Parity Productions Announces Co-Production Using Method Inspired By Stephen Colbert

Award-winning playwright Jonathan Alexandratos is building a new play based on the 1907 “Teddy Bear Scare.” In the early 20th Century, Father Michael Esper retired, but not before telling his flock that society had a new menace: the teddy bear. For Esper, girls playing with the plush toys meant they weren't playing with baby dolls, and it was baby dolls that were teaching them to be good “young mothers.” Without the baby dolls, girls wouldn't, by Esper's hypothesis, have actual babies of their own, and humanity would be doomed. While obviously problematic, Esper's words swept the nation through newspapers, igniting fervent support, and appropriate backlash.

The incident urgently applies to today, when demagoguery once again sweeps the nation, blaming myriad social maladies on innocent groups of people. Understanding theatre as a longtime medium of social justice, Alexandratos got to work on how to tell the story onstage. Their first resource was a March 19th video posted to TikTok by @colbertlateshow, the account for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In the video, 
Colbert reflects on his early days making plays with his friends. As Colbert said, “I had a friend named Dex Bullard…he used to call me up and say, ‘Hey, do you want to get in trouble?' and what that meant was…we had to write a play and mount it in…nine days”. A nine-day turnaround time felt like the best way to infuse a story about teddy bears with just the right amount of play and whimsy, and from there the project, titled Sewing Bears: A Play with Pockets was born.

Alexandratos then turned to director and frequent collaborator Jessica Bashline (The Drowning Girls, Alexandratos' We See What Happen, Strange Sun Theater founder), and a cast with special training in improv and “pop-up” theatre: Dex Warren (Alexandratos' The Hills, from Pipeline Theatre Company's PlayLab), Veronica Dang (Subway: The Series, Model Majority), Kristin McCalley (Nashville Repertory Theatre), and Chuck Willey (Blue Window, 29th Street Rep). The final remaining need was a stage. That's when Parity Productions stepped in as Co-Producer. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with 2020 Parity Development Award winner Jonathan Alexandratos once again. They are the kind of storyteller the world needs right now,” said Founder and Artistic Director Ludovica Villar-Hauser.

The theatrical experiment will take place at The Maker's Studio housed within Chelsea Market. “Given their extensive history of producing feminist and gender-expansive work, I was hoping Parity might want to co-produce this experiment, and I was delighted when they agreed,” said Alexandratos. Indeed, Alexandratos had worked with Parity since they awarded the playwright their Parity Development Award in 2020, making the fit all the more ideal.

The team will use nine days to make Sewing Bears: A Play with Pockets, which is set to open on July 17th, running for only two nights: July 17th and 18th at 7:30pm in Chelsea Market's Maker's Studio (448 West 16th Street, New York, NY). Tickets are at $10 and $20 levels and can be purchased here. All profits benefit Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to tearing down gender barriers in tech. 

“I want to prove that making theatre is not just in the hands of institutions who can take years to decide to produce a play, but creatives, who can access resources to tell their stories right here, right now,” Alexandratos said. Sewing Bears: A Play with Pockets is sure to provide inspiration for just that.

Parity Productions is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit theatre company founded in 2016 by international award-winning director Ludovica Villar-Hauser (she/her). Parity is the only New York Theatre Company that ensures we fill at least 80% of the creative roles on our own productions—playwrights, directors, and designers—with women, trans, and gender-expansive artists and offers free tools to encourage the rest of the theatre industry to do the same. www.parityproductions.org

Jonathan Alexandratos (they/them) is a New York City-based playwright. Their work advocates for those who live in the glitches of oppressive systems. Jonathan's award-winning plays have been produced internationally with support from Parity Productions, PEACE Productions, Pipeline Theatre Company, Fresh Ground Pepper, the Queens Council on the Arts, and others. Recently, Jonathan edited and contributed to Beyond the Binary: Works by Eight Non-Binary Playwrights which is out now from Next Stage Press.
Jessica Baseline (she/her) is a theater artist, working as a playwright, director, and performer. Her plays include: Ann and Me: or the big bad abortion play, which won the United Solo Festival “Best Storyteller” Award for 2023, a solo piece about abortion has been developed in collaboration with American Theater Northwest and Syracuse Stage. Her plays are available at Next Stage Press, as well as New Play Exchange. Jessica has received awards and fellowships for her work from the Drama League, SDC, NYU, UM, Miami Dade Cultural Council, among others. She is a member of AEA, the Dramatist Guild and the SDC.