Joshua Conkel

Co-Artistic Director

After seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the tender age of eleven, Joshua simultaneously became obsessed with performance, rock and roll, and underground pop culture. After spending the following seven years as a child actor/ teenage delinquent, he enrolled at Cornish College of the Arts where he began studying acting.

Frustrated by the lack of interesting plays and roles available for queers/weirdos/and other outcasts, Joshua began to write and direct his own work and switched over to Cornish’s Original Works program. These four years were spent feverishly writing plays and haphazardly producing them. Joshua’s plays written during this period include A Love Story for People Who Hate Everything, Pretty as a Picture or The Story of a Girl Who was Almost in a Warrant Video, Odd Days/Even Days, White Trash Waltzing, and his solo piece The Invisible Boy Says Goodbye.

During his senior year, Joshua caught the attention of playwright Craig Lucas, which enabled him to get an internship assistant directing The Light in the Piazza at the Intiman Theater. The musical would later move to Broadway and win six Tony awards.

He relocated to New York immediately after graduating from Cornish and accepted a rare acting role as Myrna in The Management’s production of Naomi Iizuka’s Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls. Little did he know he would be the company’s Artistic Director within the year.

Joshua most recently directed Self-Obsession in Blue for the first annual Capital Fringe Festival in Washington DC and premiered his newest play, The Chalk Boy, at Chashama in New York City. He most recently appeared as a performer in Target Margin's Aristophanic Laboratory at H.E.R.E.

In terms of writing projects, Joshua is currently working on a web series called Chris and Chris are Heinous Bitches as well as a stand-up act for his altar ego, 1980's lady stand-up Peggy DiMarco.

Joshua lives in Brooklyn with his boyfriend, Keith Rohn. For more information, visit www.tarhearted.typepad.com