Julian McFaul

Artistic Director and Camp Coordinator (At-Large)

Julian McFaul (AKA Old Aelfrith, AKA The Colossus, AKA The Goblin King) has been a high school and middle school teacher, an actor, set designer and community arts organizer. Before directing AiC, Julian taught Dramatic Arts and Writing classes at Brooklyn Center Arts Magnet. He has also served as a collaborator with notable organizations in Minneapolis including Urban Arts Academy, ArtStart and Leonardo’s Basement where he was encouraged to design and develop the first giant cardboard castle classes.

Since 1992 Julian has worked in communities across the Midwest to create public works of art and performance, facilitating projects that seek to reinvigorate festival life by celebrating local culture and history. Members of the community are often involved in all aspects of design and production.

Julian was a founding member and associate artist of Bedlam Theatre and Barebones Productions’ which hosts the “Annual Mississippi Halloween Extravaganza”, currently in it’s 29th year of production. With Shelley Chinander he organized the first “Powderhorn Art Sled Rally”, now in it’s 17th year and ever growing. He often volunteers as a builder/performer for In the Heart of the Beast Theatre’s Mayday Parade and Celebration.

Julian is widely known for his promotion of cardboard as a medium for sculpture. Regularly using cardboard in theatrical design, he won legendary acclaim for his design of a gigantic spaceship interior that rotated around the audience in Terminus at the former Bedlam Theatre. He has hosted numerous creative cardboard furniture building workshops for adults at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and at Open Eye Figure Theater. As part of Naked Stages he produced a solo show at Pillsbury House Theater entitled “Disappearing Trick” based on live cardboard sculpture and improvised text.

As an actor Julian has worked with companies including Children’s Theatre Company,  Open Eye Figure Theatre, the former Theatre de la Jeune Lune and Bedlam Theater. As a puppeteer he has had the honor of working with Lee Breuer & Mabou Mines, Improbable Theatre and with Basil Twist.

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