Our Team
Francesca Chilcote, Co-Artistic Director
Francesca holds a BA in Theatre from The College of William and Mary and an MFA in Physical Theatre from the Accademia dell'Arte (Arezzo, IT), where she studied commedia dell’arte under Maestro Marcello Bartoli. Her master’s thesis work, “The Creation of (Wo)Man: Using Corporal and Carnivalesque Elements of the Commedia dell’Arte to Interrogate Origins of the Female Representation, in text of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and on the Stage of the Commedia Players,” examined the roles of women in the commedia, and sought to transform these roles through feminist theatre techniques. In 2013, she toured Italy with “Theatrino,” a Theatre-In-Education company that utilizes emotion-based learning to teach English in Italian schools. In 2014, she co-founded Women From Mars and devised and performed WFM’s first piece, “Silent Reflections,” at the Crisis Art Festival in Arezzo, Italy, a festival she helped collectively organize from 2011-2014. Now based in Washington, DC, she has worked with: The Welders (where she was a co-devisor of LadyM, a dark clown piece about witches and menstruation), Nu Sass Productions, Brave Spirits Theatre, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Adventure Theatre MTC, and Discovery Theatre at the Smithsonian Institution. She teaches clown, commedia, and devising at the Performing and Visual Arts magnet program at Annapolis High School in Anne Arundel County, MD. Francesca is a certified teacher of the Elemental Body Alignment System (EBAS). Her work as an Italian translator is featured in The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’arte.
Kathryn Zoerb, Co-Artistic Director
Kathryn is an actor and yoga instructor (E-RYT 500 & RPYT) in the DMV area and a proud Fool since 2015. Kathryn received her BA in Theatre and Music from the University of Pittsburgh, studied Commedia dell’Arte with Maestro Antonio Fava at ArscomicA in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and studied physical theatre and Commedia dell’Arte at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy. Commedia dell’Arte is Kathryn’s love language and she adores all the specificity, physicality, and silliness the form has to offer. Past productions with the Fools include Love Like Tuesday, Missed Connections, Our Town, The Miser, Foolish Fairytales, The Cherry Orchard, The Great Commedia Hotel Murder Mystery, Bean & Widge Go to the Park, Seasons 1 & 2 of Foolish Fridays, and the 6th and 7th “Fool for All”s. As an actor, she has also had the privilege of working with Folger Theatre, Imagination Stage, Taffety Punk Theatre Company, The Puppet Co, WSC Avant Bard, Rep Stage, Spooky Action Theatre, NextStop Theatre Company, Brave Spirits Theatre, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, and Compass Rose Theatre. In the education world, Kathryn has had the joy to teach with JumpBunch Fitness for Kids, Creative Kids, Theatre Lab, and Gamut Theatre Summer Academy. She also loves her partner-in-crime, traveling, cheese, Rick Steves, jazz, cheese, New Orleans, her pit bull, cheese, and Xena: Warrior Princess. www.KathrynZoerb.com
Danny Cackley, Associate Artistic Director
Danny has been collaborating with the Fools since 2012, beginning with a short scenari for Commedia dell’Arte Day. Since then he’s been in three full productions (Cherry Orchard, Foolish Fairytales, and Love Like Tuesday), numerous Fool-for-Alls, and a handful of Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage performances. He hopes that with a little love and a LOT of hard work, he can help Faction of Fools continue to grow and develop art that entertains, educates, inspires, and uplifts.
Tara Cariaso, Commedia & Style Consultant and Resident Maskmaker
Tara is a Filipina-American, Baltimore-based educator of physical theatre, archetypes, somatic acting, mask performance, and is founder/designer for Waxing Moon Masks Education and Fabrication Company. Tara earned her MFA from Dell’Arte Int'l School of Physical Theatre, and has received funding from GRIT FUND, Baltimore BASE Grant, and Alternate Roots to support her work in anti-oppressive organizing for DMV area educators. Her ongoing work with non-profit B4 Youth Theatre uses somatic practices for social justice play-making in Liberia, West Africa, and her pedagogy “Embodying Archetypes” is being used in devised theater practices across Maryland. She has been resident mask maker and consultant for Faction of Fools since 2021, reimagining an anti-oppressive Commedia Dell'Arte framework, character creation processes and masks for the next generation of comic actors. Current Projects: Tara is collaborating with artists Sheila Gaskins and Maura Dwyer producing PUPPETS MASKS & CRANKIES: SHIFTING THE STORY, an education and critical conversation workshop series through April of 2023, which highlights the gatekeeping of performance tools such as masks in BIPOC communities; and in Spring of 2023, she will direct the premiere of one woman show, CRISIS MODE: A PHILIPINA IN AMERICA, by Cori Dioquino at the Strand Theatre in Baltimore.
