#PLEASED in Santa Fe: THE CREW

Introducing the cast of our debut production of #PLEASED, taking place in Santa Fe, NM on May 27, 2018! This is a collection of performances taking place in five acts: INSPIRATION, PROCESS, DOUBT, REFLECTION/EXPRESSION, and finally, #PLEASED! The great thing about this showcase is that the acts and performers can and will rotate and change -- you’ll never see the same exact show twice, though it is likely that every one will make you laugh and cry and want to call your best friends and tell them you love them. Also, there will be cake.

The Denton, TX premier of #PLEASED will take place on July 11 at Dan's Silverleaf.

Alex Stock

Alex Stock has been a part of Spiderweb Salon since 2012. They are a self-taught, multi-media artist and who recently earned a Master of Science degree in biology at the University of North Texas. Alex works in many different mediums including: drawing, sculpture, painting, installations, zines, and digital media. Their work is best known for being biological in nature and using colorful but macabre imagery.

Christopher David Taylor

Chris has been a part of the DFW theatre and arts communities for the last decade as an arts journalist (Stage Directions Blog), a freelance director (Denton Performance Lab), educator and cheerleader for artists stuck on an idea. He lives in Denton with his family and you can often see him running in large groups as a founding member of the Denton Area Running Club.

courtney marie

courtney marie is a writer and artist based in Denton, Texas. she enjoys working with text as an art medium and performance object and sometimes she plays music with her friends. her first poetry chapbook, don’t get your hopes up, is coming out in 2018 in a double publication through Thoughtcrime Press, alongside her dear friend Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi’s Moon Woman. courtney marie lives with two cats, loves to travel, and writes a lot of letters.

Elia Tamplin

Elia Tamplin likes silence, food, dismantling systems of oppression (and lists). When not engaging in the arduous (yet rewarding) task of dissertating or consuming massive amounts of black coffee, they can be found out on a walk chatting with their mother. 30% of their half-written songs see the light of day, while 97% of their full-length songs are influenced by Romantic Comedies, the Bible, and a perpetual melancholy.

Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi

Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi likes nature and poems. She can often be found across Dallas using her typewriter to birth poems for strangers. She reads the news and cries daily. She is the founder of Dark Moon Poetry & Arts, a monthly series which spotlights the creative feminine and non-binary energies of North Texas. She has been published in Entropy, The Boiler, Anthropology Now!, Bearing the Mask, and elsewhere. See her work at fatimaayanmalikahirsi.com.

Frank Darko

Frank is a freelance artist, videographer, and the co-founder of Dallas art space PARIAH, an eclectic hub for performance art, experimental noise, media installation, painting, and other 2d media. PARIAH strives to enrich the local community by providing an alternative space for artists to exhibit and curate work outside of the commercial art sphere, and works to amplify the voices and ideas of contemporary creatives. Together with Joshua van Ammon, Frank created CONVERSATIONS IN THE VOID, an video-based artist interview series, and is the executive producer for Spiderweb Salon’s podcast series focusing on the stories behind the work of living poets and writers, THE LITERARY PODCAST.

Jacob Greenan

Jacob Greenan is a musician, writer and composer living in Dallas. A long time collaborator with Spiderweb, Jacob has worked with Corbin Childs as a studio and production assistant at Shiny Sounds Recording Studio and performed with such groups as The Hazardous Dukes, Forever & Everest, and Here In Arms.

Joanna Lugo

Joanna Lugo is a Latinx performer/theatre artist and activist, currently serving as the Interim Artistic Producer at Dallas Theatre Center. She is a Cum Laude graduate at the University of North Texas, having received her B.A. and M.A. in Performance Studies. As a Master’s candidate, she was selected to be a Teaching/Research Assistant, Black Box Theatre Manager, and was awarded honors of “Thesis of the Year” and “Outstanding Performance by a Graduate Student” for her seminal work. Joanna’s work spans across creative and artistic institutions. Prior to joining DTC, she performed in Kate Gilmore’s exhibition Only in Your Way, served as Coordinator for Grants at the Greater Denton Arts Council, and taught as an adjunct professor at UNT, where she designed Performance Studies courses. During her tenure, Joanna co-wrote and co-directed the award-winning production Menagerie.

Kim Nall

Kim Nall is a songwriter, poet, and high school English teacher. Her poems have been published in Spiderweb Salon zines and Poetry Quarterly. Her band, Kim Nall & The Fringe, released its debut album, Lay Your Vision Down, in January.

Kristina Smith

Kristina Smith is a narrative photographer and visual artist whose creative research focuses on memory, storytelling, and the human condition. Her recent work explores familial identity, ritual, and cultural erasure. She received her BFA from Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio and received her MFA with distinction from Texas Woman's University in Denton, TX. Her work has been exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally in venues such as Rayko Gallery, 500X Gallery, and the Midwest Center for Photography.

Leah Jones

Leah Jones is an editorial photographer and menswear stylist based in Dallas. Her work has been featured in publications such as Men’s Health, GQ, Vogue Online, Los Angeles Times, Martha Stewart Wedding, Marvel Digital Content, and she has shot print work for Disney brands and Neiman Marcus. Leah moonlights as an event photographer focun on local musicians and artistic collectives. She has been lovingly photographing Spiderweb Salon showcases for many years and deeply appreciates the opportunity to celebrate all people and document their artistic expressions. To preserve sanity, she dances frequently, and enjoys writing short scripts and essays dealing in terribly twisted horror or bounding comedic gaiety. She resides in Downtown Dallas with her partner, Jacob and their beloved cat, affles.

Machele Johnson

Machele Johnson is a Dallas based poet and musician who has been sharing her words and sounds for a little over a year and a half. A melomaniac since birth, Machele's inspirations for writing are sound and music with its complexities and structure. She has a need to study, experiment, and report back on the numerous, wordless joys and sorrows one can experience while lost in sound. As well as rejoice in the similarities of the human experience and harmony.

Nina Chantanapumma

Nina eats cookies. And fragments sentences. When she's not teaching high schools students how to create digital art and code websites, she's either drawing stuff, fixing things, or hanging out with her corgi, Noodles. She tries to remember to post as @ninacdot on Instagram and Twitter.

Sam Cook

Sam does cool doodles and computery programs all the time, as long as it's between the hours of 8 and 10 PM on Thursdays, Neptune is in retrograde, and D&D was cancelled that night. Like Dracula, he is eternally bound to his native soil (Denton). Sam has designed several 3D printable board game accessories that may be inspected at his Thingiverse Repository.

Sarah Friday

Sarah is a performance artist, activist, and puppeteer whose work centers around intersectional feminist issues utilizing the body as the primary means of expression and critique. Sarah received her M.A. from the University of North Texas in 2016 with an emphasis in Performance Studies. Since then, she has expanded her performance work to include community activist work, most notably leading the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas’ effort to evolve their practices and policies to better serve lgbtq+ identified kids. In addition to her performance art work, Sarah currently works as an lgbtq+ consultant, adjunct professor, and jewelry artist. To check out her work visit her Instagram page @sassafras_accessories.

Sarah Ruth

Sarah Ruth is a diverse musician and artist – a multi-instrumentalist, she employs hammered dulcimer, harmonium, electroacoustic sound art, and extended vocal techniques. She performs frequently both solo and with multiple bands and improvisational ensembles in the North Texas area. She is a UNT graduate, where she focused on vocal studies and electroacoustic composition. She has also studied with Meredith Monk and members of her vocal ensemble. She enjoys varied collaborations and has worked as a sound artist for art and photography installations and an accompanist for modern dance. She tours nationally and her recent albums have been released on Pour le Corps Music and Tofu Carnage Records. More info at sarahruthalexander.com.

Sean Enfield

Sean Enfield is a writer and educator based out of the Denton. He graduated from the University of North Texas with a B.A. in English-Literature. He has had work featured on NPR's All Things Considered as a part of their Three Minute Fiction Contest and published in Vine Leaves, F(r)iction Online, and Poetry Quarterly. His piece, "Paper Shackles" was recently published via Lunch Ticket. Visit his website at seanenfield.com.

#PLEASED in Santa Fe is also made possible through the creative support from afar by Andrea Harman, Axel Severs, Conor Wallace, Matthew Long, Matthew Sallack, and our entire collective of talented and supportive artists and friends.

#PLEASED in Santa Fe: THE CREW

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