Maia Novi's INVASIVE SPECIES to Have Eight-Week Off-Broadway Engagement

Maia Novi’s outrageously true dark comedy Invasive Species will invade the stage for an Off-Broadway limited engagement at The Vineyard’s Dimson Theater, reuniting the cast and creative team from its 2023 world premiere at The Tank.

Invasive Species begins previews on Tuesday, May 7 ahead of a Wednesday, May 15 opening night. This limited 8-week visiting engagement at The Vineyard will play through Sunday, June 30.

Tickets for Invasive Species are on sale now at www.invasivespeciesplay.com.

Transferring from the 2023 production include Maia Novi, Raffi Donatich, Sam Gonzalez, Alexandra Maurice, and Julian Sanchez. Invasive Species is directed by Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Breslin (Circle Jerk) with Louisa Jacobson (“The Gilded Age”) serving as assistant director.

An Argentinean actor tests the limits of her American dream in Invasive Species, an outrageous true story about lying to live, living to lie, and how immigrating to the US might just be the role of a lifetime.

Lead producers are Folk Productions, Danielle Perelman, Arterial Projects. Jeremy O. Harris executive produces through his company with Josh Godfrey, bb2. Additional producers include Amauta Marston-Firmino, associate producers David Tao & Benjamin Nelson, and co-producers Vaughn Feighan & Chase Landow, Tira Harpaz, Brandon Sanchez, and Rachel Weiss.

Invasive Species is an exclusive commercial booking at The Vineyard’s Dimson Theatre.

 Maia Novi

(Playwright/Cast) is a writer and performer based in New York working in film and theater. She's currently developing a feature with Film4 and Wayward Pictures, and an adaptation of Invasive Species for the screen. MFA: Yale School of Drama. IG: @maianovi_

 Raffi Donatich

(Cast) is a writer and performer. She currently has a series and feature in development. Previously, she participated in Jeremy O. Harris' inaugural writers residency Substratum and assisted on his plays DADDY (Almeida) and Slave Play (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, NYTW, Broadway). She was awarded Yale's Frederick Mortimer Clapp fellowship for poetry and is a two-time winner of the Yale Playwrights Festival. She is repped by 2am and UTA.

 Sam Gonzalez

(Cast) is an actor and dancer based in his hometown of New York City. He is an alum of the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School through NYU Tisch where he also served on the faculty for 6 years. He is a member of the resident acting company at Mercury Store in Gowanus. Recent credits include Bathhouse.PPTX (The Flea), Invasive Species (The Tank), Cuck, Cuck, Bull, Twenty-Six Seconds (Columbia), Big Green Theater (The Bushwick Starr), Salt Kid Watches Brooklyn Burn (Joe’s Pub), Little Match Girl Passion (Met Breuer), Lulu is Hungry, Blue Plate Special (Ars Nova), and The Velveteen Rabbit (Atlantic Theater Company). thesamgonzalez.com

 Alexandra Maurice

(Cast) has recently been seen in Invasive Species at The Tank. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama where she has been seen in The Commedia Project, Twelfth Night, love i awethu further, Luna Gale, and YELL (Yale School of Drama). She holds a BFA from Howard University and has trained at the Maggie Flanigan Studio.

Julian Sanchez

(Cast). Previous theatre credits include Invasive Species at The Tank, Becky Nurse of Salem (Lincoln Center Theatre), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Girls (Yale Rep); Jeremy O. Harris’ YELL (Carlotta Festival); Middletown, A Chorus Line (Virginia Theatre Festival); Hand to God (Live Arts). Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama.
 

Michael Breslin

(Director) is a writer, director, and actor. As a creative director of Fake Friends: Circle Jerk (Pulitzer finalist, Obie Award) and This American Wife (FourthWall Theatricals, NYTW, “Best Theater 2021” LA Times and New Yorker). Additional: Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, TV development with A24. Forthcoming: Bikini (with Cat Rodríguez) and a new musical (with Patrick Foley and Rory Pelsue). DFA, Yale.

 Louisa Jacobson

(Assistant Director) is an actor and graduate of the Yale School of Drama MFA Acting program (David Geffen School of Drama at Yale). Currently, Louisa can be seen playing the role of Marian Brook in HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” an original series from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. Louisa has appeared in a number of regional productions, including Three Sisters (Williamstown Theater Festival), Trayf (Geffen Playhouse), Romeo & Juliet (The Old Globe), Native Son (Yale Rep), and The Member of The Wedding (Williamstown Theater Festival). Last spring, she made her Off-Broadway debut in Sarah Einspanier’s Lunch Bunch, produced by PlayCo and Clubbed Thumb. Training: Yale School of Drama + British American Drama Academy.

 Amauta Firmino

(Producer/Dramaturg) is a filmmaker, writer, and producer. He was the production dramaturg for Slave Play on Broadway and has developed new works at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Sundance Institute, New York Theatre Workshop, and Yale Repertory Theatre. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

 Yichen Zhou

(Lighting Designer) is a lighting and scenic designer born and raised in China. She is deeply fascinated by the stories told through space and the truth one can find through imagination. www.zhouyichen.design| @yichen.zhou.design 

 Jessie Char and Maxwell Neely-Cohen

(Sound Designers and Compositions). Jessie Char and Maxwell Neely-Cohen’s work has spanned theater, video games, film, literature, and dance. Their most recent theater projects include sound design for JOB (Soho Playhouse, The Connelly Theater), which was acclaimed by The New York Times Critic’s Pick and New York Magazine, and residencies with Fake Friends theater company at Ars Nova and CultureHub.

 Cole McCarty

(Costume Designer) is a New York-based costume designer originally from Texas. McCarty’s professional design credits have been featured both regionally and in New York including the workshops and productions of theater and media company Fake Friends which includes the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Circle Jerk. He currently serves on the faculty of FIT and Southern Methodist University. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

 Beth Gill

(Movement Direction) is an award-winning choreographer based in New York City since 2005. Her multidisciplinary works are captivating, cinematic timescapes, the product of long-term collaborations with celebrated artists. Gill is the proud recipient of the Herb Alpert, Doris Duke Impact, Foundation for Contemporary Art and “Bessie” awards. She has toured nationally and internationally and been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEFA’s National Dance Project grant, Princeton’s Hodder Fellowship and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Artist in Residence. 

 Danielle Perelman

(Producer) is a New York-based producer working across theatre, television, film, and emerging media. Danielle most recently lead produced JOB at Soho Playhouse which was awarded a NYT Critic's Pick during its twice-extended sold out run. Other recent credits include Broadway: Stereophonic, Appropriate, Just for Us; Off-Broadway: JOB at The Connelly Theater, THE APPOINTMENT at WP Theatre. Danielle started her career in the CAA Theater & Motion Pictures group and currently works with Oscar, Grammy, Tony, & Golden Globe Award-winning creators Pasek & Paul. Danielle received her BA in Multimedia Storytelling at Brown University.

 Folk Productions

(Producer) is a multidisciplinary creative studio that partners with cultural tastemakers, emerging talent, and class-leading creators to build new original work across all mediums. Folk was founded in June 2023 by producers and entrepreneurs Eric Kuhn and Tre’ Scott, with Adam Rodner as the Head of Creative Operations.

 Arterial Projects

(Producer) is the New York City-based producing practice of Adam Rodner and Ahmad Simmons. It makes work with emphasis on new economic models, audience expansion, and synthesis of next-gen media, performing arts, intervention, and scandal.

 Jeremy O. Harris / bb2

(Executive Producer) Jeremy O. Harris is the playwright and creator of the most Tony-nominated Broadway play, Slave Play. He was nominated for two 2023 Tony Awards for producing The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and Ain’t No Mo’. His play Daddy opened to acclaim at its UK debut at Almeida Theatre in March 2022. In June 2022, Daddy opened at the Tokyo Globe Theatre. Slave Play will open this summer on the West End at Noel Coward Theatre. Jeremy co-wrote A24’s critically-acclaimed Zolaalongside director Janicza Bravo. bb2 is a theater, film, television, and new media company, co-founded by Harris and Josh Godfrey, that exists to support explosive artists in the building of dynamic work that meets at the intersection of art and entertainment.

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