Aaron Cromie is a multidisciplinary theater artist working in a range of theatrical styles including mask, puppetry, clown, music, and commedia dell'arte. As a performer, designer, director, writer, and musician, Cromie has collaborated with Arden Theatre Company, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, Mum Puppettheatre, The Studio Theatre, Wilma Theater, Lantern Theater, and Shakespeare Theatre, among others.
Cromie values the collaborative process of ensemble creation. With theater artist Mary Tuomanen, he created A Paper Garden, a commission by the American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum as part of its Center-supported venture, The Greenhouse Projects. This production, performed in the APS garden, depicted an unlikely friendship between two famous figures: Empress Josephine and botanist Andre Michaux. With Center support, Cromie and Tuomanen also produced The Body Lautrec (2014), a meditation on the life, art, and maladies of the French painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. This piece featured a skeleton puppet by Cromie, who performed as Toulouse-Lautrec alongside an ensemble of five female performers.
![Aaron Cromie’s A Paper Garden, commissioned and produced for the American Philosophical Society Museum’s Greenhouse Projects. Photo by Brent Wahl. Pictured: Genevieve Perrier [in the dress] and Mary Tuomanen [in the hat].](https://www.pewcenterarts.org/sites/default/files/styles/lg_640x480_webp/public/d5b715a22ce5d2e886241dad34261a91.jpg.webp?itok=5g0eQT-O)