White Box Theatre embodies founding director, Sebastienne Mundheim’s values and methodology. Process and product are concerned with making work that: asks questions, is accessible to diverse audiences, has rigor and craft, and explores interdisciplinary relationships. White Box Theatre accepts commissions for new work, tours existing work, offers residencies, lectures, workshops, and provides cons
ulting in interdisciplinary program design. Sebastienne Mundheim is an interdisciplinary performance-maker, installation artist, educator. She began her arts career as a painter and writer, earning her BA and BFA at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. Wanting to get away from the solitary practice of studio and get out into the world to make work with more clear social impact, Mundheim began creating interdisciplinary community arts programs and events in Philadelphia and New Orleans, designing and implementing parades, installations, and arts-based learning experiences through museums, cultural organizations, schools, and community centers. Since then, she has created many original interdisciplinary performances, performed nationally and internationally. Her work integrates visual installation, puppetry, storytelling, dance and theater. She develops story and physical environment in tandem, writing and building together, finally collaborating with performers to animate visual, lyrical and literary worlds. Works have been commissioned and/or presented by: The Rosenbach Museum and Library, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, The University of Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Kimmel Center for Performing Arts, Lantern Theater Company, The Arden Theatre, PA Ballet, Franklin and Marshall College, Keene State University, Vermont Performance Lab, Marlboro College, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts, Baltimore Theater Company, The Irish Ministry of Arts and Culture. Mundheim has collaborated in the works of other artists including: Whit McLaughlin, New Paradise Laboratories, Kate Watson-Wallace, Anonymous Bodies, Thaddeus Phillips, Lucidity Suitcase, Stan Heleva, Walking Fish Theatre, Hua-Hua Zhang, Visual Expressions, Kun Yang Lin, Kun Yang Lin Dance, and Tania Isaac Dance. Mundheim’s work has been supported by the Dolfinger McMahon Foundation, Lenfest Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, Pew Charitable Trust, including Philadelphia Theatre Initiative and Dance Advance, Pennsylvania Performing Artists on Tour, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and numerous commissioning organizations. Mundheim has studied puppetry at the O’Neill Center, Sandglass Puppetry Institute, and with Hua Hua Zhang. In 2010 she received a Philadelphia Theatre Initiative support to study with the Hand Spring Puppet Company in South Africa. In 2011 she was a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. In 2013 she received an Independence Foundation Fellowship for Writing. Her collaboration with The Lantern Theatre Company for the creation of a Child’s Christmas in Wales, received two Barrymore awards in 2014 for Outstanding Design and Best Ensemble. In 2017 Mundheim received national recognition from the Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theatre Festival for Distinguished Achievement in Puppetry Design and Direction and for Distinguished Achievement in Overall Production. Mundheim received her EdM from Harvard in 2000. www.whiteboxtheatre.com
