Francesca Montanile Lyons is a director, performer, educator, and experimental artist currently based in Philadelphia. Her work as a solo performer and director has toured nationally across the US, with her most recent solo show (VILE) earning a Staff Award at the MN Fringe and an Encore performance from Cannonball in the Philadelphia Fringe. Her work has received support from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Painted Bride, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the Bartol Foundation, Bethany Arts Community, the Network of Ensemble Theaters, FringeArts, New York Theater Workshop, and the Puffin Foundation, among others.

As a performer she can be found at venues across Philadelphia, exploring the overlap of alt-comedy, clowning, buffon, and burlesque. Her areas of expertise as a director include clown and buffon, ensemble devising, physical/dance theater, staging verbatim non-theatrical text, and new work development. She also experiments with visual art and hybrid art: creating drawings, embroideries, and animations that live both independently and alongside or within her performance work. An area of artistic research often finds expression in various forms: an interest in texting and digital intimacy becomes drawings, watercolor paintings, the beginnings of a new musical, large tufted rugs, and a community workshop. She loves creating opportunities for social and community participation in her work.