Ars Nova Announces Line-Up for 11th Annual ANT Fest
By: Julie Musbach May. 07, 2018
Ars Nova is pleased to announce the line-up for its 11th Annual ANT Fest (June 4-28), four non-stop, throw-down weeks of live entertainment mayhem, featuring fresh material from the next wave of dynamic, indie-theater makers. Tickets go on sale today for this festival of new indie theater/music/comedy featuring all new talent, all the time.
This year, the festival once again includes the ANT Fest Lounge Series - intimate, pop-up encounters with ANT Fest Alums, debuting fresh ideas and new sounds - in the oh-so-lux ANT Fest Lounge, including Angela Sclafani (June 6), Ikechukwu Ufomadu (June 11), Whitney White (June 13) and WinLitt (Ellen Winter & Chris Littler) (June 23). Plus, Ars Nova's ongoing variety-show-meets-party Showgasm. will get festified with two special late-night 9pm performances hosted by Mitra Jouhari (June 7) and Ayo Edebiri(June 21). Now in its eleventh year, ANT Fest, Ars Nova's annual celebration of All New Talent, is a prime destination for an eclectic mix of brand new shows from some of the most intrepid, adventurous artists in New York City and beyond. Through its open submission process, ANT Fest offers a wide range of early career artists a point of entry onto the Ars Nova stage and into the greater New York City arts community. This year's open call for submissions drew over 400 applicants.Created & Co-Directed by ÉAMON BOYLAN
Co-Directed by ADIN WALKER
A soft stick of butter, stored in a meat locker with a raw tongue and a moustache, yearns to be spread. Fusing absurdist camp with intimate poetry, Soft Butter queers the musical form and recalls the experience of growing up in a body (or identity) before having the language to express it. Tuesday, June 5 The Magic Negro and Other Blackness
Written & Performed by MARK KENDALL
Directed by ANTHONY LeBLANC
Mark Kendall examines the representation of black men in the media through comedic sketch. From prison to white flight - and even Reading Rainbow - Kendall explodes our understanding of even the seemingly innocuous and explores the influence these images have on our everyday lives. Also, there will be cookies! Wednesday, June 6 If You Do This Right You'll Probably Break Their Chest
Created by MARINA & NICCO
Written by NICCOLO AEED, MARINA TEMPELSMAN, NATASHA VAYNBLAT, SJ SON, MOUJAN ZOLFAGHARI & Hunter Nelson
In this unique theatrical co-creation, comedy duo, Marina and Nicco, provide scenes from a weekly CPR class and a mélange of writers and directors fill in the blanks about the students' lives. Who steps up? Who folds like a fainting goat? Can we conquer death? We'll sure try! In the ANT Fest Lounge:
Angela Sclafani's Songbook: Live
Created & Performed by Angela Sclafani
Joined by a full band and special guest singers, effervescent songwriter/performer, Angela Sclafani, lights up the ANT Fest Lounge with the lush sounds and female-centered stories of her folk-pop songbook.
Peter Smith's DIANA.
Created & Directed by JAKE BECKHARD & Peter Smith
Peter Smith invites you to spend a sly, sensational hour with the Princess of Wales in this docu-spectacle, biopic drag. DIANA is a long-form lip-sync ode to the titular royal's moment of ascension: the 1995 tell-all BBC interview in which she truly became "the princess of people's hearts." Showgasm. - ANT Fest Edition
Hosted by MITRA JOUHARI & CREW
Social media sweetheart MITRA JOUHARI guest hosts our untamed monthly variety show-meets party, introducing us to her who's-who of the weird and wonderful - from comedy to burlesque and everything (and anything) in between. Friday, June 8 MADONNA col BAMBINO
Written by SARAH EINSPANIER
Music by Deepali Gupta
Directed by Caitlin Sullivan
Merry (with an E) is Christine's surrogate mother. Mary (with an A) is Christine's biological mother. Kristine (with a K) is Christine's biological mother's surrogate daughter. Martha is Christine's friend. Martha is having a baby. She can't decide on a name. A play about family - in many forms - with no yelling. Saturday, June 9 I, I AM A DANCER!
Created & Performed by Raja Feather Kelly | the feath3r theory
Pop art meets reality TV meets dance-theater in this reimagined A Chorus Line, where the audience eliminates each dancer one by one. It's like America's Next Top American Drag Survivor Runway So You Think You Can Model Dance Friends Race all wrapped up in one singular sensation. Monday, June 11 The Church of the Holy Glory
Created & Performed by Cheo Bourne, Raja Feather Kelly & Joel Perez
Real-life, longtime friends Raja, Cheo and Joel blend music, comedy and (of course) praise dance into a fantastical, high-energy meditation on the taboos of faith, identity, community and sex - and how they relate to their lives in New York City. In the ANT Fest Lounge: Ike by Chance
Created & Performed by Ikechukwu Ufomadu
Join comic entertainer, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, as he hosts the only game show that keeps you guessing as to what exactly the game is. A sly deconstruction of competition that soft-shoes across the fine line between reality and entertainment, order and chaos. Tuesday, June 12 HOTBOX
Co-Created & Directed by Kate Bergstrom
Co-Created & Music by MARTIM GALVÃO
Recommended for You Based on Your Interest in: Mind-Bending, Multimedia Bombast. Through hybrid virtual/physical performance, cyberdelic music and a darkly comic perspective, HOTBOX examines our sticky, gendered shitshow of consumerism, technology and politics and asks: Is self-realization 1-Click® away Wednesday, June 13 pato, pato, maricón
Creator, Lyricist & Chorographer L.H. GONZALEZ
Directed by KAYLA STOKES
Composer ANDREW ABRAHAMSEN
Magnetic poet/performer L.H. Gonzalez unfolds a brotherly love letter in this rap-opera, show-and-tell inspired by true events. Set in a Harlem public middle school, pato, pato, maricón tells the story of three brothers with two-and-a-half coming out stories. In the ANT Fest Lounge: DEFINITION
Created & Performed by Whitney White
Directed by Caitlin O'Connell
A black woman's mind begins to unravel. What happens when we zoom in on her? What happens when she becomes trapped in our gaze? What happens when she falls in love with a Magritte painting? With genre-bending, soulful electro-pop, the magnetic Whitney White guides us through an examination of delusion and how we learn to walk with our demons every day. Thursday, June 14 BOYS WILL BE BOYS 4 LYFE
Created & Performed by Mel Krodman
Pete Pan is many things: a celebrated literary figure, an avid BMX and
skateboarding extreme sports athlete and - most importantly - about to throw the sickest Instagram video release party of all time. Get lit with the forever boy, baby, and keep those windows open!!!! #videorelease #nevergrowup #nvrland #tinkisfun #wendywhereareyou #fckshadowsanyway #boystyle #nevergrow #crow Friday, June 15 I Am This For You
Written & Performed by Emily Gardner Xu Hall
Inspired by the Japanese phenomenon of maid cafés, you become the customer as Etsuko and her fellow maids perform their superfun electronica pop just for you - about sex and youthfulness, consent and the performance of female sexuality. You be the male gaze, and we will be your beautiful dream. Welcome home! Saturday, June 16 Another f-ing Dad Play
Written & Performed by Jake Jeppson
Directed by Caitlin Sullivan
George Jeppson, was the president of a pottery company. His son, John Jeppson II, served in the Pacific during WWII. His son, John Jeppson III, had secrets. His son, Jake Jeppson, wrote this autobiographical, anti-Father's Day truth-bomb PowerPoint presentation examining the things we inherit and the things we leave behind. Monday, June 18 Sup
Choreographed & Directed by LISA FAGAN
Stuck in a vortex of small talk and meaningless gestures, four human dancers with very active social lives stretch and reform the rhythm and shape of their conversations, building up and breaking down a warped version of our most base level attempts to know one another. Tuesday, June 19 The Death of Hayden Waverly, The Most Popular Person In The World
Written by LAUREN WIMMER
Directed by Eben Hoffer
The Most Popular Person In The World has died! Naomi strives to replace her. Eli joins the Terrified of Death Club. And when club-leader Nelson gets a terminal diagnosis, all three must reevaluate friendship - fast. A buddy tragicomedy about people with no buddies except for a dead raccoon named Buddy. Wednesday, June 20 The 7-Person Chair Pyramid High Wire Act
Written by DONNA OBLONGATA
Directed by SARAH LOWRY
Charles Darwin explores. The Yeti dances. Cave-dwelling ropemakers fear the loss of their craft. A little brown bat falls in love. Rich with imagination and puppets, two performers on a tiny stage unfold an interlocking set of tales and try to tease out the difference between miracles and non-miracles. Thursday, June 21
Let's Prank Call Each Other
Created & Performed by ZACH DORN
Directed by Stefano Brancato
Puppetry mastermind, Zach Dorn, invites you into his own tilted psyche, where a panoply of DIY chaos - from overhead projectors to live-feeding video cameras inside of miniature dioramas - explodes an excruciatingly ordinary life into a dizzying funhouse of storytelling madness. Showgasm. - ANT Fest Edition
Hosted by AYO EDEBIRI & CREW
Spitfire straight-shooter AYO EDEBIRI guest hosts our untamed monthly variety show-meets party, introducing us to her who's-who of the weird and wonderful - from comedy to burlesque and everything (and anything) in between. Friday, June 22 Misogynoir
Created & Performed by Tabatha Gayle & Sam Kebede
Being Black is tough. Being a Woman is tough. But being a Black Woman is its own special cocktail of oppression. Using their kaleidoscopic sense of humor to dissect media, society and their own relationship, real-life couple Sam and Tabatha search to discover what's at the core of misogynoir. Saturday, June 23 My Straighties
Written & Performed by RYAN J. HADDAD
Directed by David Perlow
A straighty is any man who is straight, kind and affectionate. Ryan has a lot of straighties, but he doesn't have a boyfriend. How did this happen? With a rainbow cape and a six-pack of PBR, Ryan revisits his fraternity past as he interrogates masculinity, intimacy and brotherhood. Come and bro out. Cuddling is encouraged. In the ANT Fest Lounge: DRAFT 387 - A Concert of Original Songs That Were All, At One Point, Very Very Bad
Created & Performed by WINLITT
WINLITT is ELLEN WINTER & CHRIS LITTLER
Join writer-composers, Ellen Winter and Chris Littler, as they have a prolonged existential crisis onstage. This concert/confessional will trace all the way back to the indie-folk-rock storymaking duo's musical origins in a celebration of the collaborative process - and of being so very wrong 99.9999% of the time. Monday, June 25 Cancer Cancer Cancer
Written by Alexander Paris
Directed by Michael Leibenluft
In this surreal theatrical meditation, a school assembly is ruptured as three queer boys - tangled up in a world where heartbreak is violent - struggle to locate themselves in the racial pictures that have been drawn for them by American culture. Tuesday, June 26 A Doll's House, Part 3
Created & Performed by MICHAEL BRESLIN & PATRICK FOLEY
A Doll's House, Part 3 picks up where Nora left off, after she picked up where she left off, after slamming the door on her husband and children in 1879. Michael+Patrick's sequel to the sequel they never read is a searing examination of gender, sexuality, race, class and hierarchy for the reality TV generation. Wednesday, June 27 SITCHAASSDOWN FOCUS GROUP TOUR
Written & Produced by KANENE AYO HOLDER
Direction & Costume Design by Aixa Kendrick
Interaction is good and silence is bad as SFGT whirls the original sins of American injustice into a dynamic carousel of comedic delights - and YOU are invited to sound off loud, clapback, whisper WTF, agree, disagree and spill tea. Come on in! It's a dystopia out there! Thursday, June 28 I Was Unbecoming Then
Written by LYNDSEY BOURNE
Directed by ILANA KHANIN
It's 2007 and this competitive high school choir has secrets. Follow twelve girls singing genre-bending choral music (wink!), as they grapple with changing harmonies, bodies andrelationships - until an unexpected revelation threatens to disrupt it all. About the ANT Fest Lounge Show ArtistsAngela Sclafani is a singer, songwriter, theater composer and actor. Her original musical, The Other Side of Paradise, which she wrote, performed and co-produced, premiered in Ars Nova's ANT Fest 2017 under the direction of Hunter Bird. Angela has performed with artists such as Todd Almond, Courtney Love, Shaina Taub, Heidi Rodewald, Teen Commandments and Years & Years in venues that include The Beacon Theatre, The Theater at Madison Square Garden, Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, McKittrick Hotel and The Studio at Webster Hall. Off Broadway: Single Rider (The Players Theatre). Select theater: Kansas City Choir Boy (A.R.T. | Oberon, CTG), The Daughters (NYU), Liz Swados' The Reality Show; Workshops/Readings: The Flamingo Kid (dir. Darko Tresjak), Agent 355, Burn All Night, The Good Swimmer. Angela is a 2018 Richie Jackson Artist Fellow, an inaugural resident of The Orchard Project NYC Greenhouse and a 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist. She is currently recording and mixing her new EP entitled Your Ghost and her music can be found online. Angela graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Drama. angelasclafani.com.Ikechukwu Ufomadu is an actor and comic entertainer, recently named as 1 of 5 "Comedians to look out for in 2018" by Time Out New York. He is creator and host to a number of original live shows including: his evening of talk-show entertainment, Ike at Night (Under the Radar/The Public Theater, The Bushwick Starr, JACK); his night of comedy and music, Nightcap | by Ike (Joe's Pub at The Public Theater); his one-man variety hour, Ike Night (Ars Nova, San Francisco Sketchfest); his Christmas show, Ike for the Holidays (Manhattan Inn) and more. He performs stand-up at venues across New York, including Union Hall and UCB. He's also featured in several episodes of The Special Without Brett Davis. Ikechukwu has collaborated with several OBIE-winning theater companies including: Young Jean Lee's Theater Company Archive, 600 HIGHWAYMEN andHoi Polloi. He trained at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts; the International Theatre Workshop in The Netherlands and Studio5's theater and dance programs in Indonesia. Ikechukwu was an Artist-in-Residence at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater as a member of the 2017 Class of Joe's Pub Working Group.Whitney White is a director, musician and actor. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, as an actress she has worked at The Roundabout Theater Company, The Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Chautauqua Theater Company, Broadway Playhouse, Ars Nova and more. Film: Ocean's 8. Television: The Playboy Club (NBC) and Louie (FX). As a director, Whitney has developed work at: The Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, 59E59 Theaters, Trinity Rep, NYU TISCH, Luna Stage, SUNY Purchase, Princeton University, Atlantic Theater Company Acting School, The Drama League, South Oxford, Jack, The Tank, New York Musical Festival, The Lark and others. She also has assisted Sam Gold (Othello, New York Theatre Workshop and The Secret Life of Bees, New York Stage and Film), Daniel Sullivan (If I Forget, Roundabout) and Anne Kauffman (Marvin's Room,Broadway). As a composer/musician her original concert plays include: Lover I'll Bring You Back to Life (Ars Nova 2017), Macbeth in Stride (Judson Memorial 2018) and, the upcoming, DEFINITION (2018 Bushwick Starr Reading Series and 2018 Ars Nova Makers Lab). Her musical discipline is rooted in indie-rock, industrial and soul. Whitney was the inaugural Roundabout Directing Fellow and is currently a 2050 Fellow at the New York Theatre Workshop. She is also the Artistic Development Associate at The Roundabout. This year she will be in residency at Ars Nova as part of their 2018 Makers Lab and at the Drama League as part of their Next Wave Residency, where she is developing an African American production of Anton Chekov's The Three Sisters set to original music. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA: Northwestern University. whitney-white.com. WINLITT is a writing/composing duo based in Brooklyn. With degrees from Sarah Lawrence and NYU respectively, they fuse their backgrounds in playwriting and screenwriting with indie musical stylings. For the last four years, they've written and performed as the front men of Chamber Band, a five-piece nerd-rock group with three concept albums and national tours under their belts. Their knack for storytelling and fascination with pushing medium and genre led them to composing their first musical, 36 Questions, a musical podcast starring Jonathan Groff and Jessie Shelton. Ellen lives in South Brooklyn with her partner and 34 plants. Chris lives in Bushwick with his fiancée and their dog. ELLEN WINTER is a performer, composer and theater-maker from the woods of Northern Virginia, currently camping out in Brooklyn. As a songwriter, she's performed at the Knitting Factory, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Sofar Sounds, Rough Trade, Ars Nova and many more. Since 2013, she's written and belted with nerd-rock group, Chamber Band. In the realm of theater, she's been on the music teams of Dave Malloy, César Alvarez, The Bengsons, Mark Bennett, Brandon James Gwinn and Heather Christian. And in March 2018, she was seen behind the piano of Pipeline Theatre Company's Folk Wandering as their pianist, conductor and music director. She's currently on post-production for her debut studio album, Every Feeling. CHRIS LITTLER is a writer-composer from the deep suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. He has worked with an amazing variety of incredible human beings since graduating from Tisch - including a year working as the creative assistant to Canadian funnyman Mike Myers. He wrote a full-length concept album about falling in love and tabletop gaming called Deities. He's also a staff writer on the Limetown podcast - including the upcoming second season. He does not know what happened to Judith in Sedona. About Ars Nova
Ars Nova is committed to developing and producing theater, comedy, and music artists in the early stages of their professional careers. Our unique development programs are designed to support outside-the-box thinking and encourage innovative, genre-bending work. Dubbed byThe New York Times as a "fertile incubator of offbeat theater," Ars Nova blurs genres and subverts the status quo. With our feverish bounty of programming, we are the stomping ground and launching pad for visionary, adventurous artists of all stripes. By providing a safe environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova gives voice to a new generation of artists and audiences, pushing the boundaries of live entertainment by nurturing creative ideas into smart, surprising new work.
Photo: Ayo Edebiri by Danny Bristoll
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