Meet The Team

  • Artistic/Executive Director

    Catherine Rouvinov-Kats (née Alam-Nist) is a director, designer and researcher born in Washington D.C. Catherine’s work combines academic inquiry with creative experimentation, as has been put into practice in numerous Cunning Folk shows. Her academic work centres on the relationship between Jewish religious concepts and theatrical aesthetics; as a director, she is most interested in stories that centre religious questions and experiences, particularly those of women. Her work pairs an approach to theatre as an embodied container for metaphysical inquiry with stylistic approaches that allow for interdisciplinary experimentation and blurring of the performer/audience binary. For the Cunning Folk, she has directed ‘Selkie Play’ (2023), ‘Measure for Measure’ and ‘A Neufaust’ (both 2024), and ‘Stories’ (2025). Other directorial credits include assistant directing ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (2024) and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ (2023) at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA, as well as numerous directing credits during her education (favourites include ‘Angels in America: Perestroika’ and ‘Selkie Play’, both at Yale College). She has studied at Yale College and Harvard Divinity School, and is beginning doctoral study in Religion, Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Chicago in September 2025.

  • Development Lead

    Aaron Mesa (they/them) is a stage manager, theater enjoyer, and math major at Yale. They have stage managed 8 shows, two of which were through Cunning Folk (Neufaust and Selkie Play). In their free time they like to dance and read Science Fiction. 

  • Associate Artistic Director

    Lavanya Sinha (they/she) is a senior at Yale University studying literature and performance. A teacher and proponent of children’s theatre, which to them is theatre of care and community, they have found its spirit most closely mirrored in experimental theatrical projects like those of The Cunning Folk, with their mild-to-extreme anti-realism and whimsy. Lavanya acted in Selkie Play, the company’s first show, associate directed A Neufaust, and directed 2 ½ Lesbians this past summer.

  • Marketing Lead

    Zel Tracey (they/them, ze/hir) is a gothy, queer, Boston-born artist, madperson, and Capricorn always up to participate in the creation of something incredibl(e/y odd).

  • Resident Dramaturg

    Sam Fisher is a recent Yale graduate who deeply enjoys combining her loves of history, theology, lecturing people, and theater in the field of dramaturgy. Currently, she’s lecturing the members of Cunning Folk on the historical subtext of the theater they create from ten time zones away, where she teaches English at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh.