Founders Jessica Finney, Jason Brown and Matt Di Cintio
photo by Todd Buchanan for City South Magazine

Matt Di Cintio [matt (at) emigranttheater (dot) org] is originally from the Eastern Shore of Maryland; he has served as Director of Advocacy & Outreach for Outward Spiral and as dramaturg for the Guthrie Theater, Park Square Theatre, Great American History Theatre, Playwrights’ Center, PlayMakers Repertory (including the American premiere of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany) and TheatreVirginia. His plays have been seen in Alaska, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, San Francisco and Virginia, including a translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salome, an adaptation of Moby-Dick and ET’s inaugural production The Presence of Children. His play Lady Liberty Gets Put Back Together was a finalist for the 2005 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Prize. Matt is also the author of translations of The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Maids, and adaptations of Chopin’s The Awakening and the 1959 Godard/Truffaut film Breathless.

While supporting his playwriting habit, Matt has harassed editors at the Tennessee Williams Annual Review, Shakespeare in American Communities, Chapel Hill News, City Pages, The Playwrights’ Center Monologues for Men, The Playwrights’ Center Monologues for Women, Encyclopedia of Modern Drama and American Theatre, where he was an affiliated writer. Matt holds a B.A. in Theatre and French from the University of Richmond and an M.A. in Romance Languages from the University of North Carolina (really). Member: Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center, Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas, American Literary Translators Association.

Jessica Finney [jess (at) emigranttheater (dot) org] emigrated to the Twin Cities after a year in Portland, Maine, a year in Philadelphia, a year in Raleigh, and a week in Hurricane, West Virginia (if you really want to know, just ask). Originally from Dry Fork, Virginia, she has a B.A. in Theatre and French from the University of Richmond and has trained at the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.  As a director, credits include Emigrant’s Jesus Hates Me, Hunger, THOM PAIN (based on nothing), Tallgrass Gothic, A Corner of the World and its inaugural production The Presence of Children, work on Pericles and A Christmas Carol (The Guthrie Theater), Raw Stages at the History Theatre, the world premiere of Lillian Groag’s MIDONS: or the Object of Desire (People’s Light & Theatre Company) and Shelley Berc’s Whale and Draven Gonzalez’s Fenced In (Portland Stage Company).   

Jess is a practitioner of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. She has trained with Boal at Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed conferences in the Twin Cities and in Omaha. She has led Forum theatre workshops in Richmond and Portland and uses the method in her directing.  

Jess got her AEA card stage managing at People’s Light and Portland Stage; those pastimes included James Still’s Looking Over the President’s Shoulder, Once in a Lifetime, A View from the Bridge, A Delicate Balance, A Perfect Ganesh, The Misanthrope and two versions of A Christmas Carol.  She has also stage managed many of the Guthrie Theater's New Play Program workshops, including plays by Naomi Iizuka, Chuck Mee, and Julie Marie Myatt to name a few.