OUR 2026 RESIDENT Artists

Rachel Beglin is a shepherd, poet, and coffee enthusiast. She lives with her animals in northern Minnesota.

@cowboy.poems

Substack = Rachel Beglin, "Ruminating"

Maggie Bergeron has been dancing, choreographing, curating, producing, teaching, improvising, and writing for 25 years in Minneapolis. Her work has been seen at Studio Z, the Southern Theater, Red Eye Theater, Walker Art Center and Bryant Lake Bowl, Interlochen Arts Academy, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and Keshet Dance Company.

@maggsber2

Dan Caffrey is a playwright with an interest in the natural world. Plays include Matawan, KAIJU, The Amphibians, The Tusk Hunters, and River Watchers—an immersive theatre experience on a moving fourteen-person canoe, co-created with Dina Vosi and Jens Rasmussen. He was a 2019 MFA Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center and is an alumnus of The Civilians’ R&D Group, with work developed/produced by Gloucester Stage, Kitchen Dog, the cell, and many colleges/universities. MFA: UT Austin. 

dancaffreywrites.com

Current Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace, winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner of Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang; and three chapbooks. Her poems have also appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, and many other literary magazines, and she enjoys collaborating with musicians, composers, visual artists, and choreographers.

Dillon Christopher Chitto is a Mississippi Choctaw, Laguna, and Isleta Pueblo playwright originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Recently he has worked with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Santa Fe Playhouse, Ground Floor Theatre, Native Voices at the Autry, AlterTheater Ensemble, and No Peeking Theatre. @dchitto

Nyttu Chongo is a Bantu jazz artist and ancestral connection music healer whose work bridges spirit and rhythm. Rooted in African traditions, their sound channels healing energy, storytelling, and cultural memory. Through immersive performances, Nyttu guides listeners toward balance, awakening, and reconnection, with lineage, nature, and inner harmony, through sacred sound.

John Michael DiResta is a multi-disciplinary theater artist and professor. His work as a director, adapter, playwright, deviser, solo performer and dramaturg focuses on new work development, site-responsive theater, community engagement, and queer liberation. He is currently leading a multi-year queer community-building endeavor excavating lost queer plays.

Bluesky: JohnnyEmDee

@JohnnyNDisguise

Dan Dukich is a composer, sound designer and musician who works in theater, film, dance, TV, and podcasts. 

Arit Emmanuela Etukudo (she/her) is a Nigerian-American artist whose practice deals with the fluidity and metamorphosis of Black identity through self-portraiture, moving image,
installation, and performance art.

@Arit_Emmanuela

L M Feldman is a queer feminist GNC playwright who makes theatrically adventurous, ensemble-driven plays that bend space, weave time, and queer form. Their body of work is known for being (simultaneously) intimate & epic, political & poetic, and always physically kinetic. Based in Philadelphia, L is also a deviser, professor, circus artist, and dramaturg.

 www.laurenfeldman.com 

 www.newplayexchange.org/users/451/l-m-feldman.

Annie Fitzgerald is a classically trained singer-songwriter with 20+ years of professional experience. Honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame & the legendary Hal David as an artist to watch, her music - described as blending Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and Edie Brickell - has earned her a beloved place in the MN music community.

Tracy Frizzell is a painter from Minnesota that specializes in landscape and waterscape painting. When she’s not working in her art studio located in Minneapolis, she can be found traveling the forests, lakes and trails of the Great Lakes states looking for painting inspiration.

@tracyfrizzell

Nick Gaudette is a bassist, educator, and collaborator who bridges classical training with creative performance experimentation. He co-directs all orchestras at Edina High School while co-creating with life partner and choreographer mover, Maggie Bergeron.

Facebook.com/nicholas.gaudette.7/

Roberto Harrison is a Panamanian American poet and artist living in Milwaukee since 1991. His latest book is posthuman native/the orchid published by Spiral Editions in 2025. He was Milwaukee Poet Laureate for 2017-2019 and received a Wisconsin Notable Author Award from the Wisconsin Library Association in 2022.

Kali Higgins writes essays, poems, and short stories about how her experiences as mother, transracial adoptee, and spiritual seeker intersect with healing and her relationships to others and the world. When Kali isn’t writing or being a mom, she offers astrology readings, wellness coaching, yoga classes, and sound healing.

@kalihiggins

@k_a_l_i_mn

@patternsofintelligence

Anna Kerrigan is a filmmaker based in Minneapolis. Her feature film Cowboys premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2020 where it won Best Screenplay and Best Actor and is distributed by Samuel Goldwyn. Her short film Hot Seat premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 and now has 50 million views online.

Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, arts educator, and literary critic. In addition to his own writing projects, he teaches creative writing through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, at the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, and in Augsburg University's low-residency MFA program. Michael earned his J.D. from the University of Minnesota. Michael lives in St. Paul with his wife, Karen Kleber-Diggs, two cats - Curly and Mocha, and two dogs - Ziggy and Jasper.

Paul William Kruse tells Queer love stories as a playwright and media artist from Western Wisconsin living in Minneapolis, MN.

Maggie Lemere is a filmmaker, oral historian, and National Geographic Explorer exploring humanity’s relationship with the environment. She’s the director of the award-winning feature film, Land of Canaan, and series VS Goliath. Her work traces the intimate ties between people, place, and memory while documenting frontline struggles for environmental justice.

Sharon Mansur (she/her) is an Arab American dance and interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator and community engager based in Winona, Mni Sota Makoce, on Dakota homeland. A facilitator of bodies, spaces and imaginations, Sharon guides The Cedar Tree Project, presenting Arab/SWANA contemporary art and artists, and SHIFT~ experimental performance salons. www.mansurdance.com, www.cedartreeproject.com

Mikey Marget (they/them) is a Minneapolis-based cellist and songwriter. Their instrumental music combines traditional folk with modern electro-acoustic elements, while their singing tunes address topics including: the joy of community connection, personal and collective mental health, queer experience, and climate.

@mikey.marget

Erika Martin is a Minneapolis based choreographer, educator and engaged citizen. Originally from NC, Erika graduated from Connecticut College. Their research investigates identity performance and how experience is manifested in movement. Erika is the Artistic Director of eMartin Dance, Co-Director of Dance Projects by ME, and School Coordinator at Zenon.

EIKO MIZUSHIMA is a Japanese, Okinawan, Irish, mixed-race, mixed media artist, ecologist, occupational therapist, and mental health practitioner living in Mni Sota Makoce. Her work explores the liminal space between the art and science of the natural world. Eiko majored in biology at Macalester and OT at Saint Catherine University.

@eikoologies

@eikointegrativeot

Sarah Morris is a Minneapolis-based Americana singer-songwriter whose crystalline voice and benevolent storytelling have earned her recognition as one of the Midwest’s most compelling musical voices. Over the course of six albums and a decade-plus of steady, determined songwriting, Morris has made a practice of allurement. Her new album, Say Yes, is a suggestion and an encouragement, a delicate search for the honest way forward.

Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento is theater and film director. Stage highlights include Reasons for Moving at The Southern Theater and Pornographic Angel at The Ohio Theater, NYC. For the screen, she directed Reasons for Moving: immigrant stories from the Mississippi Flyway (Official Selection Ely Film Festival and Zeitgeist MN Film Festival) and 88 Flesh Red (Dance Camera North’s Change-Maker Award).

Chelsie (any pronouns) is a theatre artist, musician, and horticulturist based in Minneapolis. She seeks to reach up into the sky and down into the Earth simultaneously through her artistic practice. Minneapolis credits include productions with The Walker, WAM, The Jungle, Frank Theatre, Gremlin Theatre, The Guthrie, Tiger Lion Arts, Walking Shadow, Artistry MN, etc.
Next up: Why Cry ‘How Now’ album release June 12th

Sara Nimis is a language and culture educator, writer and yoga instructor. She has taught at the Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, MN, Sewanee: The University of the South, Miami University of Ohio and Georgetown University. Her writing includes scholarly research, essay, verse and fiction.

Marielle Olentine (she/they) is a community-driven designer, multimedia storyteller, and award-winning filmmaker. She co-leads Tikkun Olam Productions, a nonprofit specializing in justice-oriented storytelling and impact campaign design & implementation. Her work has appeared on VICE, Al Jazeera, and HBO and has premiered at festivals like TIFF, SXSW, Visions du Réel, and CIFF. Most recently her film Three Promises won Best Documentary at Camden International Film Festival & DocPoint, Audience Awards at DocsIreland & MENA Film Festival, and was an awarded finalist for the Henry Award for Public Interest Documentary.

Jarek Pastor is a theatremaker with a focus on writing, dramaturgy, and directing. Their work moves with tonal dynamism to enact absurdist portraits of social systems from a mixed race/bilingual/transnational perspective. The result is a theater of being more than doing—of presence and acquaintance rather than deed and explanation.

Erik Pearson has been creating paintings, sculptures, and murals for over twenty years. His public art career includes twenty four public murals, and eight installations, working with city officials, community groups, and business owners in the process.

@erikpearsonart

I am a composer, songwriter, and educator who has called Minnesota home since 2015. My work is grounded in queer mythic storytelling through music. I am a frequent composer and collaborator with theater performances, I have performed my original work regionally and nationally, and self-released four albums of original music.

@carlisleevanspeckmusic

Jason Rabuck is a singer-songwriter based out of Ely, MN. He is an inventive and tasteful instrumentalist on both harmonica and guitar. His bluesy style crosses over to multiple genres and nothing inspires Jason more than whoever he is playing with – or playing for at the moment.

@jasonrabuckmusic

Jens is an award-winning theatre maker focused on devised and ensemble-built work. He lives in Greenpoint Brooklyn where he co-founded BECHDEL PROJECT, a feminist new works incubator and the North Brooklyn Community Boathouse where he teaches canoeing on the East River (and sometimes makes floating performances.)

www.jensrasmussen.info

Leslie Rich is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter crafting cathartic, heart-forward rock and roll. Known for his work with the Rocket Soul Choir, his solo performances lean into rich storytelling, pairing raw emotion with hopeful undercurrents. His songs balance grit and warmth, capturing the enduring spirit of connection, resilience, and honest, human experience.

Rachel Ries is the voice behind Her Crooked Heart, the choral arranging mastermind behind Kith + Kin Chorus and the builder of a terribly charming tiny home on wheels. She's released many records and toured around the world but mostly she enjoys being an auntie, thinking in 8-part harmony, solving construction conundrums, writing songs for patrons and honing her Portuguese Egg Tart baking skills.

Pamela Sherlock is a lens-based artist and 2023–2024 Minnesota Upstream Fellow. Her work investigates prairie ecosystems through photography and metal leaf, exploring the tension between human-imposed order and ecological necessity.

@antirrhetikos

Sun Yung Shin is a poet, multi-genre book author, and anthology editor. Her next book, Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language, will be published in July 2026. She teaches creative writing with Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and the Loft Literary Center. She is a 2026 McKnight Arts & Culture Bearer Fellow in Creative Prose. http://www.sunyungshin.com/ http://www.sunyungshinbodywork.com/

Moheb Soliman's poetry collection HOMES explores nature, modernity, identity, and sublimity through the Great Lakes bioregion/borderland. He is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest whose work has been supported by diverse national and regional institutions and awards. He is executive editor and literary program director at Mizna. 

www.mohebsoliman.info

Mary Strand (with her band, The Garage) plays an infectious mix of rock/pop songs that include punk rock, garage rock, and power pop. Mary’s songs have been compared to Joan Jett, the Dollyrots, the Pretenders, and the Go-Go’s. She's released two albums, Golden Girl and I Don't Need Your Permission.

Eva Thomas is a writer, director, and producer working across film and television. She co-directed/co-wrote Aberdeen (TIFF 2024) and directed CBC’s Still Standing, earning a 2024 Canadian Screen Award. Her writing credits include Acting Good, Don’t Even, and Shelved. Her short Redlights (TIFF 2023) inspired Nika & Madison (TIFF 2025).

Kieran Thompson is a filmmaker whose tender, humanist approach invites audiences to see themselves inside his stories. His latest feature The Only Way Out Is Through explores male friendship and mental health and has impacted audiences and sold out festivals across the country.

elle thoni (they/them) is a playwright and public artist from Dakota land in Minneapolis. They write plays about queer shapeshifters, emergent ecologies, and unlikely kinship. They are an affiliated writer with The Playwrights’ Center and New Harmony Project, a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and an anxious amateur beekeeper. M.F.A. Carnegie Mellon

@ellebeast

Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He is the author of 2000 Blacks, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and 2024 Florida Book Award Gold Medal in poetry. He is a former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Poetry at Colgate University, and has received a creative writing grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He lives in Florida

@jibo-jhybo

MK Tuomanen is a playwright, director and performer educated at the Lecoq School in Paris whose work has recently been seen at Woolly Mammoth, Philadelphia Theater Company, the Guggenheim and LaMAMA. Their play Night Science won the 2024 Terrence McNally Award. They are a former Jerome Fellow.

Doyle lives in Bemidji with his wife Molly - keeping bees, taking pictures, cross country skiing, walking, and spending time on and in the water. A fan of slow mornings with cribbage and coffee, he loves to read and write – thank you notes, poetry, journals, scribbles on scrap paper, and lists. Sometimes these things become songs, and then it’s a good day.

Josiah Thomas Turner is a queer, Black artist, musician, and theater-maker born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He earned his MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a 2023-2025 Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center and is a 2026 Creative Capital Awardee.

A prolific jazz songwriter and vocalist, Leslie Vincent's lyrical creativity, rich alto tone, and magnetic stage presence have made her a standout in the Minnesota music scene. Alongside her 5-piece band, she creates award-winning tunes inspired by modern-day curiosities. Beyond the stage, Vincent is a committed arts advocate and collaborative artist.

Sarah is an Ely-based artist whose work is inspired by the wild beauty of the northwoods and the everyday wonder of life outdoors. Drawing on experiences with her children, she captures the natural world through a lens of curiosity and magic, translating forests, lakes, and wildlife into whimsical art that celebrates life in the North.

https://www.facebook.com/littleforestlife

@thelittleforest

Dina Vovsi is a director, theatermaker, and educator. She is a 2025-2026 Resident Artist at the cell, a 2026 New Georges Audrey Resident, and co-facilitator of the New Georges Jam. "River Watchers," a traveling site-specific play she conceived and co-created with playwright Dan Caffrey and performer and canoeist Jens Rasmussen on a 14-seat Langley canoe in Superfund site Newtown Creek, was called “a one-of-a-kind night of theater that embraces the size of our city’s history and humanity’s place in it." She teaches directing at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

@dinavovsi

Loren Waters’ (Cherokee/Kiowa) work spans directing, producing, and casting. She has been recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30  and Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces. Her Academy Award-qualifying short documentary film, Tiger, received the Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Diane Wilson is a writer, educator, and bog steward, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She has published five award-winning books as well as numerous essays. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, was selected for the 2025 NEA Big Read. Wilson’s work explores seed sovereignty, social justice, cultural recovery, and environmental stewardship.

@dianewilsonwords

Hannah Wolf (she/her) is a director for theatre, film, and TV raised in Juneau, Alaska, now based in Los Angeles. A Fulbright and National Directors Fellow, she has directed work at the Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla, and beyond. She is the senior artistic producer at Ojai Playwrights Conference and a lecturer at UCLA.

 https://www.hannahjwolf.com/

Emmy Woods (she/they) was born and raised on an old dirt road in rural North Dakota and currently resides in Saint Paul, MN. With hints of country, folk, and blues, Emmy’s songs showcase her knack for storytelling, her strengths in musical artistry, and her ethereal voice. Drawing on a range of influences, Emmy has shared stages with such talents as Melissa Carper, Sarah Morris, Ryan Young, and Cam Whitcomb, to name a few. Undeniably prolific, she released several singles and an EP. Performing anywhere that’ll have her, Woods continues to gain momentum with her witty & captivating repertoire, her disarmingly down to earth charm, and her genre-bending sound.

Liqing is a playwright and screenwriter. They were a Many Voices Fellow at the Playwrights' Center from 2022-2025.