Jason Slavick is a director, writer and educator. At the LAB he wrote and directed Yellow Bird Chase, Who Would Be King, ICARUS, Song of Songs: a LoveRomp and Le Cabaret Grimm – a punk cabaret fairy tale {sans fairies}, for which he also wrote lyrics. He also directed 28 Seeds, the LAB collaboration with Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys, and the two coLAB productions, Talk to Strangers and IRRESISTIBLE. Jason wrote and directed Heaven & Hell – The Fantastical Temptation of the 7 Deadly Sins, a musical adapted from the album by Joe Jackson that was presented at The Boston Conservatory in 2007. As a company member of Boston Theatre Works, Jason directed Othello (Elliot Norton Award nominated for Best Production and Best Actor), The Tempest, Antony & Cleopatra, Macbeth, Emily Mann’s critically acclaimed Meshugah, Olga Humphrey’s Veronika Vavoom Volcanologist, and his own play J: A One-Act Improvised Tragi-Comedy. He also directed numerous developmental workshops and readings including The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates, Paranoia by Olga Humphrey and others. Jason directed Professional Skepticism at The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, The Good Woman of Setzuan and The Cherry Orchard at The Boston Conservatory, Betty and Mortie at The New Theatre, Frankenstein at The Stanley B. Theatre, Baby with the Bathwater for InCharge Productions, The Stronger at The Left Bank Theatre in Tel Aviv, and Aristotle Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and A Land Without Trees at The Second Hand Independent Theatre, which he founded in Philadelphia. Other plays Jason has written include The Dancing Bear, The Golem, Icaphish and Alice: A Grotesque Turn in Twelve Scenes. Jason received his MFA in directing from The Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence, where he was awarded the Pell Scholar Award and directed Richard III, Waiting for Godot, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and others. He studied at the Eugene O’Neill National Theatre Institute and at the Warsaw Theatre Academy in Warsaw, Poland.

Faye Dupras is a theater artist who began her puppet journey over twenty years ago when she met and apprenticed under her childhood hero, puppeteer Noreen Young.  Since then she has performed around the world and has worked as a director, designer and educator throughout Eastern Canada and the USA. She’s collaborated with Liars and Believers on Icarus and Yellow Bird Chase and is excited to back as a creative on Beyond. When not devising with the gang at L&B, Faye creates and tours original puppet productions for all ages.  Critics have described Faye’s award-winning shows as “spellbinding,” “imaginative,” and “powerful.”

Aaron Sherkow has been designing shows since 2001. He has designed for theatre, dance and opera companies around Wisconsin, including Cornerstone Theatre, Danceworks, Nevermore Theatre, Attic Theatre Inc and Chamber Theatre. In 2008, he moved to Boston to pursue his MFA in Design at Boston University. Designing at Boston University takes up most of his time but he is very excited to be branching out into the larger Boston Theatre community with Liars & Believers.

He received his BA in Theatre with a Music minor from Lawrence University in 2004. Between 2004 and 2008 he worked a variety of jobs including Math Tutoring and Technical Direction as well as free lance design. In 2006, he joined the staff of Ripon College’s Theatre Department.

Penny Benson is a visual and performing artist / puppeteer and actor (AEA) with over 100 performance credits. She and her work have been seen nationally and internationally, from Canada to China. She most recently appeared in her original short Black Birds, Red Hills, in conjunction with Juventas New Music Ensemble at Oberon in Cambridge. Prior to that Penny designed puppets for the Jean’s Playhouse national tour of Christmas Carol, which are currently on display at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs, CT. Her original MFA production, Goblin Market, premiered at Connecticut Repertory Theatre in March 2014, for which she served as playwright, puppet designer/builder, and co-director. Penny toured nationally with Underground Railway Theatre in How Do You Spell Hope and Are You Ready My Sister, designed and built masks and puppets for KRIK KRAK, and collaborated on Arabian Nights, Sila, Harriet Jacobs, Tru Grace, and Galileo. She has also designed and built puppets / masks for WHAT, TYG Productions, and Foreign Landscape Productions. Penny has served as a visiting teaching artist for URT, The Huntington Theatre, UMass Amherst, Babson College, and City Stage, and was a STARS grant Artist in Residence at Boston Day and Evening Academy. Penny continues to design, build, devise and direct theater and puppetry for productions originating in the Boston area.

See examples of Penny’s work here.

Aimee Rose Ranger is a Boston actor, clown and storyteller. For three years she hosted SOOP: Stories Of Our People, a monthly storytelling potluck out of her home, and continues to co-host the Encyclopedia Show: Somerville, a monthly variety show at the Davis Square Theatre. Aimee Rose and co-collaborator, Veronica Barron, were winners of the first round of Company One’s Fringe Wars with Winning Higgins’s Love, an original clown tragedy. Aimee Rose has created a few solo shows including My Heart: A Jester at the New England Fringe Festival and Gender Dazed and Confused off-broadway at the Medicine Show Theatre. She is an Artistic Associate with Whistler in the Dark and was last seen in their IRNE award-winning Tales from Ovid. Other credits with Whistler include Trojan Women, Recent Tragic Events, Fen, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth. She is a resident pirate tour guide for the Freedom Trail Foundation: note, her actual initials read ARR.

Steven L. Emanuelson holds a B.S. in acting from Illinois State University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Performance from The University of Georgia. After graduating with his Master’s in 2001, Steve pursued a professional acting and teaching career in Atlanta where he worked for such companies as: The Alliance Theatre (recipient of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award®) in Shear Madness, Actor’s Express Theatre in bothBent and Some Men, Dad’s Garage Theatre in Archie’s Weird Fantasy, Debbie Does Dallas (The Musical), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Die Mommy! Die! and The Rocky Horror Show to name a few. He has also been seen at The Atlanta Lyric Theatre as Bernardo in West Side Story and has performed with Jewish Theatre of the South in their productions of Miklat and Capture the Moon. Steve is an Equity Membership Candidate with Actor’s Equity Association and an Artistic Associate at Dad’s Garage Theatre in Atlanta. For six years, he taught acting classes at Actor’s Express Theatre as well as giving individual voice lessons in stage speech. This is Steven’s second production in Boston after moving here June 1, 2011. He was in Riverside Theatre Works’ production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this past fall.

Jonathan Horvath is an actor, director, teacher and voice over artist based in New York City. Recent stage credits include: Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventures (Arts Center of Coastal Carolina), The 39 Steps (River Valley Rep) The House of Mirth (Metropolitan Playhouse), Before Placing Me on Your Shelf (NYC Fringe Festival) Darling–also with Nathan Leigh! (Ars Nova). You might also spot him in the upcoming TV comedy series Brown Nation and hawking Legos to childen on TV and online. Off stage and offline, Jonathan is a sailboat captain, leading charters and teaching lessons on the Hudson River. Find out more at www.jonathanhorvath.com

* member Actors Equity

Classically-trained multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Eric Lee has been performing for over 15 years. A seasoned session musician, Lee has traversed genres ranging from folk to metal, lending his lush string arrangements and unique improvisational talent to dozens of recordings. He has accompanied such legends as The Kennedys, Peter Rowan, John Gorka, and Tracy Grammer, amongst others. Previous musical theatre productions include Kiss Me Kate!, Godspell, Jaque Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (Smith College), and Jesus Christ: Superstar! Based out of Western Massachusetts, he performs his songs locally and abroad, and tours as a member of the bluegrass band “Max Wareham & The Morning Bugle”.