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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Jo Michael Rezes (they/them/theirs) creates as a theatremaker in the Greater Boston Area in collaboration with inspiring artists scattered between fringe and professional companies. They primarily focus their time on new works which feature transgender writers, actors, designers, and teams at large: the more gothic, self-referential, irreverent, full of monsters and ghouls, the better. Rezes began their work at Vassar College (BA in English and Drama), winning the Molly Thacher Kazan Memorial Prize for their direction of Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play: a chamber musical. Their work as assistant director of the Nora Theatre Company’s Cloud 9 was honored with the 2020 Elliot Norton Awards (Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production, Midsize Theater). More recently, Rezes has been performing in Zoom theatre across the country and directed the Trans [Plays] of Remembrance Short Play Festival in collaboration with Ohio University on HowlRound.TV. Their TED Talk, “Gender Rehearsativity,” has garnered 250000+ views across platforms. 

Rezes is currently a Ph.D. student in the Theatre and Performance Studies program at Tufts University, and holds a Master’s degree from the program, having written a thesis entitled “Phantacamp: Queer Temporal Ruptures in the Performance of Restaged Camp” which explores auto-ethnographic forays into the fantastical (and sometimes violent) hauntings of Camp performance. Rezes combines their research in camp studies, queer temporalities, and mediatization of the body to better understand how to teach performance in an ever-more polarized and digitized world. Rezes has been a teaching artist at Somerville Public Schools and has taught workshops for Somerville Arts for Youth, Inc. Jo Michael instructs Introduction to Acting at Tufts and has created studio courses which center devised performance and collective creativity (across all forms of media) in times of crisis. Jo is so grateful to be working with the students of Highlander Theater Co. at Somerville High School, and hopes that Clue brings some joy and humor and mystery into everyone’s homes! “Let the game begin.”

Learn more: JMRezes.com, Insta: @jmrezes, Twitter: @JMRwrites