
Originally from working-class Detroit, Trish Denton is a product of cultural expression born from extremes. A first generation college student, she put herself through school as a fortune teller, receiving a BA from Goddard College. Fascinated by untrained, folk, and emergent art, Trish deepened her research in cultural studies, receiving an advanced degree from Dartmouth College. The interdisciplinary artist devises and directs original works for the stage, borrowing from magic realism and the oral storytelling tradition.
For the better part of the last decade, Trish made her way as a youth theater director, directing countless productions with Burlington’s Very Merry Theatre. She served as co-host to the rabble-rousing Spielpalast Cabaret from 2008-2011 and toured with the company to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The fringe inspired her to write and direct the silently surreal Orkestriska’s Box, a multimedia collaboration with Thought Faucet and The Porter Music Box Museum that premiered in 2012. The following year, Trish collaborated with the Vermont Birth Network and Vermont Midwives Association to mount BIRTH, a documentary-theater piece based on ethnographic interviews with about birthing practices in America.
Since, Trish has worked with incarcerated and marginalized populations to produce documentary theater in non-traditional settings. She is the artistic director of In Tandem Arts, an organization that produces projects that fuse community, art, and education. To date, ITA has produced two full length productions, a holocaust education project and folk opera entitled Brundibar: A Musical Tale, as well the pandemic-era socially distanced spectacle Retro Spec. ITA has produced countless "immersions" in partnership with community organizations and advocacy projects . ITA has partnered with 350VT, VSAVT, Shelburne Museum, Burlington City Arts, Shelburne Farms, Porter Music Box Museum, and Counseling Services of Addison County to engage the community with new narratives.
Most recently, Trish has served on the production team with the award winning African-American theater company JAG Productions, and is the production designer of Listen Up!, a statewide theater initiative that has engaged over 800 Vermont teens to share their stories. She is the writer and director of Retro Spec, an innovative performance fusing film, theater, live music, and animation into a comprehensive new form for this new paradigm.