Photos: Inside the Apocalyptic Artists' Inaugural Gala At The Players

Apocalyptic Artists held their Inaugural Gala at The Players on Sunday evening, October 16th, featuring honored guest Robert Cuccioli, a Keynote conversation with Ty Jones and a performance by the students of Cardinal Spellman High School.

Founded by co-artistic directors Alice Renier, Brynne McManimie, Kea Trevett and Peter Romano, Apocalyptic Artists provides free theatre arts programming and cutting-edge productions to NYC schools and communities. Apocalyptic is committed to shaping the future of classical theatre, making it accessible for all. The company launched in 2020, in direct response to cuts made to NYC's arts education budget during the Covid-19 pandemic. In communities already suffering from limited access to arts programming, schools faced virtually eliminating the arts from their curriculum. Creative outlets are crucial in moments of crisis: to play, cultivate joy, process trauma, and imagine a brighter future.

Apocalyptic has produced two feature film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays to date: a multimedia adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring performances by Eliud Kauffman, Zo Tipp, Fang Du, Veracity Butcher, Robert Manning Jr, Jae Woo, and Kieron Anthony, and a bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, featuring performances by Sean Carvajal, Anita Abdinezhad, Bradley Tejeda, Sky Smith, Tiffany Small, Nick Shea, and Eli Bridges.

In their first two years, Apocalyptic Artists has provided over 300 free theatre workshops to 12 NYC schools, and their films have reached over 1500 students across all five boroughs. Learn more about the company at www.apocalypticartists.com