Wood Bones - STAFF

Ryan Victor Pierce, Eagle Project Founder & Artistic Director

Ryan Victor Pierce is Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, originally from Southern New Jersey and Delaware. While he grew up around various US cities (Cincinnati, Ohio, Boston, Massachusetts, and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area), he had the privilege and the honor of receiving his Lenape name, "Little Eagle," on original Lenape land at the age of 12 by his great uncle, the late Rodney Edwards, "Strong Oak."

Upon graduation from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Ryan has performed in various readings, staged readings, and full productions at such renown theatrical institutions as the Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, New Dramatists, LaMaMa E.T.C., Playwrights Horizons, and New York City Opera at Lincoln Center.

Throughout his career, Ryan has also devoted much of his time performing in and helping to develop theatrical works of indigenous people from the US and around the world. Many of those works have been developed and performed at the American Indian Community House of New York City, AMERINDA, The Culture Project, Times Square Playwrights, the Australian Aboriginal Theater Initiative, as well as the United Nations.

Having a passion to incorporate American voices that aren't frequently heard, especially those of Native Americans, into the performing arts arena, Ryan founded the Eagle Project in 2012.

William S. Yellow Robe, Jr., Wood Bones Playwright

William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. is one of America’s most renowned Native American playwrights. A member of Assiniboine/Sioux tribes of the Fort Peck Indian reservation, located in Northeastern Montana, he is the first Assiniboine playwright to receive the First Book Award for Drama, a Princess Grace Fellowship-Award (Theater fellowship), a Jerome Fellowship, a New England Theater Conference Award for Excellence. Yellow Robe's full-length play, Grandchildren of Buffalo Soldiers finished its national tour produced by the Penumbra Theater Company and Trinity Repertory Company. Yellow Robe is a published playwright, poet, and short fiction writer. He is also an accomplished actor and director. He is a company member of the Ensemble Studio Theater, Penumbra Theater Company, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Red Eagle Soaring Theater Company and the Missoula Writer's Collaborative.



Bob Jaffe, Wood Bones Director

Bob Jaffe works independently as an Actor and Director, and has performed regionally and Off- Broadway in New York, as well as on film and television.  He is one of the founding Artistic Directors of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab, dedicated to the development of new plays.

His work as director with William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. and the No Borders Inter-Tribal Indigenous Theater Company has produced staged readings of Mr. Yellow Robe's plays at Brown and Georgetown Universities, as well as the Mashantucket Pequot Museum at Foxwoods. Bob directed the World Premiere of Mr. Yellow Robe’s Better-n-Indins at Perishable Theater. Other directing credits include: the NY premiere of Were You There When the Sugar Beets Got Married?, commissioned by the violinist Midori, with text and illustrations by Maurice Sendak and music by Pierre Jalbert; Grammy Award winner Bill Harley’s one-man show, Get Lost: Rules for Travelers; Keith Munslow’s Thick Cut Bacon and Other Stories; Pieces of War, written and performed by Kenny Carnes.  In the summer of 2006, Bob had the honor of providing stage direction for a gala tribute to Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, in which the honorees performed an evening of readings and poetry.

His most recent project was the development and direction of Susan Merson’s newest solo show When They Go and You Do Not, which premiered at the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles in October, 2011 and in New York in November, 2011.  He is an Artist-in-Residence at the Cell in New York, a member of the Actors Studio’s Playwrights and Directors Unit, and a Board Member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Rachel Guilfoyle, Wood Bones Costume Designer

Currently: Scrambled Eggs at Theatre Row, Assisting on The Designated Mourner and Grasses of a Thousand Colors at The Public Theater. Rachel’s favorite designs have been featured in NYC with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lincoln Center Institute, The Cell, NY Theatre Barn, Manhattan School of Music, La MaMa ETC, & The Fringe Festival. Regional: Barefoot In The Park, I Love You, You're Perfect…, Steel Magnolias, Once Upon A Time In New Jersey (Surflight Theater). Assistant Design credits include work with Prospect Theater Company, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, The McCarter Theatre and Bay Street Theater. BFA, SUNY Purchase. www.RachelGuilfoyle.com

Gertjan Houben, Wood Bones Lighting & Projection Designer

Gertjan Houben is a New York based designer with an international background. Recent US  productions include: Sakharam Binder by Vijay Tendulkar  (Columbia University); Bartholomew Fair by Ben Johnson (Muhlenberg College, PA) which received a Kennedy Center ACTF Outstanding Lighting Design Award; Bourgeois Pig by Brighde Mullins (Muhlenberg College, PA), Hard Times, An American Musical by Larry Kirwan (the cell); 44 Plays for 44 Presidents by The Neo-Futurists (Muhlenberg College, PA); Miss Lilly gets Boned by Bekah Brunstetter (Studio 42, Ice Factory); Pinocchio's Ashes by Jokum Rohde (SATC); The Clearing by Jake Jeppson (Axial Theater, Pleasantville NY); A Midsummer Nights Dream (Muhlenberg College, PA). International credits include Andre Rieu's televised spectacles at Radio City Music Hall and the Toronto Skydome and DJ Tiesto live in Rotterdam Harbour for the Volvo Ocean Race. Gertjan has a Bachelor in Arts from the Amsterdam Theater School, and a MFA from NYU Tisch's Department of Design for Stage and Film.  www.gertjanhouben.com

Miranda Plant, Eagle Project Associate

Miranda Plant is a Canadian performer and producer. She co-founded a theatre company in Toronto called Theatre In Her Shoes, and co-produced the SummerWorks production of Ablaze, and Leashkid, as well as co-created the "Footprints Festival" to showcase the new Canadian works of female playwrights, and executive produced the Canadian premiere of Seth Rudetsky's Deconstructing Broadway. In New York, Miranda has had the pleasure of producing with companies such as AnimalParts Theatre, and their 2012 Edinburgh Fringe tour of Tenderpits, and is currently producing Shakespeare's The Tempest with Eureka Suitcase Classics in the inaugural South Seaport Shakespeare Festival in association with the Office of the Mayor of New York City. She also is working as a producer with the Equity productions of TITAN Theatre's Romeo & Juliet, and has been proud to work with The Eagle Project’s Wood Bones team.