Spiritus Vitae Crew

Marina | Pericles
Director | A Winter's Tale
Production Assistant

Elisa began her involvement with English-language theater at the age of seventeen with the English Dramatic Society at University Erlangen-Nuremberg. She has performance experience as an actress and singer and directs a student choir. From 2018 to 2019, she was musical director for two musical productions, “Tone Death” and “College Collage,” of the Chaincourt Theatre Company and contributed music to the production of “The Scarecrow.” She also contributed music and worked as the music director for Shakespeare Frankfurt’s production of “Trojan Women” in February 2020. Since 2018, she has been a surtitles manager at the Frankfurt Opera and works as assistant dramaturge for individual productions. She is a student of theatre, film and media studies at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Production Assistant

Emilio is a half Colombian and half German actor. His interest in acting began at a very young age. Throughout the years he has gained experience on stage with plays and musicals such as; “Les Miserables”, “Borrados” (self-written play), “Twelfth Night” and “Macbeth”. He speaks German, Spanish, French and English fluently. He currently lives in London, where he studies Animation/VFX at the London College of Communication. This is his fourth time working with Shakespeare Frankfurt, and his first time working behind the scenes as a boom operator.

Director of Photography

James (*1984 Mississippi, USA) has worked for film and TV productions since 2008. He currently works for Contentivity, a video production company based in Frankfurt.

Props

Markella comes from Greece and she is a scientist working in the pharma industry. Arts were always part of her life: painting, arts and crafts, writing, music. The last 5 years she attended various improv theatre courses with TLS Frankfurt and performed in a monthly improv show with the group The Sidekicks. Apart from Spiritus Vitae: The Breath of Life, she has been involved as a prop specialist in Shakespeare Frankfurt production of Trojan Women earlier this year.

Fight Director

Mathias was bitten by the stage combat bug in 1992 and is working as a freelancing fight director and stage combat teacher. He studied with teachers from the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat and the Society of American Fight Directors, and since 2012, he has been teaching as a guest instructor at several stage combat workshops in the United States. Also since 2012, being an archaeologist in normal life, he trains the gladiator group “Ludus Gorgonis” for the department of classics at Giessen University. 2015, he finished his teacher training and became one of the first four certified teachers of Stage Combat Deutschland. His first fight direction for Shakespeare Frankfurt was for the production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 2018. Since then, he also directed the fights for Othello and Macbeth.

Camera

Michael Heipel has got a background in events management. Since 2014, he runs his own video and content production agency in Frankfurt www.contentivity.de. In his spare time, he loves to play bossanova on classical guitar.

Production Assistant

Shayana is half Colombian and half German. She is currently studying comparative literature and English studies at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Universität Frankfurt. During her last school years, she developed an interest in theatre, film and literature. She is also interested in writing and directing. She has been working with Shakespeare Frankfurt for a year now on and offstage.

Photographer

Stephan studied Biophysics and Neuroscience and is creating images using microscopes in his professional life. His passion for photography started when he was a teenager, and he has been active as a travel, wedding, production and portrait photographer. He previously covered the “Trojan Women” project for Shakespeare Frankfurt as a production photographer.

Antipholus | The Comedy of Errors
Production Coordinator

Varvara comes from Athens, Greece. Her training includes theatre improvisation, Meisner technique and various acting & stage combat classes in Germany and masterclasses on Shakespeare and on clowning techniques in the UK. In 2019, she trained on Shakespeare's language with RSC’s Michael Corbidge and currently she trains on Meyerhold’s Biomechanics & Physical Theatre at the New International Performing Arts Institute in Berlin. Most recently, she acted at the English Theatre Frankfurt’s production of Huck Finn, she played the role of Tupolski in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt and Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare Frankfurt’s 2019 production of Macbeth at the Botanical Garden. Spiritus Vitae: The Breath of Life marks her seventh production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.

Communications Manager

Vera has been involved with the theatre since she was a teenager. She has participated in numerous productions of FEST, the Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre, acting, crewing and directing. In 2016, Vera joined Shakespeare Frankfurt as Adrian in ‘The Tempest’; in the past few years has served SF as stage manager and assistant director and in February 2020 played the part of Andromache in Euripides' 'Trojan Women' at the International Theatre Frankfurt. In 2019, Vera added a published sci-fi short story and two short films to her credits as (screen)writer and director. She is very happy to be involved in 'Spiritus Vitae' and is looking forward to a time when theatre can return to the live stage.

Dromio | The Comedy of Errors
Creative Producer
Film Editor

Michael has been acting since he was a child, both on stage and in front of the camera. During his film studies in Mainz he appeared in several short and feature films. His last film And the Rest Is History earned him a nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Foreign Language Film at the London International Filmmaker Festival. With the touring Zettels Theater company he performed in a number of German Shakespeare productions, including Richard III where he played the title role. In 2019 he starred as another infamous king: Macbeth, his fifth production with Shakespeare Frankfurt, after having played Ariel in The Tempest, Sebastian in Twelfth Night, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dr. Stockmann in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. His other acting credits include: Sartre’s No Exit, Yasmina Reza’s Art, Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman and Martin Heckmanns’ one-person play Finnisch, for which he received the Best Actor award at the Freispiel theatre festival in Freiburg. His editing skills originate from his daytime job as media curator and editor for the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum where he works since 2009.

Director
Leontes | The Winter’s Tale

PJ is primarily a Theatre director whose production of Huck Finn is in its second season at the English Theatre Frankfurt. His production of The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh was at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt in the Fall of 2019. He is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Frankfurt, for whom he will direct King Lear in the Botanische Garten Frankfurt, summer 2021. His past directorial work for Shakespeare Frankfurt include: Trojan Women by Euripides, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (cancelled due to Covid) and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. From 2015-18 he was the Director in Residence at The LOFT, where he directed Shakespeare in the Garden:Hortus Inclusus, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Grounded by George Brandt and was the co-creator of Where. For 10 years he was the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Anyone? founded in New York City in 2005, where he directed, produced and/or performed roles from all but 5 of Shakespeare’s plays. He also cast and directed BFA playwriting thesis projects for NYU’s Tisch school of the arts. He has taught Acting, Scene study, Stage combat and Shakespeare courses at the collegiate level as well as high schools and private institutions for over 20 years. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri-KC.