Channels
Written + Performed by Scout James
Co-Directed by Daphne Fernberger
Latest
Completed a development workshop at the Park Avenue Armory, ending in an invited showing. March 2026.
Channels, a new solo performance piece created by Scout James and co-directed by Daphne Fernberger, is a microhistory nightmare that uses elements of sketch comedy, dance theater, apocryphal mythology and lyric prose to tell the story of how an awkward, introverted aristocrat came to be the English diplomat in charge of negotiations with Hitler.
Channels explores how uninvestigated ambition can strain our forms to the point of unrecognizable distortion. Conceived first as part of Scout’s undergraduate history thesis, the research underlying Channels reveals previously undiscovered episodes in the British push to appease the Nazis. The work will mark the first public sharing of this original research. There will also be an improvised seance.
Scout James
(writer/performer)
Daphne Fernberger
(co-director)
Our Plan
Using donations, gifted by you through our fiscal sponsor Satellite Collective, Channels will developed in the spring and summer of 2026 through movement and technical workshops, to build towards an official run.
Funds may be used for securing venues for performance (including festivals), movement and dramaturgical research, advertising, residency fees, set and effects experimentation, and future runs of the show.
Immediate fundraising needs
- Fees for artists: writer/performer, co-director,
stage manager, costume designer, vocal coach, etc. - Costs for rehearsals, performances and venues
- Costs for dramaturgical, historical and movement research
- Costs for costumes, props, special effects and set pieces
Tiers of Support
Your gift is tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law and unlocks perks. To donate without fees via ACH or through a donor-advised fund, or if you’re interested in helping us make this project in a more substantial way at a larger scale, or under an investment model, or as a matching donation program, please reach out directly to begin a conversation. Get in touch: hello -at- scout -dot- ink.
The project is fiscally sponsored by Satellite Collective, a 501(c)(3), and your donation is tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law (excluding cash value of support tier perks in most cases). Note: it is possible to give through a DAfvia the donation buttons, but please also double-check if your company offers matching donations—many do.
$37 — Bystander
Sponsor thirty minutes of movement research.
You’ll receive early and/or exclusive access to private, behind-the-scenes process journal.
$206 — Apparition
Sponsor an evening of housing for a workshop.
You’ll receive a special thanks in the program.
$785 — Onlooker
Sponsor a flight to a workshop for the creative team.
Receive a signed poster and an invitation to a special open rehearsal.
$4,275 — Spectre
Pay for a week of production design.
You and a guest will be invited to a delicious catered dinner with some of the creative team in Los Angeles.
$9,175 — Apologist
(limited to 2 patrons)
Pay for a technical workshop.
You and a guest will be invited to a guided arts outing and a delicious catered dinner with some of the creative team in Los Angeles.
$14,175 — Phantasm
(limited to 2 patrons)
Sponsor an independent run of the show for one week.
You’ll receive a producer credit, and a signed, bound copy of the first performance edition of the script.
Bios
Scout James has performed in readings and workshops at Juilliard, the Elysian, Antaeus Theatre Company, Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival (for Primary Stages), New York Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New Georges, PS 122, Dixon Place and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Scout is from Juneau, Alaska, majored in history at Wesleyan, has an MFA from Juilliard, and is an alum of the Groundlings Sunday Company.
Scout James
(writer/performer/director)
Daphne Fernberger
(director)
Daphne Fernberger (co-director) is a dancer, choreographer and movement director, and since 2021 has been a company member at L.A. Dance Project. Prior, they were a company member of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. As a performer, Daphne has collaborated on new works by Benjamin Millepied, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Jill Johnson, Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit, Margie Gillis, Jacopo Godani, Richard Siegel. Daphne has performed repertoire by William Forsythe, Pina Bausch (with members of Bausch’s company in Wuppertal), Merce Cunningham (Night of 100 Solos), and Crystal Pite. They’ve performed at Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), BAM Theater (Brooklyn), Sydney Opera House (Australia), La Seine Musicale (Paris), La Philharmonie de Paris, Barbican Theatre (London), and The Joyce Theater (NYC). Daphne’s generative work spans theater (Galilee, 34 by Eleanor Burgess); collaborations with visual artists (Doug Aitken, Jordan Wolfson); and music videos, promos, and film. Daphne is a graduate of JKO School of American Ballet Theatre and The Juilliard School.
Anya Whelan-Smith (associate director) is an actor and theater-maker based in Brooklyn, NY. She was recently a part of the Caryl Churchill plays Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp at The Public Theater (NY Times Critic’s Pick, directed by James Macdonald). Other recent stage credits include Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theater, and the World Premiere / National Tour of Odyssey, written and directed by Lisa Peterson. TV / film credits include Lena Wosniak on FBI: International (CBS), multiple appearances on Law & Order: SVU (NBC) and the newly released Souvenir Drunk (streaming on Omeleto). Anya is passionate about cultivating new work and has developed projects with The New Group, Women’s Project, Park Avenue Armory (for Channels), Williamstown Theater Festival, Gulfshore Playhouse, the cell and more. Upcoming film: What the Water Took. Upcoming theater: in residence with Lisa Peterson and Sarah Schulman for A Mirror is Not a Window: Roe v. Wade. Anya is a graduate of Juilliard Drama.
Anya Whelan-Smith
(associate director)
tori Amoscato
(producer)
Tori Amoscato is a multi-dimensional and process oriented artist with a background in theater, music and dance. She has worked with theater companies like 13P and the Assembly (New York). A lifelong student of holistic medicine, Tori is the founder of Lark Acupuncture + Wellness, where she has worked as an acupuncturist in private practice for the last decade. She teaches in the master’s clinic at Yo San University and is currently developing the Institute for Alchemical Research, a space for holistic and integrative medicine education.
Cat Pitt (she/they) is a performance artist, sound designer, and seasoned producer of ephemeral nonsense, such as; Cat Pitt is Nice! (To You, for 45 Minutes Straight), the Alex Sanchez and Cat Pitt Comedy Experience, The CatMaster Cycle by Cat Pitt, Wilds of Sea by Wyndwolf Puppets, Nite at the Puppet Asylum by Strings n’ Things Puppet Theatre, and No Good Drunk by Stacy Burrows. They hold a BFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Central Oklahoma.
Cat Pitt
(production coordinator)
Field Reports
Follow along with Scout’s travelogue from a dramaturgical research adventure and read rehearsal and process diaries as Scout builds the piece with Daphne and tinkers with the production design. Donors at the Onlooker level or higher receive early and/or exclusive access to field reports.
(Scout on an adventure, January 2026.)
Vampire Cats & Daddy Issues at a Grade II* Listed Mansion Just Outside Doncaster
March 11, 2026 (first report)
After the shock of the fire settled, as I thought “Oh, maybe I’ll dust off this solo show,” it occurred to me to look up Hickleton Hall.
Hickleton Hall is the childhood home of Lord Halifax, the show’s main subject (let’s call him Edward). It’s an ominous, 18th-century, 34,000 square foot, Grade II* listed mansion surrounded by acres and acres of Yorkshire woods and wolds. It’s the backdrop to the mix of religiosity and horror that made up Edward’s childhood, and it’s where…
I have received
though I thought to reject it
not through channels
more through
backchannel channels
I have received
an invitation to go hunting
in Bavaria
'the vampire cat' should
PRECEDE 'the man on the train
to S_________'
are you sure you are
reading these for comprehension?
love DADDEE
The creature emerges again.
you knew, didn’t you
what a fiction it was
the uneasy wafer
the feline man slipped you
the lick of wine
it’s not that they made up too much,
though, and this you knew too:
you sensed a god
they forgot to give you
a god ungiven, an ungiven god
too off for the apocrypha
even Lilith's ill-informed
"Who? Azazel? You mean Moloch?"
no, not them, whore
too awful for Yaweh
(flaccid clown couldn’t follow through)
and no not some cartoon demon
some hyperventilated fallen cherub,
not some huckster of compulsion
not He who relishes slit throats,
strained hooks, plugged lungs
but the other one
the one He needs to seal the deal
the ungiven one
whose sulfur is a loaded presupposition
whose brimstone is just asking questions
the ungiven one
it there someone?
be still
spirit
disquiet spirit
am I not in this room
unaccompanied?
still yourself