Production
- Libretto
- Music
- Masks
- Costumes
- Sets
- Video
Installation
- Story Circle
- Community
Gallery
Artists
Partners
Support

Production
- Libretto
- Music
- Masks
- Costumes
- Sets
- Video
Installation
- Story Circle
- Community
Gallery
Artists
Partners
Support

“Today I make a grand entrance...”

In a Memory Palace is honored to work with an international team of artists to bring this work to performance. Our primary artistic partners are international performing ensemble Theatre Nohgaku, San Francisco-based Theatre of Yugen, and San Antonio-based Classical Music Institute.

production

co-composer, chorus

David Crandall

co-composer, taiko

david crandall

David Crandall is a composer, playwright, and performer. He was admitted to the Hōshō Noh Theater as an apprentice and worked as a professional noh actor in Tokyo for five years. Crandall’s Western-style concert compositions have been performed by marimbist Keiko Abe and by the Tokyo Quintet (JUGGLER and YAVANNA). He has composed short film scores (NIGHTERS and CRIME AND PUNISHMENT) and written the words and music for three children’s musicals (JOHNNY THE KING, THE MERCHANT OF CHEAT STREET, THE MOON ROBE). His noh-based work includes the words and music for two original English-language noh plays (CRAZY JANE and THE LINDEN TREE), and music for Carrie Preston’s ZAHDI DATES AND POPPIES, Elizabeth Dowd’s GETTYSBURG, David Surtasky’s EVENTIDE, and Chiori Miyagawa’s MIGRATION. Crandall also co-wrote the script and composed the music for a short film titled WIND WELL directed and co-written by James Cook, which was released in 2021.

director

Jubilith Moore

director

jubilith moore

Jubilith Moore is a performer, director, writer, teaching artist and producer. A graduate of Bard College, she has devoted her professional career to exploring the ongoing life of traditional Japanese and contemporary American theatre. She is a Founding Company Member of Theatre Nohgaku and was Artistic Director of Theatre of Yugen from 2001 to 2014. Among her many roles, she has played the waki in three world première productions, including Greg Giovanni’s PINE BARRENS and two works by Jannette Cheong: PAGODA (which toured Europe and Asia) and BETWEEN THE STONES. She also played the spirit of Elvis in Deborah Brevoort’s BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS. Moore has been honored with The Ana Itelman Prize for Performance and The Carter Tobin Prize. Her production of PURGATORY won the Best Ensemble award at the 2001 LUNAEA Festival. She has been the recipient of a Japan Foundation Fellowship and Theatre Communication Group’s Future Collaborations and Leadership University grant.

librettist

Edith Reisner Newton

librettist

Edith Reisner Newton

Edith Reisner Newton is a writer based in San Francisco. She is the author of IN A MEMORY PALACE, the ON THE BRIDGEWAY blog, and a novel entitled STILL SHOTS OF A BIRD IN FLIGHT. Her first exposure to noh was reading THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER, a noh-inspired play by William Butler Yeats, while a student at UC Berkeley in the mid 1970s. That experience led to a lifelong interest in noh and in Classical Japanese literature more generally. Edith has studied noh utai (singing) with Masayuki Fujii and David Crandall. She studies kana calligraphy, the style of brush writing used by women of the Japanese Heian period, with Sakiko Yanagisawa. Edith is the daughter of immigrants who fled Vienna after the “Anchluss,” the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938.

Co-Composer, Music Director, Chorus

Kevin Salfen

Co-Composer, Music Director, Chorus

kevin salfan

Kevin Salfen is a musicologist, composer, filmmaker, and producer. He has been a member of Theatre Nohgaku since 2011 and has performed several major projects with them, including SUMIDA RIVER, ZAHDI DATES AND POPPIES, BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS, and GETTYSBURG. His compositions have been performed in Europe, Asia, and throughout the United States, and two of his intercultural projects with TN – the film PHOENIX FIRE and the performance/installation IN A MEMORY PALACE– have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. He curates and writes for the blog Sound Trove.

the artists

principal performers

principal performer

Gulshirin Dubash

principal performer

Gulshirin Dubash

Gushirin Dubash is an actor and theatre educator originally from Bombay, India. She has worked and directed a numerous colleges and universities, including the University of Michigan, Washington and Lee, Northern Illinois University, Calvin University, University of Notre Dame, and the University of Georgia. Dubash earned her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Anthropology from Beloit College and her Master of Fine Arts in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from the Dell ‘Arte School of Physical Theatre. Dubash has a strong interest in Eastern theatrical forms and the anthropology of theatre. In 2002, she began studying Japanese noh theatre with Richard Emmert (Kita School) and the late Mitsuo Kama (Ko School) at the Noh Training Project. She joined the only English-language noh company, Theatre Nohgaku, in 2008. She is also a performer and board member of Clowns without Borders.

principal performer

Kristin Jackson

principal performer

kristin jackson

Kristin Jackson is a Philippine-Irish-American choreographer born and raised in Manila. She has performed with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and the Broadway and National productions of THE KING AND I. Her company, Kristin Jackson Dance, was formed in 1990. A highlight of her creative work inspired by noh theater was a multimedia collaboration with Nagasaki composer Keiko Fujiie, based on stories told by their and other families of the Japanese occupation in the Philippines. Ongoing studies in noh theater have continued to inspire her work both as a choreographer and performer. Jackson holds an MFA. in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and has served on the dance faculties of NYU and Queens College of the City University of New York. She received a Fulbright Scholar award in 2002 to teach at the University of the Philippines.

principal performer

Mika Oskarson Kindstrand

principal performer

Mika Oskarson Kindstrand

Mika Oskarson Kindstrand is an actor and assistant director from Sweden. Exposed to a blend of Asian and Western theatrical traditions from an early age through the World Theatre Project spanning Sweden, India, Mozambique, and China, Mika’s journey in performance commenced at the age of 5. Since then, she has performed numerous roles across a spectrum of theatrical productions at esteemed regional and national institutions in Sweden. Her educational journey culminated with graduation from the Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore in 2023. Recently, Mika collaborated with her father, director Peter Oskarson, on translating Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST into Swedish. Produced by Mika’s company Oskarsons Teaterlager, this work premiered in February 2025 at Orionteatern in Stockholm. Currently, Mika is a resident artist at Folkteatern Gävleborg. Recent acting credits include TIMELESS CHAPTERS, BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS and SONGS FROM EARTH – a one woman musical with a Faustian twist.

principal performer

Lluis Valls

principal performer

lluis valls

Lluis Valls acts, directs, and writes for the theatre. He has studied Kyogen with Yuriko Doi, Yukio Ishida and Go Iida (Izumi School), Noh with Richard Emmert, Akira Matsui, and Kinue Oshima (Kita School), and kotsuzumi noh drum with Mitsuo Kama (Ko School). He has also received training in butoh, Suzuki method, and clowning. As a principal performer for Theatre of Yugen since 1995, he has been instrumental in creating over a dozen new works. In 2002 he co-founded Clowns on a Stick, creating short and long form clown pieces as well as the silent film LATE FOR A PARTY.

instrumentalists

pianist | san francisco

Brett Carson

pianist | san francisco

brett carson

Brett Carson is a composer, pianist, improviser, poet, and theater artist based in Berkeley, CA. His compositional work, which has been described as “fascinatingly intense” (Stephen Smoliar, SF Classical Voice), explores the juxtaposition of a gleefully chaotic plurality of musical approaches. This is combined with a penchant for surreal world-building and an exploration of the bizarre and uncanny, along with a commitment to writing for the voice and the stage.

In addition to his compositional work, he enjoys a career as a pianist, keyboardist, and synthesist, having performed internationally in the realms of free improvisation, contemporary classical music, jazz, and rock. Performing venues and festivals include the Chicago Jazz Festival, Sons d’hiver, Roulette, the Barbican, the Kennedy Center, the Broad (LA), and SESC Pompeia (Brazil). He has worked with a wide variety of composers/performers including Bill Baird, Brian Baumbusch, Nicolas Collins, Sidney Corbett, Vinny Golia, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Bill Noertker, Zeena Parkins, Rent Romus, and William Winant. From 2019-20, he performed and recorded as the pianist for the legendary jazz unit the Art Ensemble of Chicago

pianist | san antonio

Wayne Ching

pianist | san antonio

wayne ching

Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Taiwanese-American pianist Wayne Ching enjoys a diverse musical career as a pianist, educator, and administrator. Ching has performed extensively across the United States, including music festival appearances at Sarasota, Kneisel Hall, Napa Valley, Avaloch Farm, and Cactus Pear, among others. His performances can be heard on Texas Public Radio, WQXR (NY), WSMR (FL), and KPAC (TX). Recent performance highlights include a concerto appearance with New Horizons Symphony, and recital appearances with the Olmos Ensemble, violinists Francisco Fullana, Sandy Yamamoto, and violist Jordan Bak. Ching completed his bachelor and master’s degrees in Piano Performance at the University of Texas at Austin and doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota, where his primary mentors were Gregory Allen, Anton Nel, and Lydia Artymiw. Ching resides in San Antonio, Texas. He is on the faculty at Trinity University and the Classical Music Institute, where he also serves as Teaching Artist Fellowship Director.

Otsuzumi Player

Takako Kawauchi

Ōtsuzumi Player

takako kawauchi

Takako Kawauchi began studying the dance and chant of noh in 1986 and later went on to study the ōtsuzumi, kotsuzumi, and taiko drums. She is also a noted performer of gagaku court music. She has been particularly active as an ōtsuzumi hip drum player, performing regularly with Tesarugaku-no-kai and other recital groups in the Tokyo area. She first performed with Theatre Nohgaku in 2015 in the Tokyo studio performance of BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS and subsequently performed the piece on tour in the United States in 2018. Other performance credits with Theatre Nohgaku include the US East Coast tour of GETTYSBURG in 2019 and a preview performance of IN A MEMORY PALACE in San Antonio in 2023.

cellist | san antonio

Isabel Kwon

cellist | san antonio

isabel kwon

Isabel Kwon comes from Okemos, Michigan and became a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2023 after seasons with the Cincinnati Symphony and New World Symphony. She is currently finishing her Doctorate degree with minors in Music Theory and Arts Administration at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she was teaching assistant to Eric Kim. Kwon also graduated with her undergraduate degree on full scholarship at the University of Michigan with Richard Aaron and a Master of Music at The Juilliard School with Timothy Eddy.

Kwon has participated in numerous music festivals such as Aspen Music Festival as a fellow, and has held residency in Avaloch Farm, Kneisel Hall, Masters Music Course in Japan, and Sarasota Music Festival. Outside the genre of classical, she has a passion for performing tango, which has led to her being a part of Stowe Tango Music Festival and concerts all over the U.S. and in Japan.

Kotsuzumi Player

Kayu Omura

Kotsuzumi Player

Kayu Omura

Kayu Omura is a kotsuzumi shoulder drum player of the Kō School. Daughter of Kita School shite actor Sadamu Omura, she was exposed to noh at a young age and began taking kotsuzumi lessons in high school. She entered Tokyo University of Arts in the noh division specializing in kotsuzumi and graduated in 2009. In addition to her busy noh performance schedule, Omura teaches drumming in the Tokyo area and has appeared in such fusion works as the English noh OPPENHEIMER in Sydney, Australia, the opera-ballet-noh collaboration OPPOSITE-INVERSE in London, and the noh-chamber opera KAYOI KOMACHI / KOMACHI VISITED in Vancouver, Canada. She performed with Theatre Nohgaku in their 2018 national tour of BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS, their 2019 premiere production of EMILY in London, their 2019 East Coast GETTYSBURG tour, and their BLUE MOON OVER MEMPHIS tour in Japan in 2024.

Nohkan / Piccolo

Laura Salfen

Nohkan / Piccolo

laura salfen

Laura Salfen is a flutist and fundraising professional based in the San Antonio area. Originally from Gahanna, Ohio, Laura holds degrees in flute performance from the Ohio State University and the University of North Texas. Winner of the 2005 Flute Society of Kentucky Collegiate Artist Competition, Laura is a champion of new music and chamber music and partnered with the Composers Alliance of San Antonio to premiere new works for flute and clarinet at the 2015 South Texas Flute and Clarinet Festival and at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Recent projects include performances of Benjamin Britten’s CURLEW RIVER as part of WHERE RIVERS MEET (a multicultural triple bill) and staged performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s PIERROT LUNAIRE.

cellist | san francisco

Monica Scott

cellist | san francisco

monica scott

Monica Scott has performed throughout the United States, in almost every European country, Argentina, Canada and South Korea, engaging audiences with her energetic, eloquent playing. Since moving to the Bay Area in 1997, Monica has performed extensively with the avant-garde/improvisor/new music collective sfSound; she was the cellist of the award-winning San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet from 2001-2005, and in 2006 Monica formed the cello-piano duo martha & monica with pianist Hadley McCarroll, with whom she still performs regularly. Currently, composition and creative work incorporating visual art and film are becoming a larger part of Monica’s practice, especially in the multi-media quartet Lightfast; for the collaboration, Monica received a Musical Grant Program award from IntermusicSF in 2023, as well as a LAP residency at Montalvo. Besides her creative work, Monica is a devoted teacher, with a large private cello studio. She holds a Bachelor in Music from Oberlin College Conservatory and the Soloist’s Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam.

chorus & ensemble

chorus

Lydia Beasley

chorus

lydia beasley

Biography coming soon.

chorus

Nick Ishimaru

chorus

nick ishimaru

Nick Ishimaru (he/him) is a company member of Theatre Nohgaku and student of Kita School Noh performer Oshima Teruhisa, as well as a director, producer, actor, and casting director. Ishimaru is a casting director with The Casting Collective, as well as with Marin Shakespeare Company, an artist in residence at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, and a producer and co-founder of Kunoichi Productions. He previously served as Artistic Director of Theatre of Yugen from 2016 to 2020, where he remains a member of their performing ensemble.

Director: THE RED DEMON, A NOH CHRISTMAS CAROL, SEEN/BY EVERYONE, THE TRUE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA, FUN HOME, NEVER MIND, and ANYTHING GOES. He has performed in A NOH CHRISTMAS CAROL, PUPPETS AND POE, THE TRUE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA, Bellini’s NORMA, CARMEN, MAME, and dozens of English-language kyōgen, among others.

chorus

Valerie Jeannin

chorus

valeri jeannin

Valerie Jeannin (mezzo-soprano) is a graduate of Trinity University where she received two degrees, a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Master of Arts in Teaching in Music. She currently works in two very different worlds—music education and urban agriculture. She also sings with choral groups such as the San Antonio Chamber Choir and the Parish Choir at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. She has performed various roles including Dido in Purcell’s DIDO AND AENEAS at Trinity University, L’enfant in Ravel’s L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES at Opera in the Ozarks at Inspiration Point, and Ciesca in Puccini’s GIANNI SCHICCHI at the Yunnan Opera Festival in Kunming, China. She sings in local opera choruses and collaborates with local composers to perform their works. She studied with Chia-wei Lee, Richard Novak, and Melinda Brou.

koken

Ryan Marchand

koken

ryan marchand

Biography coming soon.

chorus | san francisco

Leandra Ramm

chorus | san francisco

leandra ramm

Leandra Ramm is a remarkably versatile mezzo-soprano and actress with an “extraordinary voice” (Anderson Cooper 360), whose “beautiful and quite moving” (Nordstjernan Newspaper) performances have graced prestigious venues including San Francisco Opera, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the United Nations, Symphony Space and Davies Symphony Hall. Leandra performs regularly at San Francisco Symphony, recently as alto soloist in Bach’s MAGNIFICAT conducted by Jane Glover, and she starred in ECSTASY at SoundBox. Favorite performances include L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES with Pacific Symphony, Anybodys in WEST SIDE STORY with Opera San Jose and CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN with West Edge Opera. Concert soloist engagements include Duruflé’s REQUIEM, Schubert’s MIRIAM’S SONG OF TRIUMPH and Mendelssohn’s DREI GEISTLICHE LIEDER with San Francisco Choral Society and San Francisco City Chorus. She can be heard on the Albany Records cast album of San Francisco Opera Guild’s LUNCINDA Y LAS FLORES DE LA NOCHEBUENA.

www.LeandraRamm.com Social Media: @LeandraRamm

chorus | san antonio

Dazhir Walker

chorus | san antonio

Dazhir Walker

Biography coming soon.

Designers

sound designer

Andrew Bergmann

sound designer

andrew bergmann

Andrew Bergmann writes and produces music, plays bass, and serves as Assistant Professor of Music Production, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship and Coordinator of the Music Industry Studies program at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio.

Andrew grew up in Massachusetts and has lived, traveled, and performed across Europe and North America. His original jazz group Sued Nandayapa Bergmann Saunders has released four albums on the Mexico City record label Ropeadope Sur. Other ongoing projects that Andrew co-directs include the San Antonio Ambient Orchestra, Ghorar Deem Express, and Troglodytes. Andrew has also played acoustic bass on recent releases by Azul Barrientos, Aaron Prado, Viatorum, Cory Wong, and Chris Guerrero while producing recent releases by Aaron Walker and Dan Carillo.

Andrew holds a B.A. in music from Brown University, a Second Phase Degree in jazz double bass performance from the Amsterdam Conservatory, and PhD in music composition from the University of Minnesota.

mask maker

Hideta Kitazawa

mask maker

hideta kitazawa

Hideta Kitazawa is a noh mask maker and second-generation traditional woodcarving artist. After majoring in forestry studies at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, he studied woodcarving with his father Ikkyo Kitazawa, as well as noh mask making. In 1997, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Artisan Award for Tokyo, and in 2003, the Yokohama Noh Theatre Director’s Prize. His work was commissioned for Japan’s Imperial Household Agency’s recent imperial succession ceremonies. Internationally, he has demonstrated mask making techniques and exhibited widely, including at Singapore’s Asian Civilizations Museum, London’s V&A Museum, Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris, and Wurzburg’s Siebold Museum. He has taught mask making at the University of Hawaii, North Carolina School of Arts, Southern Methodist University and The University of The Incarnate Word Texas. In 2015, the USITT (US Institute of Theatre Technology) invited him as international guest speaker at their annual conference in Cincinnati. His masks are in the permanent collections of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the Oriental Museum of Durham University, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

costume designer

Margaret Mitchell

costume designer

margaret mitchell

Margaret Mitchell has designed costumes and scenery professionally for over 30 years, and she is a Professor Emerita of Theatre Arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, TX. She holds an M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and has designed professionally across the USA and in New Zealand. Mitchell’s design work has represented the United States at the Prague Quadrennial three times and has been exhibited at World Stage Design. Recently her costumes and costume designs have been included in exhibitions at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, at El Centro Nacional a Bellas Artes in Mexico City and at the Bucharest Scenography Biennale in Bucharest, Romania. Mitchell’s costume designs are published in Rebecca Cunningham’s book, THE MAGIC GARMENT, and in Brockett and Ball’s THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE. Her costume designs are included in the permanent collection of the Robert L. B. Tobin Theatre Arts Collection at the McNay Art Museum. Ms. Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors of USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technology, and she is the Vice Chair for Research for the Costume Designers of OISTAT (International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians).

Scenographer & Installation Designer

Mikiko Uesugi

Scenographer & Installation Designer

mikiko uesugi

Mikiko Uesugi, a painter turned scenic designer, has designed productions that include: SIGN MY NAME TO FREEDOM for San Francisco Bay Area Theater Company; HOME, 4 ADVERBS, IMMORTAL HEART, and STORIES BY TOBIAS WOLF for Word for Word; MONUMENT, OR FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY) and A COMMON VISION for Magic Theatre; WIVES, DETROIT, FAT PIG, AND SALOME for Aurora Theater Company; ELEVATA, KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS! and KISS for Shotgun Players; DROWNING IN CAIRO, OUR ENEMIES, LANGUAGE ROOMS and NIGHT OVER ERZINGA for Golden Thread Productions; and THIS LINGERING LIFE for Theatre of Yugen. She has also designed for Crowded Fire Theater, Theatre Works, Marin Theater Company, ACT M.F.A program, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Chanticleer, among others.

Ms. Uesugi, originally from Japan, is a resident artist at Golden Thread Productions, and a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Program for Designers and the Isadora Duncan Dance Award.

lighting designer

Allen Willner

lighting designer

allen willner

Allen Willner is an award-winning lighting designer based in San Francisco, CA. He has been designing lights for theater and dance for 25 years. Past design awards and award nominations include: TBA Lighting Designs for We Player’s BEOWULF, Shotgun Players EURYDICE, Theatre of Yugen’s THIS LINGERING LIFE, and SF Playhouse THE OBLIGATION; Bay Area Critics Circle Lighting Design for GOD’S EAR; Isadora Duncan Dance Design Awards for inkBoat’s LINE BETWEEN and HEAVEN’S RADIO; and Deborah Slater Dance Theater’s PRIVATE LIFE.

video designer

Ryan Yu

video designer

ryan yu

Ryan Yu (any/all) is a multimedia designer and composer currently based in Pittsburgh, PA. Recently graduated from Stanford University, Ryan holds a BA in Classics (Greek literature) and Theater (Design). Past projection design credits include Stanford TAPS’ FOR NOW, JULIUS CAESAR, SPRING RISE UP!; West Edge Opera’s CORONATION OF POPPEA, and ERWARTUNG/LE ROSSIGNOL. Their work spans from dance to installations, with a curiosity in large-scale world-building and reimaging classical pieces for a world in constant flux. Ryan is a current MFA student in design at CMU School of Drama.

In a Memory Palace

Gallery
Artists
Partners
Support

Gallery
Artists
Partners
Support

site by rozlynn.design

In a Memory Palace

site by rozlynn.design