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 Jessica Burr
Artistic Director, Founding Company Member, Board of Directors
With Blessed Unrest she has directed Measure for Measure and the 365Days/365Plays Festival and Doruntine, co-adapted Lying and Certain Things Which I Will Call Sacred (The Lovers' Project), and performed in Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project; Lying; Certain Things Which I Will Call Sacred (The Lovers' Project); All's Well That Ends...Well; Life is a Dream; tea and text for six women; Peer Gynt 1:16:19; The Rover; Destroy, She Said; and Miss Julie. Other directing credits include Pericles, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, and The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden; and as Assistant Director to Eric Fraad, Handel's Esther and Messiah and Carissimi's Jepthe with Millennial Arts Productions. Burr graduated from Bard College in 1996 and became a traveling street performer, living and working on sidewalks from Scotland to Morocco with handmade masks and original pieces Layla and Majnun and Zulieka's Love. After a year spent teaching in Poland she returned to New York to find her beloved collaborators.
 Zenzelé Cooper
Associate Artist
Zenzelé is a BFA graduate from Rutgers University. With Blessed Unrest Zenzelé has performed in 365Days/365Plays, Measure for Measure, Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, and Doruntine. Some of her other adventures include The Illusion (The Bershire Theatre Festival, MA), The Comedie of Errours (The American Globe Theatre, NYC), and Voices Inside the Box (Open Stage, PA). While attending Rutgers, Zenzele performed in Venus, Life Spliced, Overtones, Tartuffe, and Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare's Globe, London).
 Ian Robertson Duncan
Board of Directors
Ian is an artist who works with paint, wood, words, and fire. He is self-taught in the traditions of image and object making, and works in the service of the re-enchantment of the world. Ian designed the set for Blessed Unrest's Measure for Measure. Ian is represented by Jonathan Shorr Gallery. He came to New York six years ago by way of Virginia, Kentucky, New Hampshire, the Rockies, the Sierras, and New Mexico's high desert.
 Dave Edson
Company Member
Dave has performed with Blessed Unrest in the workshop production of Nick, CoMotion, Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, Measure for Measure, and Doruntine. Other New York credits include performing as a synchronized swimmer on a sidewalk across from City Hall in One Million Forgotten Moments, The Cherry Orchard (Columbia Stages, CSC), various site-specific productions, The New York Fringe Festival, Chashama, and the Looking Glass Theatre. Dave enjoys working with talented directors (who doesn't?!) like Juan Souki, Yehuda Duenyas, Jessica Burr, Magin Shantz, Damon Scranton, Emily Mendelsohn, Alice Regan, Darren Gobert, and Kate Marks. Out of town work includes five years of work in Chicago, The Philly Fringe, Melodrama in Durango, CO, and The Hangar Theater in Ithaca, NY. Dave dabbles in writing plays, and composing and performing music for the stage. He holds a B.A. from Ithaca College and has trained extensively with Anne Bogart's SITI Company. He is also a blues guitarist.
 Jason Griffin
Associate Artist
Jason has performed with Blessed Unrest in Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, the workshop production of Nick, and Doruntine. Past NYC and regional theatre includes Puck in Chicago Opera Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Robin Starveling in Shakespeare Santa Cruz's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III in Andre Serban's Richard 3, El Diablo in the NY Metropolitan Opera's Benvenuto Cellini, Nico in Straight on 'til Morning at 78th Street Theatre Lab, Go-Go boy in Packawallop's Expat Inferno, and Peggy Lee in Mabou Mines' Lost Box of Utopia. He received his BA in Theatre Arts from University of Oregon in Summer of 1995 and his MFA from Columbia University in Spring of 2002.
 Jonathan Haas
Board of Directors
Jonathan has presented over 400 concerts of percussion ensemble works over the past 26 years as the Director and Conductor of the New York University Percussion Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival Percussion Ensemble, Julliard Pre College Percussion Ensemble and the Peabody Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. Haas serves on the board of Directors of Blessed Unrest and considers his participation in this capacity as supporting one of the most vital, creative and effervescent theater troupes in the world. He attended a record breaking 7 performances of the Blessed Unrest production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and gained more from this experience than the sum total of four years of undergraduate degree work at Washington University in St. Louis.
 Kelly Hayes
Associate Artist
Kelly has worked with Blessed Unrest as a choreographer for Measure for Measure, 365 Days/365 Plays, Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, CoMotion, and Doruntine (in which she also performed). In addition, Kelly is Co-Artistic Director of RedShift Dance, a modern dance company whose work has been shown throughout New York City and nationally. She appears frequently as her alter-ego "Miss Goodi Two Shoes" at Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, and has recently performed with Carrie Ahern Dance at Danspace Project and with Dixie Fun Dance Theatre. Kelly is originally from Mundelein, Illinois, and holds a BFA in dance performance from the University of Iowa.
 Anna Kepe
Company Member
With Blessed Unrest Anna has performed in Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, Measure for Measure, and 365Days/365Plays, and directed CoMotion. Directing credits include: Musik Im Bauch, Peabody Conservatory; movement for the musicians in the opera Odin (hailed by The New York Times as an unqualified success while "raw energy coursed through the piece"); Cosi Fan Tutte, The Holders Season in Barbados; Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread, Loewe Theater as part of a 70th birthday celebration for Philip Glass. Acting credits include: Vittoria, The White Devil dir. Michael Edwards; Grushenka, Brothers Karomazov; 22 Day Adagio, Mill Mountain Theatre; Viola, 12th Night dir. Diana Denley; Iphigenia in Aulis, Symphony Space; Desdemona, Othello dir. Will Pomerantz; Let X, Washington, DC; Escalus, Measure for Measure, Culture Project; a full season with The Texas Shakespeare Festival. Anna has been a featured director and teacher at the Aspen Music Festival and at the Texas Shakespeare Festival. She received her MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre, ACA in Washington, DC and trained at RADA and with SITI Company.
 Eunjee Lee
Associate Artist
Eunjee has performed with Blessed Unrest in the workshop production of Nick, CoMotion, Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, Measure for Measure, 365Days/365Plays. Her other NYC credits include: Oph3lia (HERE Arts Center), Ah, My Dear Andersen (Urban Stages), March (Bank Street Theatre), The Three Gods (Westbeth Theatre), Euridice's Abandon (The Brick Theatre). She also works internationally as a performer, teacher, and director. She has an MFA in Acting from The Actor's Studio Drama School at The New School.
 Nick Micozzi
Associate Artist
Nick is an actor, director and producer of theatre, video, and television. Acting credits include Lucio and Pompey in (separate productions of) Measure for Measure, 365 Days/365 Plays, FringeNYC, Bernard in Death of a Salesman, and Iago in Othello. He trained and worked with Shakespeare & Co and Jim Slowiak of Grotowski's Objective Drama. He has been a member of Esperance Theatre Company and Pure Pop Rep, and he is a co-founder of The New York Innovative Theater Awards (The "IT Awards").
 Matt Opatrny
Managing Director, Founding Company Member, Board of Directors
With Blessed Unrest Matt wrote Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, co-wrote Doruntine with Lirak Çelaj of Teatri Oda (Kosova), and co-adapted Lying and Certain Things Which I Will Call Sacred (The Lovers' Project). He has performed in 365Days/365Plays, LYING, Peer Gynt 1:16:19, Certain Things, All's Well That Ends...Well, Life Is a Dream, and Come if You Dare 1 & 2. He appeared Off-Broadway with the Roundabout and Mint Theater Companies, and has played with National Shakespeare Company (NYC), Theatre By the Blind (NYC), Fulton Opera House (PA), Vermont Stage, North Carolina Stage, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, The Warehouse Theatre (SC), Hampstead Players (NH), the outdoor drama Tecumseh (OH) and at Columbia University. He has taught and directed movement and stage combat at The School for Film and TV, Greenwich Academy, and Columbia Preparatory. Matt has trained with the SITI Company and at Clemson University, where he also received a degree in Biological Sciences, and owes much of who he is to the sea turtles of Costa Rica.
 Celli Pitt
Associate Artist
Celli received her MFA in Acting from Brandeis University and her BA in Theatre from Spelman College. Her Blessed Unrest acting credits include: Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, Measure for Measure, 365 Days/365 Plays, and the workshop production of Nick. She has performed nationally in National Tours, Regional Theatre, and Off-Broadway. Celli recently directed This Train is Bound for Glory at the Cherry Lane which won the 2008 Downtown Urban Theatre Festival's Best Play Award. Additionally, Celli was a member of the vocal composition team and provided vocals for the score of the 2008 American Black Film Festival's HBO Best Short Award Winnig Film PreMature which begins airing on HBO in February 2009. A lover of the craft, Celli is also a private vocal and acting coach.
 Damen Scranton
Associate Artist
Damen has directed Blessed Unrest's productions of Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project (2008 NYC I.T. Award for Outstanding Production of a Play) and Lying. He also performed in 365Days/365Plays and the blessed workshop of Nick. Damen has an M.F.A. in acting from U.C. San Diego (1997), and was the recipient of one of two national Princess Grace Awards for acting in 1996. He is currently in his 14th season with the Irondale Ensemble Project, and in his second season with the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble. Damen has taught Shakespeare and improvisation in New York City high schools for 14 years, and has spent the past seven summers teaching Shakespeare to students in Europe with the Putney Excel Student Travel Program. He has taught acting courses at Carnegie Mellon University, U.C. San Diego and Manhatanville College, and writing courses at Marymount Manhattan College. He also spent three summers in Ireland and Northern Ireland training as an actor and playwright with the Exiles Theatre Programme. Damen is from Pasadena, California, and desperately misses camping and climbing in Joshua Tree National Monument. He wears glasses.
 Matthew Sincell
Associate Artist
Matthew has appeared with Blessed Unrest in Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, CoMotion, and the workshop production of Nick. Some other notable credits include Student 1 (Romeo) in the U.K. premier and West End transfer of Shakespeare's R&J, International artistic resident at The Globe Theatre, London, 2004, and three seasons with The American Shakespeare Center, where favorite productions include All's Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, A Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Brats of Clarence, Eastward 'Ho, As You Like It, Macbeth, and The Tempest (dir. Giles Block). His voice was also heard in Beyond Glory, a one man show adapted and performed by Stephen Lang, honoring 8 Medal of Honor recipients (The Goodman Theatre, Laura Pels Theatre, and a world-wide tour).
 Darrell Stokes
Company Member
Darrell has performed with Blessed Unrest in Life is a Dream, Lying, All's Well That Ends...Well, Come If You Dare 1 & 2, The James Wilde Project, and Nick. Other New York credits: The Misanthrope (Boomerang); Quake (Hypothetical). Regional credits: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Gross Indecency, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Cherry Orchard and An Ideal Husband (Court Theatre); The Midnight Circus (Ivanhoe Theatre); Life in the Trees and Charlotte Cushman (SummerNITE); The Blue Hour, Spoon River Anthology and The Actor's Nightmare (Hatfield International Theatre Festival, England). Darrell studied at Wayne State University and Northern Illinios University.
 Benjamin C. Tevelow
Associate Artist
Ben is the resident Lighting Designer with Blessed Unrest as well as the Clockwork Theatre. Recent designs include: Don Juan in Chicago, The Monument (Clockwork Theater); 365Days/365Plays, Measure for Measure, The James Wilde Project, LYING (Blessed Unrest); Charlie's Ghost, Taking Care (Roots and Branches); Take No Survivors (59E59th); The Quick-Change Room (HB Playwrights); Signals (Olamale); Back of the Throat, Sweet Nothings for my Neurosurgeon, Vomit Talk of Ghosts, Design Your Own Kitchen, The Lake, The Orchid Show (Flea Theater). Assistant Designer for Orpheus with Designer Juliet Chia, Savage Nursery and Animal with Designer Andrew Hill.
 Jaimie Van Dyke
Associate Artist
Jaimie is Blessed Unrest's resident stage manager, and has worked on Doruntine (NYC and Balkan Tour), Nick, CoMotion ('09 and '10), and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Originally from Seattle, she is a graduate of Hunter College. While there she was the recipient of an annual scholarship to intern at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2006 and upon graduation, received an honorary stage management award. She also interned with Greenstage, Seattle's traveling Shakespeare in the Park, during their 20th annual season. Stage managing her way around New York, she has had the privilege to work with such various companies as Wizard Oil Productions, The Flying Machine, Coffee Cup (a theatre co.), Eungene Lang College at The New School, and The American Composer's Orchestra. She has also served on the Outstanding Stage Manager Award committee for the Innovative Theatre Awards.
 Laura Wickens
Company Member
Performances with Blessed Unrest include Doruntine, the workshop production of Nick (which she also translated and adapted from Chekhov's Ivanov), CoMotion, Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project, Measure for Measure, 365Days/365Plays, and Lying (NYC and Prishtina, Kosova). Recent NYC credits: Sordid Perils of Actual Existence, TNC; The Magnificent Cuckold, Connelly Theater; Hamlet, Irondale Ensemble Project. Regional Credits: The Real Thing, The Glass Menagerie, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Trojan Women: A Love Story. Laura has also performed at SoHo Rep, Theater Four, Ontological, Perry St. Theater, HERE, and many site-specific spaces. She has an MFA in Acting from Brandeis, and has trained with the American Mime Theatre, SITI, Noh Training Project, Song of the Goat, and Maly Theatre. Following the March workshop, Laura continues to hone her contemporary translation and adaptation of Chekhov's Ivanov. Currently she teaches voice & speech and acting at Manhattanville College.
 Hannah Wilson
Associate Artist
Hannah holds an MFA from Brandeis University and a BA from Greensboro College, NC. Credits with Blessed Unrest: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Nick, and CoMotion. Other New York theater includes monthly performances at "Our Bar", and Shakespeare in Action with Stages on the Sound. Film: Brooklyn Shakara. Hannah has performed in Ireland and France and in the Berkshires. Apart from acting, she enjoys the banjo and writing.
Aaron Bloom
Anne Bogart
Daniel Debicella
Dan Fallon
Guy Lesser
David Schechter
Arthur Strimling
Leslie Tyrie, MD
Robert Woodruff
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