Connor Berkompas & Isabel Shaida

Biography

Connor Berkompas (founding artistic director) is a multidisciplinary theatre maker working with movement-based devising techniques. Through his work as a director and designer he aims to create experiences that celebrate and exploit the ‘liveness’ of theatre for all its communal possibilities. Connor is committed to questioning classic texts and investigating original source materials through a brazenly Queer lens. He founded Nervous Theatre in 2019 with a touring production of Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS. As director of Nervous Theatre he has co-created and produced three world premieres, three touring productions, and an original theatre/film hybrid (winner of a Derek Award at the Edinburgh Fringe 2021).

Isabel Shaida (company member, teaching artist) is a movement artist and community organizer. She volunteers with Gallatin Valley Sunrise and currently sits on the Bozeman Sustainability Board. Isabel has devised original works and has performed with Monica Bill Barnes & Co. and Double Edge Theatre. She continues to train with SITI Co. and Wendell Beavers and studies somatic embodiment. She believes that through caring for one another, entering our bodies, we can create structural change.

NERVOUS THEATRE is a theatrical collective dedicated to producing and touring new works and radically reimagined classics. Our work places an emphasis on process and co-creation through collaborative devising. Nervous Theatre’s productions have been presented in multiple cities across the country, most recently at Gloucester Stage (MA), The Boston Conservatory, and Tinworks Art (MT).