SquidShow was founded out of a desire to create a resident theatre company in Telluride, CO. By working with a core acting company, we find that we can learn, grow and create our high quality original theatre.  Local audiences can experience theatre and art in a new way, watching our performers develop and transform over time.  Our ongoing, committed group on actors-in-residence, can affect our community in a unique way. The SquidShow company is what gives our theatre an identity, it is what gives our stories a personal continuity, and we believe it is crucial to our actors and audience’s long-term investment. In this way, we feel that our company will be as invested in the stories they tell, as the people they tell them to, as the places in which they are told.

   

 

Sasha Cucciniello (Artistic Director, performer) moved to Telluride from New York City, where she was a founding member of CuriousNoise Theatre and company actor with Red Metal Mailbox . Favorite NY credits: the film “9 Keys” (Dishwasher Studio), Sleep Cycle (Duck Theatre), Fefu and Her Friends (The Culture Project), Rubber Chicken Suite (The Tank, One Arm Red), Space Karaoke (The Tank, One Arm Red), Travelogue (Curious Noise Theatre), Lovebird with a Mirror (Curious Noise Theatre), SHORTS (Collective Unconscious), Desire Caught by the Tail (Here Arts Center), City for Sale (San Francisco Mime Troupe).  She has also worked with Performance Space 122, Philip Arnoult’s the Center for International Theatre Development and The San Francisco Mime Troupe.

 

 

Thomas Shane (performer, founding member) moved to Telluride in 1997 to re-establish his Colorado residency so he could  study math at the University of Colorado where he holds a BS in Political Science.  He never returned to the university.   He has performed in and co-created the SquidShow productions of A Day, Love Show, Squids Live! Tom has also performed in the SquidShow productions of The Tiger and Big Love, Bear It, Cataclysm, Dude & Bro’s Epic Adventure, Cops Crimes & Criminals & CON. His credits include The Time of Your Life with the St. Jean’s players in NYC.   Regional credits include Richard III (telluride rep), The Tempest (telluride rep), The Dining Room (Dorset Players), Picasso at the Lapin Agile(Second Stage), Bob’s Office Party(Second Stage), Season’s Greetings(Second Stage).  Tom appeared in the cult movie classic The Lost People of Mountain Village.  Tom studied with The Upright Citizens Brigade and Robert X. Modica in New York and is currently studying with Double Edged Theatre at their farm in Ashfield, MA.

 

 

Dahlia Mertens (performer) moved to Telluride from NYC in 2002 where she worked in film and television.  Before that she lived in Boulder where she received her BFA in theater from the University of Colorado.  Dahlia has been involved in many theatrical and film productions since her move to Telluride including eight SquidShow productions, including Squids Live!, The Tiger, Big Love, Inaccurate Reenactments,War of the Words, Bear It, Cops Crimes & Criminals, Cataclysm & CON.  She currently works as a massage therapist and runs a successful independent business, Mary Jane’s Medicinals.

 

 

 

 

Colin Sullivan (Managing Director, performer) moved to Telluride to be closer to family in August of 2008. Colin studied theatre throughout college, apprenticed at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, and acted professionally in New York City for five years.  Colin was trained primarily in the Chekhov Method and holds a B.A. in Theatre from St. Lawrence University. Since joining SquidShow, he has acted in a number of shows including, CON, Cataclysm, Dude & Bro’s Epic Adventure, Big Love, Cops Crimes & Criminals, Inaccurate Reenactments, War of the Words, Squids Live!, Bella and Buckley’s Birthday Bash, Bear It, Voices of a People’s History, and The Play’s the Thing reading series. Colin also runs the company’s kids summer education programs.

 

 

Sam Burgess (performer, musician) originally hails from Dallas, Texas.  After attending College at the University of Texas at Austin, he made his way out to Telluride to work, ski, hike, camp and experience “actual” seasons.  A bass player by association, Sam has played in several bands since high school, and currently enjoys slappin’ ‘da bass with Ethan Hale in their current project “The Sentimental Sweaters”.  He also enjoys barking at the moon.  He has appeared in Squidshow’s productions of Dude & Bro’s Epic Adventure, Big Love & Cataclysm, but generally acts up whenever he can. If you really want to know anything else, ask him, he might actually tell you the truth.

 

 

Ethan Hale (composer, musician, performer)  has been in his bedroom until he writes something good. Playing the pianos in basements and hotel lobbies since he was little he has since mastered many instruments and recordings. After studying music and theatre at The University of Wyoming, he moved to New York city to go to cocktail parties and mingle. Ethan has composed & performed his original music for SquidShow shows since 2007. He has appeared as a performer in several shows, including Inaccurate Reenactments, Big Love & A Day. He lives and works in Telluride, and plays and writes with several bands, including The deadrestless, The Sentimental Sweaters & The Great Funkateer.

 

 

Jen Wineman (director) is a New York City based theater director. Jen has travelled to Telluride for the last three summers, to direct SquidShow’s company devised work CON, Cataclysm & Squids! Live! NYC credits include: the world premieres of Timothy Charles Browne’s The Erotic Diary of Anne Frank (Classic Stage Company), the world premiere of Justin Deabler’s stellYY and Laura von Holts Giants, and the New York premiere of Bradford Louryk’s Klytaemnestra’s Unmentionables (HERE Arts Center); the American premiere of Claudia Dey’s Trout Stanley and the world premiere of Clay McLeod Chapman’s Jewish Mothers: Throwing Golem (The Culture Project); and her own original pieces 15 Seconds of Silence (American Place Theatre/Studio 42) and Atelier (University Settlement/Studio 42). Regionally, she has directed at New York Stage and Film, the Williamstown Theatre Festival Workshop, and WordBRIDGE. Other credits include Sarah Ruhl’s stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando and Sarah Ruhl’s Late: a cowboy song, Kim Rosentstock’s Every Other Hamlet in the Universe, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Annie Weisman’s Be Aggressive (Yale School of Drama). Jen is a co-founder and current board member of Studio 42, a New York based theater company that produces new work by emerging artists. BA: Vassar College, MFA: Yale School of Drama.

 

 

Sarah Gancher (playwright) has a passion for epic stories, big ideas and deep comedy. Full lengths for SquidShow: Con (The Nugget), Cataclysm! (Deep Creek Mine). Other full lengths: Seder (staged readings at Great Plains Theater Conference, Omaha, and NYU’s Goldberg Theater), Rubber Chicken Suite (The Tank, One Arm Red), The Kids’ Show: A Night of Children’s Entertainment for Supposed Adults (The Culture Project 45 Below), and Lovebird with a Mirror (Curious Noise Theatre). In 2011, she was the collaborating playwright on the final phase of development for The TEAM’s Mission Drift (Lisbon, Coimbra, Edinburgh, Salzburg), and wrote lyrics for Chisa Hutchinson’s musical Tunde’s Trumpet (SummerStage touring NYC parks). Her project 7th, a series of seven plays, sound installations, and site-specific performances exploring Budapest’s historic Jewish ghetto, will be produced in Budapest starting this winter. A proud Oakland native, she currently lives in Brooklyn. MFA: NYU 2010.

 

 

Melissa Trn (costume designer): NYC credits include: Antigone (SITI Company, Dir. Anne Bogart), From The Fire (composed by Elizabeth Swados), My Sweet Charlie (June Havoc Theater), What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends, Al’s Business Cards (Lion Theater),Bully to You (Soho Rep), New Works Festival (Columbia University), The Screens, Baal (Riverside Church), The Sporting Life, The Erotic Diary of Anne Frank, Spacebar (Studio 42). Regional credits include:The Me Nobody Knows (Black Repertory Theater of St Louis), Grace, or the Art of Climbing (Nice People Theater Company, Philadelphia), Richard II(Yale Rep),

Upcoming projects include From The Fire (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Trojan Women (Dir. Anne Bogart at The Getty Villa in LA). Melissa is also the resident Costume Designer for the Calhoun School in NYC. MFA Yale School of Drama.

 

 

 

Krissy Smith (associate director) directed Squidshow Theatre’s 2010 production of Big Love. She has worked in Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Belgium, Germany, France, Austria and the States as both a director and assistant director. In NYC her work has been seen at The Culture Project/45 Below, PS122, Access Theatre, Pan Asian Repertory, Monkeytown Theater, The Brooklyn Lyceum and The Paramount Center for the Arts. Krissy is currently serving as the Production Coordinator of St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.

 

 

 

 

 

Alexei Kaleina (filmmaker) is an independent filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in New York City in 1979 and educated at Vermont’s Bennington College and New York University.  Alexei’s short films have been shown and exhibited in installations across North America and Europe. He has been a regular contributor to the film series at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan, introducing and discussing various screenings there.  He recently completed his first feature film, staring Michael Kelly and Rip Torn. “The Afterlight” had its world premiere at the 2009 International Rome Film Festival in Italy, recently headlined the “In Focus” section of Filmmaker Magazine and was featured in the Spring 2010 issue of ID magazine. It opened theatrically in New York and Chicago in 2010/2011 to strong reviews. It was recently acquired for distribution by Cinema Purgatorio and will be available this fall on DVD and VOD nationwide.

 

Sylvie “Silverstein” (company mascot, security) is a dog. This is what she does. What else do you want? Get off her case. Jeez. Oh, and she also worked exclusively with the Mercury Theatre, from 1938-1940 and was in the famous 1964 Tony-Award winning production of Hello Dolly, where she was an understudy to Carol Channing.