Director
Matthias concentrated in directing during his MFA in Shakespeare & Performance at Mary Baldwin University. He focused on adapting Shakespeare for young audiences, and prioritizing clarity of text in staged readings of unfamiliar classical plays. He now delights in stories that question what it means to be and live in a community.
Pericles for Young Audiences Roles: co-director, playwright, role of Storyteller/dragon puppeteer
Pericles for Young Audiences Roles: co-director, playwright, role of Storyteller/dragon puppeteer
Pericles for Young Audiences Roles: co-director, playwright, role of Storyteller/dragon puppeteer
Pericles for Young Audiences Roles: co-director, playwright, role of Storyteller/dragon puppeteer
CAST
The Adventurer - Ashley Wright
The Princess - Cece Richardson
Gus - Ethan Goodmansen
Marina - Jovita Roselene Jacob
The Harmonious Knight - Katie Mestres
The Storyteller - Matthias Bolon​
Pericles for Young Audiences
Streetlight Shakespeare Ensemble
Roles: co-director with Anna Taylor, playwright, touring actor
Play Summary
Pericles for Young Audiences was an educational show that toured to audiences grades K-5, libraries, and community centers. Drawing on characters and themes from Shakespeare and Wilkins’s play, the 30-minute adventure introduced Gower, a poet and storyteller, and Marina and her friend Gus, young wanderers looking for a place to belong. Along with a vivid and energetic ensemble, these characters took a young audience on an exciting seafaring voyage full of song and movement, community, comfort in difficult times, and kindness.​​
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Shortened Playwright's Note:
Our cast began by devising movement, gestures, shapes, acrobatics, and imagery focused on the sea and community. The physical material the cast generated inspired the text I wrote...I would bring a rough draft into rehearsal for us to experiment with, and the cast would say "yes" when something worked or ask for more from the plot and me.
Best Mayor, The King
Streetlight Shakespeare Ensemble
Roles: co-director with Ethan Goodmansen
Original Pre-show Director's Speech:
Firstly, this play shares similarities to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. To offer some content warnings, this play contains kidnapping, threats of violence, beating, coercion, and discussions of offstage sexual assault. We promise it is also funny. If at any time you need to step away, the bathrooms are to your right along that hall.
Secondly, we would like to thank the undergraduate theatre and music departments for loaning us the variety of music stands you see behind us. We would also like to thank Doreen Bechtol for lending us this singular stand that randomly showed up in the Wharf office one day.
Finally, you may hear familiar rhythms of verse lines that halt or are interrupted. This is a Spanish Golden Age play and what we are sharing with you today is an English translation. Our actors have done admirable work to breathe life into the lines, but sometimes the translation (or our cuts) do not entirely support their endeavors. All that in mind, we invite you to sit forward and HEAR Lope de Vega’s The Best Mayor, The King!
Best Mayor, The King Roles: co-director
Best Mayor, The King Roles: co-director
Best Mayor, The King Roles: co-director
Best Mayor, The King Roles: co-director
CAST
Don Tello - Tommy Hegarty
Feliciana - Brooke Crittenden
Sancho - Anna Taylor
Nuño - Pete Kirwan
Elvira - Maggie Lengerich
Pelayo - Cory Drozdowski
Don Alfonso - Megan Parlett
Celio/Juana/Don Enrique - Ashley Wright
Don Pedro/Julio/Leanor/Brito/Fileno - Jess Snellings
Queer Joy (intimacy showcase) Roles: director
Queer Joy (intimacy showcase) Roles: director
Queer Joy (intimacy showcase) Roles: director
Queer Joy
Creating with Consent
Fresno Summer Showcase
Role: director
Director's Note:
Queer Joy was a devised piece created for an intimacy choreography summer intensive showcase. The intension was to uplift stories of queer delight, love, and comfort.
PERFORMERS
Kiera Wefers
Mads Padilla