Bad Behavior Lab Gives a Voice to Artists Silenced During the Pandemic

As New York University graduates in the pandemic, with a determination to make a space for themselves in an industry on life support, Deana Taheri, Zac Branciforte, and Julia Di Lorenzo co-founded Bad Behavior Lab: an artist lab debuting and creating original works by multi-hyphenate artists.

"We founded the lab under the pretense of graduating into an industry on-hold, looking to create new work, and a space for ourselves as artists when it felt like we were left behind." said Deana, "We are not afraid to experiment with form, especially in a world where live theatre has needed to enter the virtual sphere. This also explains the reasoning behind Bad Behavior Lab. We are a lab because we want the freedom to spread our wealth of knowledge and expertise across mediums, from film, to theatre, to sketch, to anything else that we want. Why would we ever limit ourselves to one form of the art we love so much?"

On Friday March 12th, Bad Behavior Lab hosted their premiere event in the "Go To Your Room!" series which, as of March 19th, has become a bi-weekly event. These events are an alternative to a lot of the great attempts at trying to integrate zoom into a theatre making strategy. "Go to Your Room!" is separated into two parts: the first being short, pre-recorded projects ranging from music, to dance pieces, to short sketches submitted by fellow artists looking for a space to debut their original content; and the second being a short, live-streamed, original play directed by professional directors. The first live-streamed play, Peanut Butter, starring Deana Taheri, and Christian Clements, directed by NYC-based director and dramaturg Leah Reddy, and written by Julia Di Lorenzo, was a great success. Bad Behavior Lab not only created a vessel for emerging and established artists to experiment, create, and debut; they also harnessed the power of live theatre and fed it through the medium of live-stream, giving the audience the energy and unpredictability of live performance, from the comfort of their bedrooms to your home.

Bad Behavior Lab's innovation of experimenting with physical and virtual boundaries within art is not tied to their theatre productions.

Their first film production under the lab is co-founder Deana Taheri's upcoming short film entitled TRANSPLANT. TRANSPLANT is a short film interrogating what it means to belong as a person who cannot define themselves by one single culture or way of life.

Deana, daughter of a British mother and an Iranian father, grew up moving from school to school, city to city, and continent to continent. The nomadic life that she has led, and the confusion of stability and belonging that accompanies it, was the inspiration for this project.

Featuring a team of almost entirely International Artists, TRANSPLANT gives a voice to an experience that is not often discussed in a narrative format and works to assign a physical description to the goods and bads of being constantly uprooted. The film will feature footage from across the world, something that is wonderfully accessible to me as someone with connections from around the world, including NYC, England, Panama, and Qatar.

Bad Behavior Lab's bold and unapologetic attitude is the ammunition for the creation of original work that is not afraid to challenge stereotypes, challenge medium, and challenge themselves to always go the extra mile.

"We are the voices of an entire class of artists who were expected to wait patiently for the world to realise the importance of our industry - and we refuse to wait any longer." said Deana

Submissions for the "Go To Your Room!" series can be sent to contact@badbehaviorlab.com, and all updates and show information can be found via their Instagram (@badbehaviorlab) and/or FaceBook

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