Marie Antoinette:
Vampire Queen of Versailles

Michael B. Raiford is a Production Designer from Austin, Texas. For Ballet Austin: POE/A Tale Of Madness, Magic Flute, Mozart Project, Exit Wounds. Additional Ballet: Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Colorado Ballet. Upcoming: Oklahoma City And Nevada Ballet. His Designs for Septime Weber’s “Wizard of Oz” Ballet were honored by the “Benois de la Danse” at the Bolshoi Ballet. “Oz” will be soon be seen at the Hong Kong Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet. In Austin: ZACH Theatre, Rude Mechanicals, Hyde Park Theatre and Zilker Summer Musical. Additional Credits: Opera Boston, Central City Opera, South Coast Repertory Theatre, The Alliance Theatre ( Atlanta), City Theatre (Pittsburgh), Cleveland Playhouse, Geva Theatre Center, Playmakers Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Ford’s Theatre (Washington, D.C.), New Victory Theatre (New York), Merrimack Repertory Theatre, The Lyric Theatre (Oklahoma City), Antaeus Company (LA), Shelter VG4 Theatre (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ) and Actors Theatre of Louisville: 20 productions, twelve world premieres for the Humana Festival. Director of “Blast: The Music of Disney,” Tokyo. M.F.A. :The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for 10 years. He is a Member of United Scenic Artists. Visit: michaelraiford.myportfolio.com

Erin Earle Fleming is an accomplished lighting designer whose work spans dance, opera, and theatre stages around the world. A proud member of USA 829, she has collaborated with renowned choreographers and directors on productions from Bruce Wood Dance in Dallas to the Mariinsky Theatre in Russia, and from Houston’s Hobby Center to La Mama in New York.

Her portfolio includes lighting designs for Loves Gentle Spring, POE / A Tale of Madness, Bubblegum (Ballet Austin); Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker (Ballet Lubbock); Florencia en el Amazonas (Opera de Tenerife); Star Crossed, Violin Concerto in D (Texas Ballet Theatre); GHOST, Slip Zone (Bruce Wood Dance). In addition to her professional design work, Erin has shared her expertise as an educator, serving as adjunct faculty and guest lecturer at institutions including Mississippi State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and her alma mater, St. Edward’s University.

Holding an MFA in Design from Yale University’s School of Drama, Erin brings a thoughtful blend of artistry, technical precision, and storytelling to every project she undertakes.

Wendy Sanders has been working in wigs, hair, and makeup for theater, film, television, and photoshoots for over 20 years. She has won awards for her theatrical makeup and wig work here in Austin as well as in Colorado where she went to college. Her work has been seen on the stages of Austin Opera, Atlanta Opera, numerous local theatrical and operatic productions, and of course Ballet Austin. She is thrilled anytime a production wants to bring drama, fantasy, or especially glitter to the stage! When not slinging wigs and makeup, Wendy is an award-winning performance artist in aerial arts and burlesque, performing and teaching around the globe, under the name Ginger Snaps.

Known for his innovative and collaborative choreographic projects, Stephen Mills has created over 60 premieres for Ballet Austin and has works in the repertoires of companies across the United States and around the world.

His inaugural season as artistic director in 2000 attracted national attention with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed by Dance Magazine as “… sleek and sophisticated.” The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nation’s best kept ballet secrets” in 2004 after Mills’ world premiere of The Taming of the Shrew, commissioned by and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Company’s first Kennedy Center invitation in January of 2002 was to perform Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ballet Austin presented a variety of Mills’ works at The Joyce Theater (NYC) in 2005 and returned to the Kennedy Center in collaboration with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2008 and for the Ballet Across America Festival in 2013.

In 2005 after two years of extensive research, Mills led a communitywide human rights collaboration that culminated in the world premiere work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project (Light). In 2006 Light was awarded the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award by the Anti-Defamation League. The work made its international debut in September 2013, with performances in three cities across Israel and is the subject of the award-winning documentary film, FINDING LIGHT. In October 2016, Mills led the company through a 16-city tour of the People’s Republic of China, concluding in China’s largest city, Shanghai.

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Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent, Austin, Texas based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds records and performs music for film, theater, dance, television, rock clubs, and concert halls with collaborators across a multitude of disciplines. He recently scored Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (Netflix) with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, Happy Jail (Netflix), Stop Hitting Yourself (Lincoln Center Theater), Out of Her Mind (BBC), POE / A Tale of Madness (Ballet Austin), and a multi-year commission from Ballroom Marfa, The Marfa Triptych, culminating in his Creative Capital Award winning project Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance, a bilingual cross-border opera created with librettists Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (Mexico City) and director Shawn Sides (Rude Mechs) and staged in over a dozen cities in North America.

As Artistic Director of the non-profit Golden Hornet, Graham spearheads efforts which draw on both the collaborative spirit of rock bands and the composer-led nature of classical music, with a focus on commissioning new music, fostering young and emerging composers, and presenting adventurous works in non-traditional settings. These endeavors include the The Sound of Science alongside Kronos Quartet’s longtime cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Insectum with Zeigler and drummer/percussionist Susie Ibarra, and MXTX: A Cross-Border Exchange; a multi-faceted project comprised of a live performance, album, remixes, and open-source audio sample library involving more than 40 artists from Texas and Mexico.

Reynolds leads the jazz-based but far reaching Golden Arm Trio, is a company member with the internationally acclaimed Rude Mechs theater collective, and resident composer with Salvage Vanguard Theater and Forklift Danceworks. His accolades include a Creative Capital Award, an Independent Music Award, two Frederick R. Loewe Music Theatre Awards, ten Austin Critics Table Awards, the John Bustin Award, multiple Austin Chronicle ‘Best Composer’ wins, and a B. Iden Payne Award. MARFA: A Country & Western Big Band Suite (Fall 2019) broke into the top 100 on the NACC radio charts along with a track premiere in Billboard. In 2020, Graham signed with London-based record label Fire Records and released his original score for Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic, The Lodger. His most recent release with Fire, Music for Prophet (Parts 1-4), dropped earlier this year, offering a glimpse into a forthcoming full-length solo album slated for release in 2025.

Margaret Mitchell has been an active member of USITT since 1988 when she joined the institute as a graduate student. In 1991 she was part of the student team who built the USA National Exhibition for the PQ. She has also served on the PQ organizational team twice, and she has given many conference presentations related to international initiatives and the history of stage design. Ms. Mitchell has designed costumes and scenery professionally for over 30 years, and she is a Professor Emerita of Theatre Arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, TX. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Texas Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in Costume Design and Technology from the University of Texas at Austin. Ms. Mitchell’s design work has represented the United States at the Prague Quadrennial three times and has been exhibited at World Stage Design. Recently her costume designs have been included in exhibitions at El Centro Nacional a Bellas Artes in Mexico City and at the Bucharest World Costume in Action Exhibition in Romania. Her costume designs are included in the permanent collection of the Robert L. B. Tobin Theatre Arts Collection at the McNay Art Museum. Ms. Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors of USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technology) and has served for many years on the International Committee and on the Publications Committee. She is a General Editor (and has served as a guest editor) for TD&T. She is the Vice Chair for Research for the Costume Designers of OISTAT. With Oscar Brockett and Linda Hardberger, she is a co-author of Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United States. She was one of the keynote speakers for USITT’s 50^th anniversary conference. In 2022 Ms. Mitchell became a USITT Fellow.