In recognition of the inherent challenges associated with telling intimate stories, particularly with respect to power dynamics, actor boundaries, and the pressures of repetitive live performance, I’ve pursued training as an Intimacy Director through Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. I’ve accumulated ~30 hours of training focused on the foundations and theories of Intimacy Direction, consent and power negotiation, advocacy, and communication. In addition, I’ve pursued training in mental health first aid, conflict mediation, anti-racism, and allyship.

FUSE Theatre Ensemble’s production of The God Cluster (2022)

Inspired by two years of working in a COVID ICU, Ernie Lijoi’s new play, The God Cluster, follows three medical professionals in a vaccine development laboratory during a new pandemic in a near and likely future. The main character, Dr. Lee, a neurologist enraged by a history of queer trauma at the hands of religious people and emboldened by an impending climate apocalypse ignored by theistic governments, makes a choice in the name of the greater good that leads to personal and global tragedy… or perhaps salvation. Part fever dream, part prognosis, The God Cluster asks us to reconsider in whose hands we put our lives.  

Directed by Melory Mirashrafi
Intimacy Direction by Lindsey Mantoan

Linfield University’s production of Doctor Voynich and Her Children (2022)

Combining theatrical history and a prediction for the U.S., Doctor Voynich and Her Childrendraws from Bertolt Brecht’s foundational play Mother Courage and Her Children and asks what women’s rights will look like in “the near future, God help us.” As Dr. Voynich travels a post-apocalyptic U.S. countryside dispensing medicinal herbs, audiences will consider what anti-science policies could do to health care and reproductive rights. A stark presentation of how minorities might be treated if the government continues to erode protections for equal treatment, Dr. Voynich is both a reimagining and a warning.

Directed by Janet Gupton
Intimacy Direction by Lindsey Mantoan: Meritorious Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival

Linfield University’s production of StarKid’s Firebringer (2022)

A hilarious depiction of a tribe of cave people who discover the ability to control fire. In this raunchy and campy musical, Jemilla the Peacemaker civilizes her people and gives them purpose, assigning each member of the tribe their own job to ensure the tribe’s safety and productivity. But Zazzalil, who would rather lounge around than work, stumbles on a discovery that will make life easier: fire.

Directed by Lindsey Mantoan
Intimacy Direction by Lindsey Mantoan

Linfield Theatre’s Hurricane Diane (2023)

Madeleine George’s Hurricane Diane brings classic Greek mythology to suburban New Jersey, where four housewives debate how best to landscape their yards. Hilariously starring the Greek god Dionysus, reincarnated as Diane, a permaculture gardener who radiates butch charm, Hurricane Diane asks what it will take to get through to Americans more concerned with social status and trappings of wealth than their impact on the environment.

Directed by Cassie Greer
Intimacy Direction by Lindsey Mantoan

Willamette Theatre’s The Secretaries (2023)

There is a special kind of cattiness that rules the secretaries at Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon. But could they also be luring people into a cult behind recent “accidental” lumberjack deaths? Oil up the chainsaws and buckle in for this hilarious, outrageous feminist satire of admins over the edge. 

Directed by Stephanie Mulligan
Intimacy Direction by Lindsey Mantoan