The Team Presents BREAKING GROUND Featuring Denee Benton, Amber Gray, and More

the TEAM (Rachel Chavkin, Artistic Director; Alexandra Lalonde, Producing Director)the award-winning Brooklyn theatre ensemble will present BREAKING GROUND: A BENEFIT CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF THE TEAM's RECONSTRUCTION on June 14, 2018 at Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY).

Tickets for the event are $75. VIP Tickets are $250 and include a VIP Cocktail Reception. $30 Discount Tickets are available for artists and community members. All tickets are available for purchase at theteamplays.org/breakingground

BREAKING GROUND represents the public launch of The TEAM's newest project. Reconstruction (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside) wrestles with Gone with the Wind as a confederate monument still standing over the American landscape. In this American delirium of our past and present, ancient communities are meeting in the woods and the devil might need to be exorcised from our television.

Featuring a radically expanded company of artists, Reconstruction will be a work that is full to the brim with the history, innovations, and revelations of a diverse team ranging in age from 23 to 94. The collaborating artists behindReconstruction are: Brenda Abbandandolo, Jessica Almasy, Denée Benton, Jhanaë Bonnick, Frank Boyd, Vinie Burrows, Rachel Chavkin, André De Shields, Jerome Ellis, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Jeremy O. Harris, Matt Hubbs, Modesto "Flako" Jimenez, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Jake Margolin, James Monaco, Kristen Sieh, and Nick Vaughan.

BREAKING GROUND will reflect the same spirit, with performances by the Reconstruction company, including Denée Benton (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), storyteller-composer phenoms James Monaco and Jerome Ellis, TEAM Member Amber Gray (Hadestown, An Octoroon, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), radical actor and poet Modesto "Flako" Jimenez (¡Oye! For My Dear Brooklyn) and the AUDELCO award-winning and legendary actressVinie Burrows. BREAKING GROUND will have a dance floor that opens early, and the evening will end with a communal jam session led by Nehemiah Luckett, Anaïs Mitchell and Liam Robinson. The event will also feature live and silent auctions and catering by Red Rooster Harlem.

Once described by The Guardian as "theatrical excavators of American culture, American dreams and the American psyche," the TEAM is a Brooklyn-based ensemble of 15 core members and a continually expanding group of associate artists. The company creates all of its work collaboratively, drawing inspiration from the news, under-examined histories, YouTube videos and pop culture, and on-the-ground research (including a month spent living in a foreclosed home in Las Vegas). This research becomes the jumping off point for original writing and staging. The company and its creative process were the subject of a 2013 feature-length documentary, The TEAM Makes a Play, directed by Emmy Award Winner Paulette Douglas.

the TEAM most recently presented Primer for a Failed Superpower, a two-night-only concert event featuring a multigenerational band of teenagers, TEAM performers, and Baby Boomers, in August 2017. Since its founding in 2004, the TEAM has created 11 original works, including Anything That Gives Off Light (with the National Theatre of Scotland),RoosevElvis, and Mission Drift (Scotsman Fringe First Award, 2011 Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, 2011 Herald Angel Award). Their work has been seen in New York at The Public Theater, PS122, Vineyard Theatre, Ohio Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, and New York Live Arts; nationally at ArtsEmerson, A.R.T., Walker Art Center, Playmakers Repertory Theatre, and the UMS/University of Michigan; and internationally at the National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Barbican, Almeida Theatre, and Battersea Arts Centre in London; the Edinburgh International Festival; Culturgest in Lisbon; the Salzburg Festival; Galway Festival; Perth International Arts Festival; and Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The TEAM is Jessica Almasy, Frank Boyd, Rachel Chavkin, Stephanie Douglass, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Brian Hastert, Jake Heinrichs, Matt Hubbs, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Jake Margolin, Dave Polato, Kristen Sieh, and Nick Vaughan.

www.theteamplays.org

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos