Anton Jones (Writer/Director)

As an interdisciplinary theatre artist, Anton Jones has devoted his career to fusing his experience as a playwright, director, theatre educator, composer/sound designer, and dramaturg into his own unique approach to the creation of live performance.

In 2004, while sound designing the Off-Broadway production of Klub Ka: A Blues Legend at LaMama ETC. he was teaching theatre appreciation and playwriting at the University of Iowa as well as working closely with Hip-Hop Theatre Pioneer and Guest Artist, Will Power by writing the program notes and acting in Will’s production of The Seven.  Four months later, he was adapting lyrics and composing/performing original music for a production of Good Person of Szechuan while finishing rewrites of his own play Waking Nicodemus which was going into production the following Spring.  Another 4 months passed and he was holding his MFA from the University of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop and relocating to Minneapolis.

In 2006 he was recipient fo the Playwright’s center/Jerome Foundation Many Voices Residency where he developed The FUNeral  a fusion of Hip-Hop Theatre and Commedia Dell’Arte.  The FUNeral  premiered as the Inaugaral production of Culture Mesh Collective, a theatre company created with actress, Christina Frank.

From Being Playwright in residence for educational programs at Mixed Blood Theatre and Penumbra Theatre to directing his own play Tokens~n~Change: A Hip-Hop Drama at the Illusion Theatre to composing the soundtrack for a Fashion Show in Germany to breaking school track records at Grinnell College,  Anton Jones continues to learn, grow, and test the boundaries of collaboration.

Christina Frank (Actor/Producer)

Since moving to Minnesota in 2006, Christina has been an active part of the Twin Cities Theatre Community performing with such companies as Theatre Unbound, Exposed Brick Theatre, The Minneapolis Fringe Festival, Bridge Productions and teaching with Stepping Stone Theatre and In the Company of Kids Creative Center. Christina has studied at HB Studios in New York, Columbia University, University of Delaware, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa’s Graduate Acting Program is 2006, where she studied extensively in mask, mime, movement, dialect, Shakespeare, Grotowski, Lecoq, Miesner and Linklater methods.

In 2007 Christina Co-Founded Culture Mesh Collective in order to bring about new and original work into the Minneapolis Scene. She co-produced Culture Mesh’s first show the FUNeral in the Minnesota Fringe Festival where she also acted and constructed Commedia De’ll Arts style masks.