Staff

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Makoto Hirano
Co-Artistic Director

Makoto Hirano (he/him) is a Philadelphia-based choreographer and theatre-maker. His award-winning, original performance projects have been presented nationally in numerous venues and festivals including Off-Broadway at the National Asian American Theatre Festival (NYC), DanceTruck (Atlanta, GA), Ringling Museum (Sarasota, FL), Yale University (CT), and FringeArts (Philadelphia, PA). As a freelance collaborating performer, Hirano has originated over 25 roles, with highlights that include projects with Bill Irwin, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, and Thaddeus Phillips/Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental. Hirano is a founding member and current advisor to the arts collective PAPA (Philly Asian Performing Artists); co-founder of installation art duo Gatto+Hirano; co-founder of Team Sunshine Performance where he is a creator, producer, performer, administrator, and choreographer (2018 Barrymore-Award nomination for Outstanding Choreography for ¡BIENVENIDOS BLANCOS! OR WELCOME WHITE PEOPLE!, as well as Lead Artist for the forthcoming The Great American Gunshow. From 2007-2014 Hirano was a Facilitator with Philly/Baltimore/South Carolina-based professional development program Artists U. A former U.S. Marine, Hirano earned his BFA in dance at Temple University.

Alex Torra
Co-Artistic Director

Alex Torra is a Miami-born, Philadelphia-based director, performer, producer, and educator. He is the Co-Founder and Resident Director of Team Sunshine Performance, where he serves as one of the company’s primary administrators and has directed most of the company’s full-length works including Punchkapow, Japanamerica Wonderwave, Henry IV: Your Prince and Mine, The Sincerity Projects (1,2, and 3) and ¡BIENVENIDOS BLANCOS! OR WELCOME WHITE PEOPLE!. Alex is also an Associate Artist and former Associate Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company, where he has worked as Performer/Creator and Creative Producer on many of the company’s works since 2007. 

​Alex received a 2018 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and he has also received fellowships from the Independence Foundation, the Philadelphia Live Arts Brewery, the Princess Grace Foundation (the Grace Le Vine Theatre Award), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and NY's Drama League. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. in Directing from Brown University. Alex currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Swarthmore College, where he directs often and teaches Devised Performance, Directing, and Acting.

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Benjamin Camp
​Co-Founder

Benjamin Camp  is an performer/creator and a Co-Founder of Team Sunshine Performance Corporation. He was lead artist for Team Sunshine’s Punchkapow, Terrarium, Zombie Defense Consultations, and Your Optimism Is Not Required as well as a core collaborator on all Team Sunshine projects and events including ¡BIENVENIDOS BLANCOS! OR WELCOME WHITE PEOPLE!, JapanAmerica Wonderwave, Henry IV: Your Prince and Mine, and The Sincerity Project.

​Benjamin was awarded the 2014 Independence Foundation Fellowship, was a 2015 Haas Emerging Artist Nominee, and has had the pleasure of working with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Shakespeare in Clark Park, Theater Horizon, and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, among others. Benjamin graduated with a BA Theater Major from Swarthmore College and completed the full program of Lecoq style training in physical theater and ensemble created theater at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA). He has also co-founded Camp Bonfire, a summer camp for adults, and serves the artist community as a realtor and managing partner of the Camp Cammisa Steinreide Joslin (CCSJ) Team at Elfant Wissahickon Realtors.

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Phoebe Schaub
Director of Operations & Education

Phoebe Schaub is a multimedia artist, with her feet in the worlds of both live performance and narrative film. In addition to her work with Team Sunshine, she is a Screener and Programmer for the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, a co-founder and former company member of Found Theater Company, and a former Teaching Artist and Mentor of the Resident Playwrights at Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Highlights of her work as a producer include screening at the Academy Award-Qualifying Palm Springs International ShortFest and New Hampshire Film Festivals, co-producing and curating the Secret Show Series (presented by the Knight Foundation at Painted Bride Art Center), serving as the Associate Producer of The Philadelphia Thing's Trade School festival, and the thousands of hours spent creating and supporting collaborative, wild, shoestring-budget works of art in spaces not designed with art in mind. She holds a BA in theater, with a concentration in directing, from Temple University.​

Nicole Renna
​Digital Content Manager

Nicole Renna is a singer, director, writer, voice teacher, and creative producer working in Philadelphia. She has extensive experience performing in musical theater, cabaret, and opera.  She debuted her solo cabaret RENNAISSANCE in 2023 at the Perch Music and Arts Workshop and serves as a creative consultant to actors seeking to create their first solo works. Nicole is the Producing Artistic Director of ENAensemble, staging performances of their Serial Opera Project and mentoring singers, composers, and librettists who work with the ensemble. She teaches the Musical Theatre Vocal Workshop at the Walnut Street Theatre and private voice lessons to beginners and pros alike! She holds a M.M. in Voice Performance from Temple University and a B.M. in Music Education from Rutgers University.

​For more info, visit nicolerenna.net.

Rachel DiBlasio
Development Associate

Rachel DiBlasio is an opera-singing-actor, music teacher, and arts administrator based in Philadelphia. Interested in art as a mirror in which we both see ourselves as we are and as we wish to become, Rachel is invested in both traditional and contemporary opera-theater work, cross-genre collaboration, and intimate theater spaces. Rachel has sung with Opera Delaware, Opera Baltimore, ENA Ensemble, Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Symphonic Choir. Rachel's most formative performance experiences include singing in Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem and Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at Carnegie Hall and in Bernstein’s MASS at the Kimmel Center, all with Westminster Symphonic Choir. In 2020, Rachel won the overall curation prize in Opera MODO's aria competition and was selected as one of the 24 finalists in the Rochester International Vocal Competition. Rachel holds degrees from Temple University and Westminster Choir College.

Board

Amanda Chudnow
Katie Samson
Liz Green
Sarah Bishop-Stone
Stephanie Harmelin
​Elizabeth Scanlon