Guest Artists and Speakers
Get to know workshop leaders and speakers in this year’s Miami Immersive Intensive.
ABRAHAM BURICKSON
Co-Founder of Odyssey Works
-
ABRAHAM BURICKSON, Co-Founder of Odyssey Works and Director of the Experience Design Certificate Program, has spent twenty-five years exploring the relationship between what we make and how it is experienced. Trained in architecture at Cornell University and in poetry and playwriting at the Michener Center for Writers, he has also studied the transformative power of designed experience with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon, and with countless artists, designers, and students through Odyssey Works. He spent decades organizing communities around the creation of transformative experiences for what the New York Times called “a tiny but infinitely more affected audience.” He is also the founder of The Long Architecture Project, which rethinks architectural practice from the perspective of Experience Design. As a consultant and designer he has worked with big tech companies, religious organizations, local arts councils, and non-profits working to end hunger and stop the AI apocalypse. He has won prizes, lectured and taught widely, given a TEDxtalk, and was once hired by German television to kidnap an American skateboarding champion. His book on Experience Design was published by Yale University Press in 2023.
DAVID FEINER
Albany Park Theater Project, Co-Executive Director
-
David Feiner (he/him/his) is an award-winning director, producer, and educator. He is a co-founder and co-executive director of the acclaimed Albany Park Theater Project, a Chicago company where youth artists devise world-class performances inspired by the real-life stories of their immigrant and first-generation community. Over three decades, David has worked as a co-director, co-creator, and/or producer on all of APTP’s more than 25 world premieres. For nearly 15 years, David has led APTP’s collaboration with Third Rail Projects, including Learning Curve (named one of the Top Ten Shows of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, Time Out Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times) and Port of Entry (Chicago Tribune and NoProscenium best of 2023 lists), which continue to run in Chicago after nearly 3 years and 200 performances
JENNINE WILLET
Co-Artistic Director of Third Rail Projects
-
Jennine Willett is an immersive director and experience designer whose work centers on story as a catalyst for connection. She is Co-Artistic Director of Third Rail Projects, the New York–based company known for critically acclaimed immersive productions, including the long-running hit Then She Fell. Among her largest-scale collaborations is Port of Entry, a partnership between Third Rail Projects and Chicago’s critically acclaimed youth ensemble Albany Park Theater Project. In addition to her work in the arts, Jennine serves as Creative
Director at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, where she applies immersive storytelling principles to science communication for internal and external events. Integrating artistic and theatrical elements into established formats, she creates experiences that bridge narrative, audience, and mission in delightful and often unexpected ways.
JUAN C. SANCHEZ
Playwright
-
Juan C. Sanchez is a Cuban-born Miami-based playwright dedicated to writing stories that explore the cultural diversity and social issues of Miami. He has written plays for a variety of platforms — from traditional theater stages to immersive, site-specific performances set in historical motels, virtual stages, climate-change themed productions, and radio plays. Plays include the immersive Miami Motel Stories series, set in Little Havana, MiMo, Wynwood, and North Beach — which transform historic Miami buildings into stages, revealing the stories and histories of each neighborhood. Recent projects include Apollo, a dance-theater piece by The Pioneer Winter Collective commissioned by Miami Light Project; The Presentation, a climate-themed short play commissioned by Climate Change Theatre Action and presented at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as in Germany, Kenya, and other venues; and Miami Bus Stop Stories: Tropical Dreams, an immersive production at HistoryMiami Museum. He is currently part of a collaborative commission with nine other national and international playwrights, working with The Arts & Climate Initiative, the City of Albuquerque Department of Arts & Culture, Theatre Without Borders, and the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art. The work will be presented in Sarasota as part of the SunHat 2027 Festival.
KIERNA CONNER
Experience designer, creative producer & performer
-
Kierna is an experience designer, creative producer, performer, and educator working at the intersection of storytelling, play, and human behavior. Based in Orlando, Florida — and also considering New York City and Arizona home — her work spans immersive theatre, themed entertainment, live events, and interactive installations. She has served on original creative development teams for projects with Disney Imagineering, Universal Studios, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Floating Tower Productions, Culture House Immersive, ImmerseFest Orlando, Hawkmoon Immersive, and more; bringing narrative depth, systems thinking, and guest-centered design to both large-scale and independent experiences.
She began her career as an actor trained in classical and musical theatre, and that foundation continues to shape how she directs, writes, and builds experiences from the inside out; prioritizing embodiment, agency, and emotional payoff. Over time, her practice expanded behind the scenes into creative producing, experience architecture, and team leadership, where she translates ambitious ideas into executable systems and guides multidisciplinary teams from concept through delivery.
As an educator and coach, Kierna teaches artists, creatives, and organizations how to design meaningful engagement by blending performance training, behavioral insight, and experiential strategy. She is particularly interested in how people make decisions inside fictional worlds and how play can serve as a tool for learning, connection, and transformation.
Outside of her professional work, she is an avid film buff, amateur escape room enthusiast, and seeker of strange museums and collaborative adventures; constantly researching the next great experience by stepping inside it.
Links: www.kiernaconner.com
MIKHAEL TARA GARVER
Founder of Culture House Immersive
-
Mikhael Tara Garver, an immersive pioneer for over 2 decades, is the Founder of Culture House Immersive; was the Director of Immersive Experience of the THEA award-winning Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser; staff director of A.R.T.’s Sleep No More; and Creative Director for the band Great Caesar ( fandom-building journey at SXSW that 100x’d their fans in 8 days). She’s created award-winning experiences for AMC Television, Amazon, National Park Service, Bloomberg, BBDO, Hormel, Smirnoff, IDEO, Facebook, and Virgin. She is a founding board member of the Immersive Experience Institute; was awarded the first-ever immersive commissions from The Kennedy Center and National Theatre of Scotland; a multi-year grantee of Pop Culture Collaborative; an International Sacatar Fellow; and a Lead Creative Consultant Internationally for Walt Disney Imagineering. Garver has spent her career consulting and building business models in the immersive entertainment field while fundamentally centering artists, audience, and culture change. She is currently launching Culture House Immersive’s Inaugural Incubator.
NOAH NELSON
Founder of No Proscenium
-
Noah Nelson is the founder of No Proscenium, a publication dedicated to exploring the immersive and experiential arts, its sister site Everything Immersive, and co-founder of the non-profit organization The Immersive Experience Institute. As a producer he has led multiple immersive industry events including The Next Stage (2025, 2023) the Los Angeles Immersive Invitational (2019, 2022, 2024, 2025), the Denver Immersive Gathering (2022), and the Immersive Design Summit (2018 & 2019). His extensive experience consulting on immersive work includes Camp Christmas (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), and working with Tender Claws to develop initial casting protocols for The Under Presents (Meta Quest). He is proud member of the faculty of the CalArts School of Theater and holds a bachelor's in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University. His reporting has been heard on NPR's All Things Considered and APM's Marketplace.
BRANDON POWERS
Director, Choreographer & Technology Translator
-
Brandon Powers is a director, choreographer, and technology translator who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. His projects span forms incorporating AI, extended reality, and live performance including Echoes in Motion (Lincoln Center), Queerskins: ARK (Venice, Cannes XR), Frankenstein AI (Sundance), Duet (New York Live Arts), and Kinetic Diffusion (FilmGate Interactive, New Images).
Brandon is the co-founder of Pulse & Pixel, where he is building a new motion capture choreography tool. He is the Artistic Innovation Lead at Musical Theatre Factory, Onassis ONX Studio member, NEW INC alum, Lincoln Center Collider Fellow (2025), and has spoken on the intersection of arts and technology across the world at TCG National Conference, Verizon’s 5G Lab, DanceXR Singapore and more.
ZACH MORRIS
Co-Artistic Director of Third Rail Projects
-
Zach Morris (he/him/his) is an immersive theater director, experience designer, consultant, and educator. He is Co-Artistic Director of Third Rail Projects, a New York–based performance company internationally recognized for creating works that place the audience at the very heart of the storytelling.
For over two decades, Third Rail Projects has been hailed as one of the foremost companies in the field, trailblazing the creation of site-specific, immersive, and experiential works. Zach is co-creator of the immersive theater hits Then She Fell, The Grand Paradise, Sweet & Lucky with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Ghost Light at Lincoln Center Theater’s Claire Tow Theater, among others.
He has been honored with numerous awards, including a Chita Rivera Award and two BESSIE Awards; projects he has collaborated on have garnered a Drama Desk nomination, a Peabody Award, and an Emmy Award. His work has been presented nationally and internationally with the support of grants, commissions, and residencies, and he has taught, mentored, and created new platforms to support artists at home and abroad.
Zach believes memorable, meaningful experiences happen when audiences become the heroes of their own journey. Attended to with compassion, thoughtfulness, and care, these experiences can be transformative, creating connection and empathy—something needed now more than ever.
Learn from the best.
Don’t just be inspired—get in the room where it happens. Secure your spot at the Miami Immersive Intensive and train alongside the artists who are reshaping the future of live performance.