Meet the Ensemble

Kenyon Curtiss performs music regularly in the Puget Sound region. He has been studying the classical guitar for thirty-one years, attending master classes with David Russell in San Francisco. His interests extend from Classical, Jazz, and World music, to electronic & ambient styles. Ken performs as a soloist, and in ensemble settings accompanying everything from dance and choir productions to jazz quartets, and singer-songwriters. He is a member of the improvisational Ethno-fusion trio Spherix, which performs original music for dance & movement therapy sessions. The trio is working on second CD of original music improvised live with a dance troupe. Ken is currently completing training in the Music for Healing & Transition Program, a pioneering modality bringing therapeutic music into clinical and hospice settings. Ken works with the Mission for Music and Healing, playing music at the bedsides of patients at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Ken has been a member of Threshold Ensemble since 1995.

Cat Gilliam first encountered Playback Theater in 1990, in Sante Fe, New Mexico. She went on to co-found the Asheville Playback group in 1994, and upon moving to Seattle in 1999, became a member of Threshold. She has a master's in Counseling Psychology from Goddard College, is a certified massage therapist and has trained in dance and other expressive arts. Cat and her husband co-founded Grove Street Healing Arts in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1993. There, she had a private counseling practice and led workshops combining mind/body/spirit work for personal excellence. At present, Cat sells real estate with Lake & Co, in Seattle. This allows her to continue working with people and also indulge an obsession with looking at houses! She has raised her three children, Leon 23, Megan 20, and Michaela 15, with her husband of 17 years. Cat cherishes the challenge, creativity and satisfaction of performing Playback Theater.

Kimber Godsey is the founder of Musical Care Giving and Care Tunes by Kimber. She is a singer, songwriter and plays guitar. She contracts her therapeutic music services to long-term, sub-acute, hospice and adult day care facilities. Kimber also is part of the Music for Healing Project and volunteers her therapeutic music services at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and the University of Washington Hospital. Kimber drums in a Women's Conga Band, Crone Thunder. Through a partial grant from the King County Arts Commission & the Paul Allen Foundation, Crone Thunder drums for the Dancing Math and Dancing Science Project in the greater Seattle school district. Kimber is one of the newest members of Threshold Ensemble.†She is honored to be part of playback and passionately believes in the healing power of this collaborative art form.

James Lucal co-directed the first Playback Theater group in the Northwest and is a founding member of Threshold Ensemble. A certified psychodramatist and former director of Mythos Dramatic Arts studio in Seattle, James has long been devoted to the impromptu enactment of personal and universal story. His Union Institute doctorate in 1995 was titled Emergent Drama: Renewal in Human Systems. For many years an adjunct faculty member for Western Washington University, James has also taught at Antioch University Seattle's Graduate Programs in Psychology, and the Jonathan Fox School of Playback Theater. He served on the International Playback Theater Network board from 1993 to 1999 and has presented at conferences nationally and internationally. He plays the violin, likes to build things, and lives it up with his wife Rebecca and 11-year old daughter, Natasha.

With Threshold Ensemble since 1997, Angela Pershnokov is a co-founder and director of the Radar Angels as well as a performer for such groups as The Left Hand Dancers, Theater In The Wild, Flying Dreams, Artspots, and The Fremont Arts Council. She has a degree in fine art from the University of Oregon and studied theater at Freehold Theater Lab. Her artistic pursuits include ambient theater, puppetry, pageantry, dance, music, stagecraft, skit comedy, costuming, performance ritual and celebrant arts. She has contributed to events such as the San Francisco Carnaval, Eugene Celebration, Oregon Country Fair, Fremont Solstice Parade & Pageant, Bookfest, Mardi Gras a Go Go, April Foolies, Jellorama, and the Hsinkang Arts Festival in Taiwan. As a lifelong student of theater and dance improvisation, it is a privilege for Angela to experience the immediacy and authenticity that Playback Theater provides.

Kenny Telesco has been working professionally in theatre, film, and television since 1980. He has worked in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Santa Fe, Austin, and on various national tours. Primarily an actor, Kenny has also worked as a director, producer, stage manager, choreographer, dancer, production assistant, stagehand, technician and teacher of children of all ages. He is currently working with Effective Arts, a Seattle based organization that uses improvisational theatre techniques to bring positive change into the corporate workplace. He is also the Artistic Director of Lola Tarot, a theatre ensemble that explores and facilitates human transformation through the Archetypes of the Tarot Deck.

ENSEMBLE MEMBERS EMERITUS:

Bryce Butler joined Threshold Ensemble in 1996. And fell in love with Playback Theatre. So much so he became a member of Playback Theatre Northwest, and performed occasionally with the Firestorm Players of Wenatchee. In 1994 he mounted his solo show Why Icarus at Freehold Theatre and again for the Seattle Fringe Festival in 1996. He is a mask-maker as well as a teacher of mask technique. He is grateful to his two lovely daughters, Ashanti and Fawn, for being part of his life, for their inspiration and love. For the past three years he has been privileged to serve as president of the Seattle chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

David-Michael Monasch, a founding member of Threshold Ensemble, is a eurythmist, actor-director, juggler-clown ('fool/moon'), and father/husband. He holds a B.F.A. in Acting and Directing from the University of Minnesota and began his professional career at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He has performed and taught in almost every conceivable situation in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and, from 1976 to 1989, in Europe. He toured throughout Europe as a core member of Ashdown Eurythmy, UK from 1983-1987. Since 1989, he has lived in Seattle, where he is co-director of Sound Circle Eurythmy, and is on the core faculty of Sound Circle Center. He has taught at all the Waldorf schools in Washington State and has also served on the adjunct faculty of Antioch University Seattle. He also spends much time as a homemaker, and is most happy when he is with his wife of 25 years and their 13-year old son.

Olga Sanchez joined Threshold Ensemble in 1997. In Seattle, she also performed for Seattle Shakespeare Company, Seattle Children's Theatre, Empty Space Theatre, ACT, Intiman Theatre, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. A graduate of Hunter College, CUNY, and Pacific Oaks College NW, Olga has performed in NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Portland (OR), London and Jerusalem. As a director, Olga's work has been seen in Seattle, Portland, NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Peru, Venezuela and Cuba. As Artistic Director of Seattle Teatro Latino, she wrote and directed several plays celebrating Latino cultural heritage. Olga has also worked as an Artist-Educator with youth of all ages. As a member of Los Norteños writers group, she produced several literary readings, and an evening of original one-act plays. She is a founder of La Casa de Artes Latino Cultural Organization, and currently serves as an Artistic Director for the Miracle Theatre Group in Portland, Oregon.