Image: Actor, Sarah Sanford holds herself up while leans against a formally set table and reaching towards the sky. ​photo: JJ Tiziou Photography
Artist Statement:
I strive to make theatrical performance that is accessible and surprising.  I often collaborate with artists who devise original work and develop new scripts.  I also produce my own work that incorporates found media, personal narrative and marries various physical theatre and clown techniques to reflect vibrant and vulnerable human experiences. 
PDA Island
Pervasive Drive for Autonomy
(aka: Pathological Demand Avoidance)

​PDA is viewed as a nervous system difference.
"Individuals avoid everyday demands using ‘social strategies’ as part of the avoidance, [and] have a strong need for autonomy and control..."  -PDA North America

After more than a decade of loving, parenting, playing with, and being responsible for someone who experiences the world very differently than I do, I feel disoriented, fearful, inspired, proud, challenged, and exhausted. I withdrew from relationships, I stopped taking care of myself, and I stopped making art.
Are these demands I am avoiding? Do I self-isolate to conserve energy? Does making art with others still restore and promote mutual understanding? PDA Island is an interactive, performative quest for a deeper understanding of someone else's nervous system in relation to your own.  It seeks to build a community of isolated people, each feeling on their own island. What would it be like to visit each others islands?

For more information or to tell me about your island, click below:
Past Works
SELECTED ACTING CREDITS:
"A Fierce Kind of Love" - Temple Institute on Disabilities
"BANG" w/ Charlotte Ford - FringeArts
"Whale Optics" w/ Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental- FringeArts
"The Happiness Lecture" w/ Bill Irwin- Philadelphia Theatre Company 
"A Midsummer Nights Dream" -Lantern Theatre Company 
"Picasso at the Lapin Agile" - Delaware Theatre Company
"Grease and Desist" (Sammy Bucko / Co-writer) -Brat Productions
"Flop" (Millie)- Pig Iron Theatre Company
"T'was the Night" (Bailey) Azuka Theatre Collective
"Money Dick Rehearsed" (Mr. Peleg / Choreographer) -Brat Productions
"The Comedy of Errors" - Lantern Theatre Company

SELECTED DIRECTING AND CHOREOGRAPHY CREDITS:
​"A Year with Frog and Toad" by Willie Reale (Choreographer) - Arden Theatre Company
"Dave and Aaron Go to Work" -1812 Productions
"Snowball" - Brian Sanders' JUNK
"Get Behind Me Satan" A Rock and Awe Cabaret -Brat Productions
"Red Herring"    by Michael Hollinger -Drexel University Players
"Meanwhile",by Madi Distefano - Brat Productions
"PROM", Co-Directed w/ Whit Maclaughlin - New Paradise Laboratories
"P's&Q's" by Lee Ann Etzold
"A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" by Kyle Jarrow - Brat Productions