Flux Theatre Ensemble Reveals New Creative Partners

Flux Theatre Ensemble has announced that Miranda Holliday, Julianna Kantor, Montserrat Mendez, Kristen Palmer, Chester Poon, Adam Szymkowicz, and Justin Woo have joined the ensemble as Creative Partners. In Flux’s equitable organizational structure, all Creative Partners serve as artistic and executive directors through a non-hierarchical leadership model. Flux practices innovative shared power through consensus-based decision-making, collectively held resources and labor, and artistic collaboration. Flux’s approach to making theatre has been honored with a Caffé Cino Fellowship Award, a Fractured Atlas' Arts Entrepreneurship Award, has been featured in HowlRound, and shared through presentations with Network of Ensemble Theatres, Theatre Communications Group, and the 2025 NarraScope Conference. 

In addition to its new members, Flux’s Creative Partnership includes Corey Allen, Neo Cihi, Heather Cohn, Sienna Gonzalez, Emily Hartford, Rachael Hip-Flores, kia rogers, Will Lowry, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Anna Rahn, Corinna Schulenburg, Alisha Spielmann, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Jason Tseng, and Chris Wight. 

Said Creative Partner Emily Hartford, “This class of Creative Partners brings an enormous creative energy and thrillingly brilliant artistic practice into the ensemble. They represent many modes of work and multiple generations of Flux history—from Adam Szymkowicz’s Pretty Theft, premiered by Flux in 2009, to Miranda Holliday and Julianna Kantor’s producing and artistic contributions to Methods in Madness in 2024. These seven artists have all been critical in Flux’s pursuit of an Aesthetic of Liberation, and we could not be luckier than to invite them into co-leadership with us.”

Adam Szymkowicz said, “I have been hanging out with Flux since around 2007 or so and I have worked with them on a shocking number of plays over the years.  They are my artistic collaborators and dear friends and I'm overjoyed to join the company.”

Miranda Holliday shared, “Flux Theatre Ensemble, as its name hints, continues to create community and space for artists in process, and encourages creatives to embrace uncertainty and transformation in their work. I am so excited to begin assisting in ushering in the future of American Theatre. I couldn't imagine a better group of people to spend my time with.”

"Since participating in Flux Sundays, this ensemble of theater makers has been a space of authenticity, risk and expansion for me, and now with going on twenty years of growth and trust, I'm excited to contribute and evolve with them,” said Kristen Palmer.

"Everything about Flux excites me—its non-hierarchical organizational structure, its Core Values, and its amazing original work, but most especially the incredibly kind and talented people involved. I'm honored to be counted amongst their number, and I aspire to live up to their example," said Justin Woo.

Shared Julianna Kantor, “Flux has been such an integral part of finding myself as an artist and human as I navigated my role as the ‘Flux squire.’ And now, I am so honored to be joining the round table—if you will—of passionate creatives as we uplift Flux in its pursuit of connection, liberation, celebration, and confrontation. Huzzah!” 

Chester Poon said, “Flux has always offered a space for me to nurture the artistic part of myself. I'm honored to deepen my relationship with Flux and to give back where I can.”

“I’d admired Flux Theatre Ensemble for years, but it wasn’t until Heather Cohn directed my work that I realized it could be a true home for me as a writer. Her relentless, precise demand for truth has altered the way I write, has changed me, and still surprises me. To be asked to join Flux as a Creative Partner is a profound honor,” said Montserrat Mendez.

FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE pollinates plays and culture to grow creative kinship. Against the dominance of exploitative systems, Flux advances collective care, long-term artistic collaboration, and shared power. Rooted in New York City theatre, we follow where our people lead: across distance, disciplines, and generations. Rising toward liberation, we create the worlds we need, an act of play at a time. Founded in 2006, Flux has created 31 full productions and seeded the creation of over 500 new works. Flux Theatre Ensemble is a twenty-three time New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee, including wins for Operating Systems, Jane the Plain, Ajax in Iraq, and The Angel Eaters Trilogy. NYIT has also awarded Flux the prestigious Caffé Cino Fellowship Award for "consistently producing outstanding work." In 2016, Flux was named a Fractured Atlas' Arts Entrepreneurship Awards Honoree for its Living Ticket initiative. Flux is the proud recipient of two NYC Fringe Festival Awards (2007 Village Voice Audience Favorite Award for Riding the Bull; 2008 Outstanding Direction Award for Other Bodies), received a Citation for Excellence in Off-Off Broadway Theatre from the Independent Theater Bloggers Association, and is one of Indie Theatre Now’s “People of the Decade.”

Miranda Holliday (they/she) is an Afro Latine, queer, gender non-conforming playwright, librettist, dramaturg, musician, vocalist, and designer from Columbus, NJ. Their works (Brother, Arroz Con Pollo) have been performed at Feinstein’s/54 Below, Rattlestick, and NYU. Performance credits include Ain’t Misbehavin’, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun (Kennedy Center Honor), and 504: A Disability Rights Act Musical. They have contributed as writer, assistant director, composer, and dramaturg. Miranda holds a dual degree in Theatre and Political Science from Albright College and an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch.

Julianna MacKenzie Kantor (she/they), also known as Jules to Flux, is a Brooklyn based theatre artist from Charlotte, North Carolina. She's passionate about companies that emphasize accessibility in the arts, advocacy, social justice, and development of new works—all of which is what led her to Flux. Their projects with Flux include the staged reading of Aves+Autta+Ino+Mel, Methods in Madness at The Brick Theater, and the staged reading of Fear and Wonder. Outside of Flux, recent credits include: Regicide at SoHo Playhouse, Monstress of Seduction (Pace University's IPE Showcase), and Cloche: A Menu of New Works (The Cult Theatre Collective). In terms of her other acting, props designing, directing, teaching, and writing feel free to check her out on IG at: @julianna_kantor

Montserrat Mendez (him/him) tells stories where history, politics, and myth collide in the present. His chamber musical El Fuego y Su Heredero, about Lolita Lebrón’s armed uprising in the U.S. Capitol, was a finalist for the Perelman PAC’s Democratic Cycle. He created Sombraluz O La Presencia at The People’s Theatre, a play that went on to be a Terrence McNally/Rattlestick Finalist and received support from Mid-Atlantic Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. A proud member of Retro Productions and the Dramatists Guild, he’s currently working on new plays for Drops in the Vase and Cry Havoc’s Play List 2025. As a member of Core Work with Flux Theatre Ensemble, he developed A Full Blown Horror Story and Rebecca Roman Redd at the Most Dangerous Hour. Instagram @TheRicanteur

Kristen Palmer (she/her) is a playwright, director and educator. Her plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and elsewhere and are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Original Works, and Stage Partners. She is an alumna of the Women’s Project Lab, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, was a Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights Center and a Dramatist Guild Fellow. She spent her 20s making theater as a company member of Printer’s Devil Theatre in Seattle. She is currently Head of Theater at the Greater Hartford Academy of Arts Half-Day Program.

Chester Poon (he/him) last appeared with Flux in a staged workshop of The Elephant Play. Other Flux credits include Hearts Like Fists, Jane the Plain, and Rebecca Roman Redd (staged reading). He's a dog dad to Pepper and has been recently doing deep dives into the culinary arts.

Adam Szymkowicz's (he/him) plays have been produced throughout the US and in twenty-five other countries. Thirty-two of his plays are published as are a graphic novel, a monologue book, and a book about playwriting, “Letters To A Young Playwright.”  He holds graduate degrees from Columbia and Juilliard and has interviewed over 1100 playwrights on his blog. Two of his plays were NY Times Critic’s Picks, one of which, Hearts Like Fists, was produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble.  Flux also produced Pretty Theft and commissioned and premiered Marian or the True Tale of Robin Hood.

Justin Woo (he/him) is a Chinese-American poet, theatre maker, screenwriter, filmmaker, actor, spoken word artist, and musician. He has worked with Flux on The Belle, The Ether, The Go Bag Plays, and The Elephant Play. His award-winning films have been shown as part of the Asian American Film Lab 72 Hour Shootout, the Almost Famous Film Festival, the Garden State Film Festival, and the Portland Film Festival. He represented Jersey City at the 2011 and 2012 National Poetry Slam, and his poetry has appeared as part of The Spoken Word Almanac Project, Poetic People Power, and Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel.