Stay tuned for 2027 Expansion Residency
Applications Opening Soon
Rough House’s Expansion Residency reflects what we value most: meeting members of the community where they are, investing in process, and creating space for risk, rigor, and imagination. This program provides mid-career artists a platform to build upon short form works, in an environment of care, experimentation, and community.
Over the course of the residency, the resident artists will deepen dramaturgy, refine design, and build toward richer, more fully realized performance experiences.
Alongside the makers, an audience cohort helps to support the journey, share feedback, and lear more about the inner-workings of the creative process!
Whether expanding outward or stepping in from the sidelines, the Expansion Residency is here to power exploration and build community around this crazy puppet thing that brings us all together!
Show Program
Fireflies’ Dream
Script & Direction by:
Tanima
Devised & performed by:
Agnotti Cowie
Finn Wren
Tanima
Tia Pinson
Puppet Design & Construction by:
Carol Trobe
Harry Sadowski
Romana Khan
Tanima
Voiceover Narration by:
Agnotti Cowie
Rajani Vaidya
Sanjiv Vaidya
Shruti Vaidya
Stop-Motion Video:
Photography by Abhishek Bhattacharyya
Second Dream adapted from the short story ‘She is My Daughter’ by G. Renuka
Additional animation by Jonah
Animation and editing by Tanima
The Adventures
of Big & Little
Created, Performed, Filmed,
& Edited by:
Felix
Boxing
Created, Performed, Filmed
& Edited by:
T. Jordan Christmas
The Graveyard of Eden
Created by: Sion Silva
Performed by:
Roasalie Arends
Lindsey Ball
Abby Palen
Sion Silva
Emilie Wingate
Puppets: Sion Silva
Costumes: Rosalie Arends
Music: Joey Meland
Open Season
Created by Casey Doe
Devised & Performed by:
Casey Doe
Josie Heberle
Tori Londrigan
Bree Perry
Luis Valenzuela Jr.
Puppet Design & Construction: Casey Doe
Foley: Bree Perry, Luis Valenzuela Jr.
Music: Eli Mercer (@elmandvine)
Merkaba’s Progeny
Created by Steven Widerman & The Puppet Company
Puppeteers:
Steven Widerman
David Herzog
Jacqueline Wade
Music:
Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”
Special Thanks:
Irina Niculescu
Puppet Design & Construction: Steven Widerman
Puppet Construction: David Herzog, Jacqueline Wade
Projection Mapping & Design: Liviu Pasare
Scenic Fabrication: Caitlin McLeod, Zachary Sun
The Audience Cohort
David Carlson
Efrén Cruz Cortés
Julie Moller
Maureen Mizwicki
Aisha Naseem
Eva Silverman
The Production Team
Expansion Residency Director &
Manager of Artist Advancement
Sam Lewis
Expansion Showcase Producer &
Rough House Executive Artistic Director
Claire Saxe
Managing Director: Marcey Abramovitz
Marketing Director: Kimzyn Campbell
Stage Manager: J.J. Jury
iO Production Manager: Brad Wilcop
iO Artistic Producer: Brad Pike
The Saints Foundation
The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
The Illinois Arts Council Agency
S&C Electric
iO Theater
Molly Sharfstein
Special Thanks To
THE MEDIUM LENGTH WORKS RESIDENTS
Tanima's artistic practice encompasses clown, devised physical theatre, puppetry, choir, poetry, and most recently stop-motion video. Tanima has worked in street and professional theatre across India and in Chicago, and is currently exploring political aesthetics rooted in genre, ensemble, and the uncanny magic of puppets. The piece Tanima is developing is called 'Fireflies Dream.'
Casey Doe is a multidisciplinary Chicago artist, practicing tattoo, woodblock printmaking, and puppetry. Their puppets have been featured in Rough House’s House of the Exquisite Corpse and NBS Cabaret, as well as Shoestring and Puppetqueers puppet slams. Recurring interests include elements of body-horror, doll-like characters, and the interface of the human and natural world. @bogwater.taffy
Steven Widerman is Artistic Director of The Puppet Company, a performing company that produces puppet theater for children and their families. He has been involved in the application of puppetry to entertainment, education, industry and advertising. With the assistance of artists, woodcarvers, painters and costumers, he has designed and built a remarkable variety of hundreds of puppets. stevenwiderman.com | @stevenwiderman
THE SHORT FORM WORKS RESIDENTS
T. Jordan Christmas is a listener and storyteller. At the feet of her elders, she absorbed the rich and complex fragments of her family history. Through the generative power of puppetry, poetry, and prose, the goal of T. Jordan Christmas is to channel that ancestral wisdom, advocate with the marginalized for justice and peace, and to kindle within hearts and minds the desire to take part in those loving actions that shift the energy of our world. tjordanchristmas.com
Felix Mayes is a multidisciplinary storyteller and puppeteer in Chicago. Their work balances innocence and horror to create characters and narratives that feel both human and otherworldly. Sharing their experiences with mental illness, trans queerness, and being brown in America keeps their work unique and relatable.
Sion Silva is a non-binary, Chicago-based visual artist, puppet maker and performer whose personal work specializes in the philosophy of myth and the macabre. Outside of their personal work, they are a freelance art and puppetry fabricator, working alongside Chicago Puppet Studio, Rabbitfoot Puppetry, Rough House, Tom Lee, Whitesnake Productions, Drury Lane, and Kehoe Designs. @sionslament