I grew up in Zimbabwe, a country whose most salient trait is the richness and vibrancy of culture. My childhood was split equally between the joys of rural traditional life and the excitement of the capital city. Movement and dance became a part of me very early on from the rituals and ceremonies in the country, to putting on my shiny shoes and ballroom dancing in the city. My training in Zimbabwe was in traditional dance and music and ballroom dance. The martial arts were also very important in further heightening my kinesthetic acuity. After receiving a scholarship to study in Hong Kong I took up contemporary dance and expressive movement along with Playback Theatre. This also when my interest in visual art peeked and my focus on legitimizing the creative process in both the visual and performing arts began. I came to Maine by way of another scholarship to the College of the Atlantic where I continued to learn and teach, choreograph and produce performances and art shows. I also founded the Zimbabwean non-profit ndini wako, which focuses on using the arts to raise money for the education of HIV/AIDS orphans. I graduated with my BA in Human Ecology focused on Creative Studies.

Annaliese Jakimides - Poet

Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and visual artist. Her prose and poetry have been published in many journals and magazines like Utne, GQ, Hip Mama, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The MacGuffin, and included in collections, most recently The Other Side of Sorrow and the forthcoming The Long Meanwhile, where her short story will do time along with those of Alice McDermott, Lydia Davis, and others. Her essays continue to be broadcast on public radio. She writes the arts interview (Work in Progress) and essay (Last Word) for Bangor Metro magazine (www.bangormetro.com).

Recently, her poems “Watching” and “Shuttering My Boy” were cited in the Diner poetry journal competition, judged by Maine poet laureate Betsy Sholl.

After living for 27 years on 40 acres on a dirt road in northern Maine, she now lives in an apartment in the old Bangor High School in downtown Bangor, Maine.

Laurie Schreiber is a writer, reporting for a weekly newspaper, freelancing for other outlets, dabbling in short stories and poetry, and formerly a corporate copy writer. She has travelled extensively, most notably biking through Europe, Southeast Asia and the Subcontinent. A song- writer, pianist and percussionist, she co-founded and led an experimental band until its demise, and continues to write and perform on her own and with other groups. As a parent, she has organized or facilitated many creative workshops for her son and their friends. She acted for the first time last fall with the Meetinghouse Theater Lab in Almost Maine. Tango Slaves is her first outing as a script-writer.

Much of my creative outlet has been in sewing, mostly bags and banners.  I learned to sew from my grandmother, Emma Russell, who ever so patiently catered to my every sewing whim.  I think I received my interest in working with canvas and using scraps from my father, Charles Russell, who, when I was young, commissioned the local awning & upholstery shop to construct a lean-to tent for ice skaters made from canvas leftovers--it was magical.   I love bags and containers and made one of my first bags for my infant son out of the scraps of maternitiy clothes I had made for myself.   Later I worked in a canvas and awning shop and had access to all the scraps I wanted.  It feels good to use/reuse what is left. This is my 3rd apron -a library work apron.  Thanks to those who came before me - that includes you, Kate.

Cynthia Thayer is a writer and fiber artist. Her novels, A Certain Slant of Light, Strong for Potatoes, and most recently, A Brief Lunacy, from Algonquin Books were written after she turned 50. She is also a screenwriter and writes travel essays for Northern New England Journey, AAA. She teaches fiction writing with Turnstone Writers Workshop and Schoodic Arts for All. Her hats change often from spinner to thespian to arts organizer. For the past 31 years, she and her husband, Bill have operated Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro.

Rae Dumont is a pediatrician and family therapist, and  Wednesday Spinner. She plays with fiber, color and sound in her free time, and loves jazz piano.

Jennifer Shepard is an actress with 20 years of experience. She has done everything from Greek Tragedy to Avant Garde performance art. After graduating from the University of Iowa, she moved to Chicago to study improvisation. During her nine years in Chicago, she was fortunate enough to perform at iO (ImprovOlympic) and The Playground Theater. She also worked with The Chicago Comedy Co, touring to colleges and writing corporate comedy. While in Chicago, Jennifer helped to write over 10 sketch comedy shows. In Maine she is co-owner and performer and director at ImprovAcadia in Bar Harbor. She also teaches improv at The College of the Atlantic, the Beth C. Wright Cancer Resource Center, on Isle Au Haut, and at ImprovAcadia. In the winter she joins the cast of Chicago's Second City performing in the Caribbean.

Larrance Fingerhut has been improvising on the piano since he was two years old. After spending 13 years performing and composing in the Bar Harbor area he went to Chicago where he was music director for ImprovOlympic, Baby Wants Candy, and Second City Touring Company, and a teacher and music director at Columbia College. He composes chamber music and music for theater. He has now returned to Maine where he is co-owner and music director of ImprovAcadia in Bar Harbor. In the winter months he again is joining the cast of Chicago's Second City performing in the Caribbean.

Carl Karush is an actor, director, singer, songwriter, dancer and showman.  It has been his pleasure to work most recently with MHTL in Winter Harbor, playing two roles in Precious Jade, two in All in the Timing and two in Almost, Maine.  He is now priveleged to be collaborating with the very talented writer, Laurie Schreiber, in their first dramatic offering, Tango Slaves: the Behind Behind the Apron. Carl plays mandolin and guitar and sings with the Sheep Island Rovers string and contra-dance band. He plays tamboura and sings with the Bar Harbor folk orchestra and is an accompaniest to the Maine Balkan Woman's Choir and most recently singer/ songwriter Laurie Schreiber.  As a folk musician, Carl offers entertaining solo performances with music ranging from country blues to klezmer.

Tennille currently teaches mathematics at Mount Desert Island High School, while giving private instrumental lessons in her free time. She earned her BA in both music and mathematics at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. Her music career began in first grade with the violin and quickly grew to include the oboe, flute, and piano by age 13. Tennille has been playing the bagpipes for 12 years and is now in her sixth year of solo competitions as a grade 3 piper. She has studied in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; Kingston, Ontario, and Fredericton, New Brunswick with professional solo pipers, and has played in the West Eden Highlanders Pipes and Drums of Bar Harbor, the Maine St. Andrews Pipes and Drums of Ellsworth, the folk trio The SeaGaels, and the recently formed Blue Hill Ceildh Band. Tennille has also studied many forms of dance including clogging, Cape Breton Step, and highland dancing.

Kate Russell Henry was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and now has lived on MDI nearly four times as long as anywhere else.  Her creative self has grown up here on the Maine Coast. Kate is a spinner and weaver living in Southwest Harbor with her husband, Eric Henry. She has raised three arts oriented children who continue to influence her  every day.  She recently retired as artistic director for MDI’s Summer Festival of the Arts, a summer arts camp for children. She has collected over 100 antique aprons and is watching them come to life with over 30 artists in “Behind the Apron” this spring, 2007.

Tony Cox is proud to be a part of this all star cast of talented performers. Tony owns two aprons; one for dishes, which bears his college alma mater, The University of Maine (Go Blue!), and a seperate apron for BBQing embroidered with a big orange number 20, for his favorite racecar driver, Tony Stewart. Tony is most well known for his many stage appreances, both at Hammond Hall with the Meetinghouse Theatre Lab, and at The Grand with the Grand Players. Tony also makes up one half of the Rythym & Blues Revue: A Tribute to The Blues Brothers as the cartwheeling Jake Blues. In recent years Tony has turned his attention to filmmaking. With one completed short film, Hope's Edge, which premiered last September at The Grand's Film Weekend, and one "in the can" as they say, Tony hope's to further his filmmaking expertise and soon join the glittery ranks of Hollywood.