, and street performance, while also highlighting outstanding artists and companies from Chicago.
What will I see at Physical Theater Festival?
Award winning and critically acclaimed new dramas, comedies and dramedies from around the world that are ensemble-created and innovate in one or more of the following theater traditions:
Clown, Mime, Improv, Puppet and Object Theater, Circus, Dance and Street Theater
Our Story
In 2014, Alice da Cunha and Marc Frost launched the inaugural Physical Theater Festival through the Artistic Associate program at Links Hall. The inspiration for the Festival drew upon their combined experience in London as physical theater students at the London International School for the Performing Arts (LISPA). Moving from London to Chicago, they were inspired to start a new festival to promote a more progressive, fresh and physical approach to theater-making in Chicago.
2026 Producer's Board
The Producer’s Board supports Physical Theater Festival Chicago (PTFC) in its mission to make Chicago a home for local, national and international physical theater. Members of the Producer’s Board are tasked with raising funds through a “give or get” model to support the annual summer Festival. Board members enjoy a close relationship with the Festival’s curators.
Elise and Ira Frost
Josh and Jess Frost
Maggie Kast
Lauren Schrero and Adam Levy
Pat Yuzawa-Rubin and Jack Rubin
Laura and Michael Werner
2026 Festival Team
Staff
ALICE DA CUNHA (Co-Founder & Artistic Director)
Alice is a Chicago-based Brazilian and Portuguese actress, director and producer. She co-directed with Sandra Marquez the multi-award winning Teatro Vista show The Dream King. Acting credits include Steppenwolf Theatre, Remy Bumppo, Theater 503, as well as House Theater for which she received a Jeff Award for Best Ensemble for United Flight 232.
She is Artistic Director and Co-founder of Chicago’s Physical Theater Festival, an annual festival committed to present in our city international acts that represent the future of what theater can be and do. She has extensive experience in the international theater festival sector and has worked, among other festivals at CASA (UK), Shortcutz London, TODOS (Portugal), and the Chicago Latino Film Festival.
Alice is an Artistic Consultant to Theater Unspeakable and an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University.
MARC FROST (Co-Founder & Executive Director) is an actor, deviser, educator and Chicago native who has performed and produced work in Brazil, Ireland, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. He created Theater Unspeakable as a platform for original works of devised, physical theater. Based in Chicago, the award-winning company has toured nationally, performing at venues including Lincoln Center Education (NY) and Kennedy Center (DC). He currently teaches at Columbia College Chicago and Roosevelt University. Frost is also a proud graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute’s 14-Week Training Program for Commercial Theatre Producers in New York City.
Technical Director
JOHN CRAIG (they/them/he/him) Bitten by a radioactive Phil Collins at a young age, John Craig has split their time between filling out online forms, listening to ska, & stage managing a variety of shows since 2009. Having gotten their start in stage management in sketch and improv, John brings a “yes, and” attitude to the variety festivals and productions they stage manage and produce. Having worked on and produced festivals such as the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, the Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, the Chicago Improv Festival, the Elgin Fringe Fest, Schaumburg's September Fest, and the Chicago Nerd Comedy Festival, John is accustomed to handling multiple shows simultaneously. A friend once remarked that “every conversation you have with John will be the nerdiest conversation you have all day.”
Tech AD
ANASTAR ALVAREZ (they/them) is a self and community taught stage and production manager born and raised in Chicago. They are thrilled to be working with Physical Fest for the first time! Selected production management credits include The Secretaries, Botticelli in the Fire (First Floor Theater), Corazón, Cultura, Comunidad (2nd Story), Look! Look!, The Living Room Tour, Puppet Lab ‘23-25 (The Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival), House of the Exquisite Corpse V (Rough House Puppet Arts), and Grelley Duval’s Best Actress. They are also the Co-Director of Production at First Floor Theater. You can keep up with them on social media at @aanastar_
Marketing Director
KIM CAMPBELL (they/them) is a communication specialist copywriter, editor, and arts writer. Kim served as a copywriter for Paramount and Copley Theatre, and as chief editor at CircusTalk and American Circus Educators. With a background in arts criticism, editing, and marketing, Kim has worked with publications like The Chicago Reader and Third Coast Review. Although they write extensively for and about the performing arts, Kim’s specialty is writing about circus arts, physical theater, puppetry and other variety arts. Kim is a member of the American Theater Critics Association.
Communications Manager
COURTNEY KNIGHT (she/they) is an actor and writer working within the mediums of stage and screen action, puppetmaking, traditional fiction, and video games. Prior to her work with Physical Theater Festival Chicago, she also acted as content manager for shows "My Uncle Sam" (Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC), "Bob's Office Party", "How To Hate Yourself", "The Exit Interview (An Existential Comedy)", and the comedy trio Two Headed Dog (Los Angeles). Union gal and general rabble rouser.
Workshop Coordinator
SUSAN E. BOWEN (she/her) is a theatre director, educator, and translator based in Chicago. She holds an MFA in directing from Northwestern University, where she directed plays by José Rivera, Mark Schultz, and Spanish Golden Age playwright Félix Lope de Vega. Select projects include NO MORE MAIDS by Anne García-Romero (Broken Nose Theatre’s Bechdel Fest) and the world premiere of STIX by Molly Pease (American Theatre of Actors in New York/Araca Project). Select readings: FAUNA by Romina Paula (International Voices Project), ANNE, FRAN, AND MARY ANN by Erin Courtney (Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab at Northwestern University), and ONE DICK FOR LIFE by Sophie Fleur de Bruijn (Neo-Futurist Theater). Most recently, Susan directed MERGER by Cassidy McDonnell and Marten Hoekstra (Raven Theatre) and REAR SYMPHONY by Daryna Gladun at the University of Notre Dame. Upcoming: The publication of Yael Prizant and Susan's co-translation of SENTIMENTS by Carla Zuñiga N. in Dramaturgas Chilenas: Plays by Chilean Female Writers in the Early 21st Century. Dramaturgas Chilenas is edited by Coca Duarte, Anne García-Romero, and Inés Stranger and will be published by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama in April of 2026.
Producing Associate
KARINA PATEL is a dramaturg, director, and arts administrator born in London, based in Chicago and raised everywhere else. She currently serves as the New Works Manager at Jackalope Theatre Company and was most recently the Literary Associate at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. She has developed new and devised work with Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, City of Chicago’s DCASE New Play Residency, The Understudy Chicago, Actor's Gymnasium, The Story Theatre, and more. Karina has served as an assistant director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Court Theatre, and was the Associate Director on Madhuri Shekar’s HOUSE OF JOY at the Repertory Theatre of St Louis. BA: Northwestern University.
Scratch Night Curators
Scratch Night Summer
SCOTT RAY MERCHANT is a performance artist and theatre maker celebrating over a decade in the Chicago theatre community. A graduate of the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University, Scott has had the privilege to perform at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, New Leaf Theatre, Red Twist, Abraham Werewolf, Dog & Pony and is a proud company member of Collaboraction. Scott was Co-director of "TOLLBOOTH: A Clown Show" for First Floor Theatre and a former member of the cult-hit Bouffon troupe Les Enfants Terribles. Over the last several years, he has trained with Eric Davis in Bouffon, Sue Morrison in Pochinko clown in Toronto and with Steve Wasson and Corine Soum in Decroux mime.
KEVIN MICHAEL WESSON (he/they) is a proudly unrepresented puppeteer/deviser based in Chicago, originally from Tampa, FL (B.A. theatre arts, University of South Florida). Recent credits as a physical theatre performer include: Leonardo! & Christmas Carol (Manual Cinema), “Where we go together” or The Flashlight Play (Theatre Nobody), Dog or Cats; Augmented Body (Steppenwolf LOOKOUT), House of the Exquisite Corpse I-III (Rough House Theater), All is Blue & Yellow (Collective Summ), Elements of Style (The Neo-Futurists),The Dr. Seuss Experience (Kilburn Live). His works have been mentioned in American Theatre Magazine, No Proscenium, The Puppetry Journal, NPR, and nomination for the National Puppet Slam. A firm believer in DIY ethos, they currently organize works-in-progress & community programming for the Chicago-based puppet theatre company, Rough House Theater, the performance art company, Stop Motion Plant, and the experimental free theatre outfit, Theatre Nobody.
Board of Directors
EMILIO WILLIAMS is a bilingual (Spanish/English) award-winning writer and educator. His critically acclaimed plays have been produced in Argentina, Estonia, France, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington DC.
His experimental prose has appeared most recently in Brevity Magazine, Writing Disorder, Hinterland Magazine, Imagined Theatres, and the anthology Beyond Queer Words 2021.
Emilio has lectured around the world, and taught at several U.S. universities, including DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Georgia State University. He holds a BA in Film and Video and an MFA in Writing. He is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists where he is also a faculty member. He divides his time between Chicago and Paris.
AMRITA DHALIWAL (she/her) is an award-winning Punjabi American comedian, arts leader, educator and devising artist based in Los Angeles, whose work spans multiple mediums, from stage to TV & Film. Her work explores the core themes of humanity, like death and love, through a lens of the current social-political climate. A few highlights include The Living Room, a comedy about death and grief, which one Best Comedy at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe Festival, she was the creator and producer of the hit LA show, Indian Wedding, featured in LA Weekly as “Top 15 Things to do in LA”, and more. Beyond the stage, Amrita co-authored and curated an essay series for HowlRound about clown and activism. For more, go to www.amritadhaliwal.com.
YOLANDA CESTA CURSACH
Yolanda (she/ella), is an immigrant from Spain and native of Italy, and degreed in Political
Science and Romance Languages. She is a curator and producer of interdisciplinary arts with
25+ years of programming, production management and executive experience. She is founder of Galileo Arts Provisions, with current projects including residencies and new works by Renée Clark Baker, Mariia Plotnikova, Lional Brother El Freeman, and the collective Unfolding Disability Futures. She is North American tour producer for the companies Anywhere (Chicago, USA) and Silencio Blanco (Santiago, Chile). Networks include Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Physical Theater Festival Chicago, South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces, Chicago Latino Theater Alliance, National Performance Network (NPN), and Creative Independent Producers Alliance (CIPA). Her artist service and research extend to Canada, Mexico, Ibero-Latin America, France, South Asia, Sub-Sahara Africa, Japan, and Australasia. She is Artistic Advisor for Monira Foundation and Arts Midwest. Her most recent advisor and panel service includes for Villa Albertine, Creative Capital, MAP Fund, USArtists International at the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, FACE Foundation’s French US Exchange in Dance (FUSED) and Contemporary Theater, Illinois Arts Council, and City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She served twice as Curator and Producer of Southern Exposure Performing Americas for the NEA, as a Facilitator of Moving Forward Dialogues Residency for the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State-Tallahassee, and as Hub Site for National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. She was Curator of Performance at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (1997-2019), where she originated the New Works Development commissioning program and co-created the MCA Stage presenting series, and most recently Artistic Director at High Concept Lab. She is a Practitioner with Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, and recipient of the Paul Harris Fellow Lifetime Award for Humanitarian Work by Rotary International.
SHAWN DOUGLASS is a director, actor, adapter, and Northwestern University Professor of Instruction. An Artistic Associate for 18 seasons with Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, he received an After Dark award for his portrayal of John Tanner in Man and Superman. Shawn has also performed at Northlight Theatre, Court Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, Writers’ Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare. He has played in over twenty Shakespearean productions in Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Montana, Iowa and during three seasons with Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre.
Directing credits at Remy Bumppo include Chesapeake, The Philadelphia Story and The Importance of Being Earnest, all of which were nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Production. Also for Remy Bumppo: Usman Ally’s Public Enemy, part of Remy Bumppo’s thinkTank, an annual project he created and produced to present works addressing pressing social issues such as immigration and national securtiy.
Other directing credits include Three Views of the Same Object, Ten Questions to ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution (Next Act Theatre, Milwaukee); Julius Caesar, The Diary of Anne Frank (Theatre at the Center); Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet (Montana Shakespeare in the Parks); Jimmie Blues and the Strange Case of the Accidental Dancer (Jump Rhythm Jazz Project); Tintypes (Open Door Rep); William Saroyan’s The Beautiful People (Edge of the Wood Theatre); and Holiday (Northwestern).
Douglass’ adaptation of immigrant oral histories, An Immigrant Class, was staged for Remy Bumppo’s thinkTank. His adaptation of Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was read at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and later staged at Northwestern University. In 2021 Shawn created the YouTube and Apple Podcast series An Actor’s Arc tracing the artistic journey of working actors over the course of their professional careers.
EVA NIEWIADOMSKI is a Polish American entrepreneur who launched a pioneering business in the West Loop in Chicago in 2002. Her Catalyst Ranch is a creative meeting and event space used by corporations, non-profits and individuals who want to exponentially increase the quality and quantity of ideas. The physical space is furnished with a blend of vintage and ethnic furnishings, provides huge quantities of natural light with rooms that are large and flexible, enabling breakthrough thinking. Eva’s unique philosophy which fuels Catalyst Ranch, taps into the creativity embedded in every individual.
Prior to launching Catalyst Ranch, Eva worked in accounting, financial planning, marketing and innovation at The Quaker Oats Company for 15 years. During this time she earned an MBA from Kellogg in Marketing, International Business and Organizational Behavior. Upon completing her Public Accounting degree from Loyola University and passing the CPA exam, Eva worked as an auditor for Arthur Andersen & Co.
Eva has an unending passion for the arts and in her post-Catalyst Ranch stage of life spends her time learning new art techniques, creating and donating art and volunteering with organizations that she wants to support.
LEENA SOMANI brings over 15 years of experience in Finance, with a strong track record of driving strategic decision-making, financial planning, and operational efficiency across complex organizations. Throughout her career, Leena has developed deep expertise in ensuring financial health of an organization.
In recent years, Leena has transitioned into the non-profit sector, where she supports the initiative on defending human rights and fair due process. Combining a rigorous financial background with a passion for social impact, she supports organizations in building sustainable models that amplify their mission and improve their financial and operational infrastructure to build capacity.
ALICE DA CUNHA (see bio in staff section)
MARC FROST (see bio in staff section)