People's Circus Theatre
The Nightingale
In 2023 Felicity Hesed started her own circus theater company: People's Circus Theatre. This is our second production. Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s novel, this staging was written and directed by Felicity herself.
The idea was to have to different approaches: a more direct one (on the left) and a more cryptic one (on the right). The design on the bottom is one of the drafts that didn't make it, but that I am proud of because of the collage of elements I used to put it together, and the time it took me to make it look cohesive.
Reindeer Games
Their first big show was a co-production with The Children's Creativity Museum for the 2023 Holiday season.
For 'Reindeer Games,' the design needed to clearly say: family-friendly, holiday circus theater show. With that in mind, I kept the focus on simplicity. I decided on a red background, not only because of the obvious holiday connotation, but also because on the street, the poster would have to compete for attention with so many other other shows, that it needed to stand out.
This was an extensive campaign, including a double sided poster (seen below), a social media campaign with artist highlights, a digital ad campaign, postcards, street signage and emails.
PHOTO CREDIT: FERNANDO GAMBARONI
The photo of the reindeer jumping through the hoop is real, the hoop wasn't photoshopped after the fact. Just saying. We had a kick-ass photoshoot for this show.
New Conservatory Theatre Center
NCTC is one of the leading LGBTQ theaters in the Bay Area. I worked on many of their projects from late 2021 to early 2022, and then again 2025. Their current identity is actually based on the design I made for their Strategic Plan booklet.
It felt good to go back to theater design. Their campaigns are comprehensive, both online and on print, so they required a wide variety of assets for every single project, so that was a major consideration before I drafting anything.
2025 – 26 Season
I was hired to design their 25-26 season. These are what I consider to be the best drafts for each show. Of the more than 30 drafts, only one of them survived intact (the black and white design for ‘Gods & Monsters’). Everything else was either rejected or substantially altered.
While I do like many of these designs, the one that stands out to me is the 'Hedwig' one, because I did a bit of illustration for it, which is pretty unusual for me. It also happens to be one of the most iconographic designs I have ever created.
PHOTO CREDIT: CYNTHIA SMALLEY
2022 – 23 Season
A Picture of Two Boys
My favorite poster of the shows I designed for them.
All the main elements of the show are there. The characters used to know each other, but struggle to find a way to reconnect; they have shared pasts, but they are unaware of how they intersect.
The show takes place in a pier, the one they used to go to in their youth. And while they go back to it in order to retrace their steps, hoping to move forward, they are unable to do so. The lake is always covered by the light fog in their lives.
The style of the design also speaks to this theater's target audience, which is mostly composed of folks 65+ years old. This is true of most theaters in the US and one of the biggest issues when it comes to theater, but that's for a different Ted Talk.
2022 – 23 Season Brochure
Strategic Plan
To see the whole plan, click here.
Atomic Clown
A show by Sara Toby Moore about a clown going through a lot: a death in the family, a breakup, and cancer. During the photoshoot, Toby wanted to bring a bit of Springsteen to it (the fact that they are from Jersey helped). The design points at the waves coming out of our atomic clown, or maybe they are the reverberations of the sound waves emanating from their make-do guitar, turning pain into music.
The idea was to convey that rockstar vibe, so I kept it black and white, and only added a touch of in-your-face yellow to it. I tried to recreate the vibe of the posters I used to see around the East Village promoting shows at CBGB's.
PHOTO CREDIT: FERNANDO GAMBARONI
Social media campaign
Cara Vita
A clown show written and performed by Felicity Hesed that investigates the complexities of being an artist, a mother, and a partner. Picking the strongest contender from the drafts was not easy, but we went with the one featured at the top. It struck the right tone of the show and it stressed the circus aspect of the staging.
After the show premiered in San Francisco, Felicity took it to the Asheville Fringe Festival in North Carolina, and then to London for the Vault Festival.
PHOTO CREDIT: FERNANDO GAMBARONI
Just Don't Touch Me, Amigo
This is a solo show with a weird name that I wrote, produced and performed back in my New York City days. I have staged this show many times over the years, but in 2023 the time had come to bid it farewell. The caption for the play was: 'a show about a guy who doesn't get why his loneliness is such a turn-off.'
PHOTO CREDIT: PATRICIA ORTIZ
Baloney
San Francisco's Gay All-Male Review
The Baloney Calendar
Rory Davis and Michael Phillis (the co-creators of Baloney) hired me to create a calendar that would serve as a promotional tool for the show.
As a performer in it myself, I may not have the most objective point of view, but Baloney has undeniably been a staple of the San Francisco scene for the last 10 years.
One of the standout elements of Baloney is how much of it is rooted in the theatrical experience of being present. There are many components to the show: theater, burlesque, sketch-comedy, dance-show, strip-show; and yet the best way to truly understand how it all comes together is by seeing - or rather, experiencing it (the audience is a huge part of it). It's a show that validates its own medium.
So my goal with the calendar was to try to convey the right feel for it: its sexiness, its San Francisco-ness, its queerness, its comedy, its joy.
PHOTO CREDITS: NICOLE FRASER-HERRON, PATRICK FAGAN, ZACH FRANZEN, MICHAEL PHILLIS, RORY DAVIS.
Baloney Instagram Stories
PHOTO CREDIT FOR MOST PHOTOS: NICOLE FRASER-HERRON
NiCole Fraser-Herron
NiCole Fraser-Herron
NiCole Fraser-Herron
Nicole Fraser-Herron
Nicole Fraser-Herron
Nicole Fraser-Herron
Nicole Fraser-Herron
Nicole Fraser-Herron
Reflection
I ended up working on Toni Cannon's solo sort of by chance, because he was showcasing it at Circus Center, and on occasion I would work on a design as a courtesy for our artists in residence, or folks who were part of the Circus Center community.
Toni liked the original design and he asked me to do it again for his upcoming staging at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
PHOTO CREDIT: ALEXA TREVINO
