Ania

A graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre (Professional Training Program), Ania’s recent work celebrates LGBTQIA+ artists with a focus on gender expansiveness. They primarily create work under their company Butch Mermaid Productions (BMP), a transdisciplinary company whose mission is to make queer joy irresistible and contagious. BMP shows include Antonio!, a new punk pirate musical about Shakespeare’s queerest character. Other BMP shows include a new solo show in drag, The Tea, in Philly Fringe 2023; Too Much Hair, a musical cabaret about gender euphoria (2022); Into the Bush, a queer circus-theatre project (2021), Proud Voices; an audio festival that played internationally in three major cities (2020, 2021) and Transhumance, Ania’s solo clown show about the experience of being transgender (2019).

Outside of BMP, in 2023 they performed in War and Play, a clown show about the war in Ukraine in the Criminal Queerness Festival by National Queer Theater, as well as devising and performing in Today’s Mess, a clown show about diversity, at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theater Off-Off-Broadway. Other projects include producing a drag installation in the Auckland Botanic Gardens (2022) and directing and directing Queer ballet Sapphic Lake (2021). Performance credits include In Many Hands (Brooklyn Academy of Music); Thou Shalt Not (Thinkery & Verse); and R+J: A Genderqueer/Female Reimagination (Hypokrit Productions).

Ania has toured to Palestine with Clowns Without Borders USA, and has taught clown internationally. Ania has also performed clown and drag acts at venues in New York City including House of Yes, The Duplex and The Tank.

In addition to their training at Dell’Arte, Ania also holds a Masters degree in Applied Theater from the City University of New York. As a Joker for Theater of the Oppressed NYC, a professional teaching artist, and an Applied Theater maker, they are deeply interested in how to use theater forms and techniques to help people engage their curiosity, develop deeper understanding, and make meaning of the world around them. With a keen interest in research and cross-disciplinary collaboration, Ania is a current PLAYA Arts and Science Resident Artist and was a 2024 - 2025 Folger Shakespeare Library Artistic Fellow. They were a part of The Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab 2023-24 and a Fellow with The Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Residency 2022-23. In addition to their work in theater education, they are the co-founder of GenderWise, a gender diversity company, and teach in the Gender Studies department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Across all of their work, Ania strives to educate, inspire curiosity about the world, and incite meaningful change. See more of their work here.