SIZZLER

Set in a world not so distant from ours, an unnamed scientist sets out to make new discoveries in a time when autocracy has taken over. Taking place on a 6’x9’ wooden platform, Sizzler is a movement-based, 5 minute theatrical piece that captures a day in the life of a curious rule-breaker.

Directed by and set to live, original music by Aiden Ankli, this piece was devised by William Acker, Graham Cook, Frankie Gormley, Alexis Howland Jo Kramer as part of the 2024 Pig Iron MFA Devised Performance D.A.R.E.S. Showing.

VOLTA

Wren arrives at the Mariposa Hotel looking for her sister Lottie but finds the Hotel has other plans. Amid shape shifting hallways, memory palaces, and lost connections, Wren must make the choice to move forward into the unknown with Lottie, or stay alone in the comfort of the past.

VOLTA is a physical theater piece informed by research in the anthropocene, the neuroscience of memory, and narratives of death and the afterlife. At the center of the piece is the question: will we recognize our loved ones in the afterlife? Taking its name from the poetry term (a turn in tone or argument), VOLTA is a dreamy, charming, echoey reflection on love’s enduring power even after the death of the ego and the self.

VOLTA was created by Aiden Ankli, William Acker, Tenara Calem, Arantxa Chavez, and Jo Kramer as part of the 2025 Pig Iron MFA Devised Performance Catapult Festival.

FIVE FINGER FOREHEAD

Do you know how many fingers your forehead is? WE DO. We are four brothers with five-finger foreheads. That’s four heads with five fingers. We are a band of brothers: some smarter than others, all sadder than most. We sing, we play, we slap, we clap, one of us (not me) raps.

Five Finger Forehead is a musical diptych diving into the joy and sadness of having a large forehead. Created by William Acker, Michael Amendola, Aiden Ankli, and Derek Smith as part of the Pig Iron School 2024 Clown Showing.