Bob Colonna was the ringmaster for the Pan-Twilight Circus in 1995. He has been working in the professional theatre for 40 years, much of it as a member of the acting company at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence. He has appeared there on and off since 1966, acting in over 70 productions. He has also acted at the Old Globe in San Diego, the Milwaukee Repertory Company, Lyric Stage Compay in Boston, Second Story Theatre in Providence, and Westerly Shakespeare in the Park, as well as several theatres in the Los Angeles area. In 1971, he founded the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater, where he was Artistic Director for 21 years. While there, he directed over 60 productions, including most of the Shakespearean canon. He has also directed for Second Story Theatre, Perishable Theatre, Alias Stage, The Newport Playhouse, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Rhode Island. He is a prominent New England voice talent with over 5,000 commercials to his credit. He began his career at 15, in British variety, with his father, the late beloved comedian, Jerry Colonna
Tom Sgouros began his performing career in 1985 as a rope-walker and clown, and has performed at fairs and festivals and political events and public fiascoes of all sorts all over New England ever since. In 1990, he performed in and helped produce the first Pan-Twilight Circus, in Portland. Oregon. In 1992, he took over as producer and artistic director, and with the help of 35 of his closest friends, "Pandora's Boxes" went up under the big top in Providence, RI. The Providence Journal calls his clowning "reminiscent of Buster Keaton, with a touch of Stan Laurel." Tom has studied with such masters of solo theatre as Fred Curchack, Tony Montanaro, Avner Eisenberg, and Bolek Polivka.
In addition to his clown work, Tom also writes and performs solo narrative theatre. Since 1990, he has created and performed a series of possibly true stories, monologues accompanied by video, sound effects, slides, computer-controlled motors, small explosions, and asssorted props. To date, he has written and performed six solo shows, including: Plastic Alligator, a modern safari throgh plastic swamps, including an encounter with the inventor of the pink plastic lawn flamingo; Liar: An Evening of True Stories, a suite of three stories concerning exploding pickup trucks, historical museums, and the lies we tell. Millennium, his most recent work, is a love story about delusions through the ages.
Tom is also a freelance video and filmmaker, designing and producing audio and visual contributions to several theatrical productions beside his own work. He was the video designer for the World Premiere at Trinity Repertory Company of God's Heart by Craig Lucas. In addition, he has developed media for productions for Samuel Beckett's Ohio Improptu,Ping Chong's Kind Ness, Georges Dessaignes' The Mute Canary, and Kay Jenkins' Woman in a Book, and several others.
Sally Mayo has been a professional dancer and choreographer for twenty years. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Modern Dance from the University of Utah, and danced professionally in Boston with New England Dinosaur Dance Theatre, an avant-garde modern dance company in the tradition of New York's experimental Judson Church. She currently teaches movement at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is a guest artist at Providence College. She was selected for the Independent Choreographer's Showcase at Rhode Island College 1995. She has received choreography commissions from the Ocean State Light Opera for "Amahl and the Night Visitors," from Providence College, for their spring dance concert, and for the Pan-Twilight Circus. She is on the Rhode Island State Council on the arts, Arts in Education Roster. Sally Appeared in the 1995 Pan-Twilight Circus as the hungry praying mantis, looking for a meal husband.
Sally Mayo and Company had their premiere of DISPORT at the Carriage House Theatre June 1996 in Providence, RI. She and the company are presently working on a theatre dance evening based on Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show for premier in the spring of 1997
Steven Jobe has been composing profesionally since 1985. Among his major works have been an opera (Jeanne D'Arc, 1993) a ballet (Hansel and Gretel, commissioned by the South County Players Children's Theatre, 1993), and a musical (Walking on Air, lyrics and music, commissioned by CCRI,1986). He has composed countless smaller pieces, from shaped-note hymns to medieval motets to blues. He teaches music theory and composition at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is the music director and composer for their annual cabaret. One of his compositions for the 1994 cabaret, "The Life and Times of Joseph Beuys," brought him the runner-up award in the RI State Council on the Arts Music Composition Fellowship. He is currently at work on a full-length ballet inspired by the Hieronymus Bosch triptych, "The Garden Of earthly delights," using giant instruments after the ones in the painting. The project is supported by RISCA and RISD
Steve earned a Masters degree in music history from Ohio State University, and has played viola, vielle, bassoon and hurdy-gurdy with bands as disparate as Melusine, an early music ensemble (1984-1990), the Amoebic Ensemble, an experimental music band, and the Whompers, a folk group. The Amoebic Ensemble was the Pan-Twilight Circus Band in 1995. Steve Is also notable for being one of only two performers to be in every single Pan-Twilight Circus production since the first, in 1990. He served as music director in 1995, and will again in 1997.
Marc ran the Puppet Workshop for umpty-ump years, bringing his puppet magic into countless schools, events and community groups around New England. We are lucky to have him.