PILLSBURY HOUSE + THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2025 NAKED STAGES FELLOWS
Pillsbury House + Theatre (PH+T) is excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 Naked Stages Fellowship: Akiko, Dottie Rose, and Paige Oyaleke Reynolds. The 2025 Fellows were selected by a panel of experienced artists facilitated by program director Masanari Kawahara, now in his fourth year of leading the program.
Pillsbury House + Theatre is honored to welcome these three dynamic artists into our 33rd season.
illsbury House + Theatre (PH+T) is excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 Naked Stages Fellowship: Akiko, Dottie Rose, and Paige Oyaleke Reynolds. The 2025 Fellows were selected by a panel of experienced artists facilitated by program director Masanari Kawahara, now in his fourth year of leading the program.
Pillsbury House + Theatre is honored to welcome these three dynamic artists into our 33rd season.
ABOUT THE 2025 NAKED STAGES FELLOWS
DOTTIE ROSE
Project:
Dottie’s performance will be a multidisciplinary theatrical work that fuses devised theater, live music, hair and wig artistry, and burlesque. It will tell layered, gender-expansive stories grounded in joy, glamour, resistance, and transformation—inviting audiences into a space of healing, humor, and revelation.
Bio:
Dottie Rose (she/her) is a transgender, transdisciplinary artist living in the Twin Cities since 2013. She works full-time in wig and makeup design at the Guthrie Theater and offers gender-affirming hairstyling services at The Seen salon. A trained performer, playwright, and burlesque artist (under the name Misfit), Dottie blends camp, creativity, and care into her work. With roots in Clear Lake, Iowa, she studied theater at the University of Northern Iowa before completing her cosmetology training at the Aveda Institute. Her artistry centers trans liberation, collective joy, and embodied storytelling. She aims to uplift trans lives and foster deeper connections between cis and trans communities.
AKIKO
Project:
Akiko’s new work will explore narratives of immigrant women of color through an interdisciplinary performance that weaves together poetry, shadow puppetry, music, movement, and found object collage. Centering themes of displacement, resilience, and visibility, her project will honor the beauty and pain embedded in her own journey and those of others often left out of dominant cultural narratives.
Bio:
Akiko is a visual artist, performance artist, teaching artist, curator, and activist based in Minneapolis. A native of Osaka, Japan, her multidisciplinary storytelling practice centers voices too often marginalized by white Eurocentric society. She integrates poetry, music, dance, collage, and puppetry to reflect the times we live in and the power of community. As a teaching artist, Akiko works with youth to affirm the importance of their voices, using art as a vehicle for truth-telling and connection. She also curates events to uplift emerging artists and advocates for access to creative practices—such as poetry, puppetry, and collage—for all.
PAIGE OYALEKE REYNOLDS
Project:
Paige’s upcoming performance will be a ritual-based work that interweaves masquerade, textile art, and ancestral performance traditions. Rooted in Hoodoo and New Afrikan Vodun, their piece will serve as a container for sensual, communal healing and spiritual reclamation—especially for queer and trans Black people navigating diaspora and displacement.
Bio:
Paige Oyaleke Reynolds (they/them), also known as Mabolé Inawale, is a queer, gender-shapeshifting, transdisciplinary artist and ritualist. Their practice draws from ancestral arts and liberatory traditions across the African diaspora. A practitioner of Hoodoo and an initiate in New Afrikan Vodun, Paige’s art exists at the intersection of spiritual practice, abolitionist organizing, and cultural masquerade. They hold a certificate in Masquerade Design and have created public sanctuaries such as The Other Side House, a refuge for Black femmes and gender non-conforming people. Paige also supports community as a full-spectrum birthworker and through networks like REP for MN and Birth Revolution.
ABOUT NAKED STAGES
Naked Stages is a 7-month intensive program that provides early career performance artists with financial support, mentorship, and development time to create new solo works. Under the direction of Masanari Kawahara and with major support from the Jerome Foundation, the program continues to be a vital incubator for boundary-breaking performance.
Performance Dates:
November 13, 14, 15
November 20, 21, 22
All shows begin at 7:00 PM
Location: Pillsbury House + Theatre
We are committed to ensuring audience safety and will continue to monitor and respond to public health guidelines as needed.
More Info:
612-825-0459
https://pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org/mainstage/naked-stages
ABOUT PILLSBURY HOUSE + THEATRE
From the Makers Series to Chicago Avenue Project and Naked Stages, Pillsbury House + Theatre brings audiences closer—to the edge, to the actors, to affordable adventurous theatre, to fellow audience members, and to a strong, vibrant community. Now in its 33rd year, the theatre continues to inspire enduring change toward a just society. An integral part of Pillsbury United Communities, one of the largest human services organizations in the state, PH+T demonstrates that the highest quality art is an integral part of all healthy communities—earning community trust, accolades, and awards across the metro and nationally.