OYL Theater Company Reveals 2025 International Performance Residency

OYL Theater Company has announced its 2025 International Performance Residency in India, Japan, and Greece June 9-August 10, 2025. Applications are open.

For more information and to apply visit www.oneyearlease.org. Scholarship application deadline is February 1, 2025

The residency will culminate with the world premiere of Lisa Sanaye Dring's Arms, a response to Lysistrata, in Greece in August 2025 in village squares in the Zagorohoria, in a 2,500-seat outdoor amphitheater in Ioannina, & at the archeological site of Ancient Corinth

The OYL International Performance Residency is a groundbreaking artistic residency that integrates participant artists into the work of an ensemble theater company as it builds new work while studying and interacting with ancient theatrical practices around the globe.

Beginning in India the residency is nourished by the ancient and contemporary artistic practices of one of the largest and oldest theater cultures known. Following, the residency travels to Japan to bathe in the culture's unique theatrical traditions, and culminates with a month in Greece.

We welcome artists of all disciplines (actors, musicians, dancers, directors, designers, dramaturgs, choreographers, playwrights) to apply at any stage in their studies and/or career. We aim to create a company that is cross-disciplinary, multigenerational, and multicultural.

Artists will work with OYL Theater Company in the remote, breathtaking locations of Varadenahalli Village, India; Lake Nojiri, Japan; and Papingo, Greece. Intrinsic to artistic activities, programming includes hikes into the stunning natural environment, as well as excursions into the cultural landscape of each country.

Participating artists will collaborate with and perform alongside OYL's company members in the theatrical premiere of Arms, a response to Lysistrata, by playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring. Following two months of training, workshops, attending shows, and rehearsing, the residency culminates with participants performing in Greek, English, Japanese, and Hindi as part of the chorus alongside OYL company members.

Over the course of two months in India, Japan, and Greece OYL will collaborate with over 90 local artists including Infinite Souls Farm and Artist Retreat, The Payana Collective, Odissi dancer Pritvhi Nayak, Konarak Reddy, Kirtana Kumar, The Karthik Mani Trio, Yakshagana, Aagaaz Theater Trust, Black Box Okhla, Kathakali artist Maya Krishna Rao, Taiko artist Sato Kensaku, Noh artist Jinya Imai, Tokyo-based musician Ren Ohara, Nihonbuyo artist Ebata-san, and many more.

The 2025 International Residency will be guided by OYL Company Members. In 2024 the following company members participated and performed in the OYL International Residency: Fran Acuna-Almiron, Akiko Aizawa, Christian Almiron, Jessica Kaplow Applebaum, Amanda Culp, Ianthe Demos, Raisa Desypri, Rinde Eckert, Alethea Harnish, Leon Ingulsrud, Marie Kuroda, Natalie Lomonte, Ellen McLaughlin, Tina Mitchell, Meropi Papastergiou, Cristina Pitter, Richard Saudek, Georgia Tsangaraki, Akyiaa Wilson.

For more information contact Ianthe Demos at ianthe@oneyearlease.org

ABOUT OYL:

Founded in 2001, One Year Lease Theater Company (OYL) is a professional theater company based in New York City with a one-of-a-kind International Residency. We are an artistic fulcrum around which theater, education, training, and inspiration spins. OYL is our home, a site of artistic pilgrimage, a creative lab for experimentation and risk-taking, and a harborer of community and collaboration.

Our work has been critically acclaimed as "first rate young actors" (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times) "theatrical witchcraft" (Scott Brown, New York Magazine), "riveting theater" (Ed Siegel, Boston's NPR), "fiery and fantastical" (Eric Sundermann, Village Voice), "screams of novelty" (Alexandra Villarreal, Huffington Post), "playfully poisonous" (Terry Byrne, Boston Globe), "a gleaming portrait of our collective contemporary existence" (Andy Propst, American Theater Web), "a celebration of theatrical energy" (Gerald Berkowitz, The Stage), "a captivating, visceral spectacle" (Morgan Kinney, Houstonia Magazine), "exquisite" (Suzanna Bowling, Times Square Chronicles).

OYL has received a 2018 Drama Desk Nomination (Sound Design, Balls), 2016 Drama Desk Nomination (Original Score, please excuse my dear aunt sally), a 2016 Edinburgh Stage Award (Best Ensemble, please excuse my dear aunt sally), a 2017 Houston Theater Award for Best Sound (Balls); and 2017 Houston Theater Award Nominations for Best New Play & Best Set and Property Design (Balls).