New Ohio Theatre Announces 2022 Ice Factory Festival

The Obie Award-winning New Ohio Theatre has announced that the 29th annual Ice Factory Festival will be a hybrid model that includes live in-person performances, as well as live-streamed and on-demand. Ice Factory 2022 features seven new works over seven weeks, July 6 - August 20, at New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher St.) in New York City.

How to Watch

Live in-person performances are Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7pm ET. Each company's Thursday performance will be live-streamed at 7pm ET and on-demand to view at home through the end of the festival. Tickets are $20 and $17 (students and seniors). Purchase in-person tickets at https://newohiotheatre.org and live-stream/on-demand tickets at https://watch.eventive.org/newohiotheatre.

New Ohio's Artistic Director Robert Lyons says, "This year's Ice Factory embraces a wide range of themes, perspectives, and subjects at the heart of our national conversation. The work is urgent, vital, and engaging. We look forward to sharing it with our audiences in NYC and - with the live-stream option - the rest of the world!"

New Ohio Theatre strengthens, nurtures, and promotes a community of independent theatre artists and companies by developing and presenting bold new work in New York City. Their Ice Factory summer festival offers emerging and established companies a prime platform to develop their work. Ice Factory prides itself on maintaining extraordinary aesthetic diversity along with an unequaled standard for intelligent, imaginative theater.

ICE FACTORY 2022 IN-PERSON & ON-DEMAND SCHEDULE

July 6 - 9

TRASH BODY MONKEY HOUSE
Created and Directed by Jen Pitt
Devised by the company

One night, at the height of their careers, Molière and his pals got drunk, realized the futility of life, and made a pact to commit group suicide in the nearby river. (Fortunately, they passed out, woke up hungover, and changed their minds.) Incorporating clown work and dance theatre, this devised piece, performed by women, uses this wild evening as a point of departure to explore the tragic underbelly of "funny", asking important questions, like - what if Molière had twitter? What happens to sadness at our peaks of success? And what the f*ck do people want anyway? https://www.jen-pitt.com

Cast includes Rachel Griesinger (Molière) and Tiffany Carvalho (Buster).

July 13 - 16

THE WEAVER (part II) PARADIGM
TÉA Artistry
Directed and Created by Vieve Radha Price and Chuk Obasi
Devised by Tara Amber, Ima Otto During, Annie Hartkemeyer, Joy Kelly, Nalini Sharma and Miriam Tabb
Script by Tara Amber and Nalini Sharma

A young hospital patient loses his temper, triggering drastic measures to quell the perceived threat - an event with rippling impact on those in closest proximity. As his protective mother holds this event against the backdrop of institutional racism and personal bias, five women attempt to undo the external and internal damage. Questions linger throughout: Is this how it is? Is this how it should be? This is part two of a series of theatre works exploring the nuanced dynamics of racism through both a personal and communal lens.

TÉA Artistry seeks to activate and inspire humanity through art. They engage Insight Artistry to create spiritually grounded work and to cultivate communities of self-aware and socially conscious artists. They are dedicated to utilizing the method of Insight Artistry to support the development of authentic and transformative creative work, across all artistic fields. Over the past decade TÉA has developed Insight Artistry to create both theatrical works and a personal practice for artists and creatives. https://www.tea-artistry.org

Featuring Tara Amber, Annie Hartkemeyer, Joy Kelly, Ima Otto-During, Nalini Sharma and Miriam Yisroyel Tabb.

July 20 - 23

ISLA
Created by Hit the Lights! Theater Co.

Featuring Samantha Blain, Tiffany Iris, Marlena Mack, Casey Scott Leach, Claron Hayden, Kristopher Dean and Mikayla Stanley.

Three sisters' escape from their island and embark on a journey to redefine the meaning of home. Inspired by the family history of company member Samantha Blain, ISLA investigates the harsh realities of political refugees, the love of family, Cuban mythology, and the spirit of sisterhood. Mixing shadow puppetry, poetry, an original live score, and recorded audio interviews of the original sisters, ISLA blends magical realism and documentary theater to explore the experiences of being torn from one's home and the journey to create another.

HIT THE LIGHTS! THEATER CO. is an award-winning company created out of an artistic agreement to tell simple stories through unconventional means. Their multimedia work includes handmade shadow puppets, vintage overhead projectors, flashlights, found materials, original live music and immersive techniques. The company is composed of five experienced multidisciplinary artists, with performers multitasking onstage in real time to create the technical, musical, and narrative components of a story simultaneously. https://www.hitthelights.org

July 27 - 30

ACHERON: THE RIVER OF TRAGEDY
XIPE Colectivo Escénico
Directed by Martin Balmaceda
Written by Xavier Villanova
Featuring Aline Lemus Bernal and Cinthia Pérez Navarro

Leonardo dreams of crossing the Acheron River to live the Death-Dream. But his desires are thwarted when a mysterious migra (immigration agent) prevents his crossing and becomes, at different times, his friend, enemy, guardian, transgressor and even his victim. A poetic, dramatic meditation on identity, migration, and the idea of "alien" at the Mexico-US border. Performed in Spanish with English supertitles.

XIPE Colectivo Escénico aims to create productions that encourage the meeting of diverse disciplines allowing the expansion of artists whose visions inspire, challenges and move us. They are a group of theater makers based in Mexico-US whose work articulates movement and text with different levels of physical and emotional engagement.

August 3 - 6

BODY THROUGH WHICH THE DREAM FLOWS
Written and Choreographed by Soomi Kim, and Co-Directed by Meghan Finn and Soomi Kim
Movement generated by the company
Featuring Soomi Kim, Lucy Meola, Olivia Caraballoso, Ai Clancy, Madison Rodriguez, Shayna Wilson and Nora Avci

Intersecting theatre artist Soomi Kim's personal history as a veteran gymnastics coach, the aftermath of the Larry Nassar scandal, and the deconstruction of the sport's governing body, this dance/theatre work navigates the sport in the time of #metoo and #cancelculture. Featuring dance and gymnastics inspired movement generated by an ensemble of 6 competitive gymnasts.

Soomi Kim (she/her) is a New York City based actor/movement artist. Alongside her performance career, she worked as a competitive gymnastics coach and choreographer at Chelsea Piers NYC. In 2018 she was named Coach of the Year and is now the founder of GymKim Choreo LLC, a dance and choreography service for women's gymnastics. The gymnasts in BTWTDF are athletes Kim has coached or taught spanning 1-7 years. https://www.soomikim.com

Production team includes Choreography Consultant Alexandra Beller, Dramaturge Sarah Gancher, Stage Manager Mars Neri, Sound Designer Zeke Stewart and Lighting Designer Amanda Ringger.

August 10 - 13

THE STRANGE CASE OF CITIZEN DE LA CRUZ
Atlantic Pacific Theatre
Written by Luis H. Francia
Directed by Claro de los Reyes and Robert Thaxton-Stevenson

Set in an unspecified time in the Philippines, this political satire explores the phenomena of radical nationalism through the lens of Filipino politicians, house wives, military men, faith healers, and covert spies. A multidisciplinary, mixed-media production with elements of audience participation.

ATLANTIC PACIFIC THEATRE is an independent theater company that creates theatre works, public history programs, and community-engaged experiences for and with communities of color. Through partnership-driven projects, APT aims to enhance visibility, awareness, and understanding around POC histories and identities in local and transnational contexts. The company's underpinning values of cross-cultural exchange and pluralism center their work on polycultural experiences that reach across geographical and socially constructed borders. https://www.atlanticpacifictheatre.org

August 17 - 20

SALT
A Guerilla Opera Production
Written and directed by Deniz Khateri
Music and sound design by Bahar Royaee
Featuring Aliana de la Guardia

An elder woman cooks soup for her husband, as she expounds on her salty life (trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage) and contemplates a way out. An operatic monologue for soprano and electronics.

Guerilla Opera is a contemporary opera ensemble that develops new experimental works written specifically for their ensemble of artists. The Guerillas champion cutting-edge music, immerse audiences in profound experiences, and eschew antiquated and stereotypical traditions of the art form of opera in order to examine stories through culturally focused and contemporary lenses. Their vision is to generate a unique body of work that ferociously confronts the status quo and to be a model for creative authenticity and DEIA, and to inspire, influence and amplify emerging generations of artists. https://guerillaopera.org

New Ohio Theatre is a two-time Obie Award-winning theatre under the leadership of Robert Lyons (Artistic Director) and Jaclyn Biskup (Creative Producer). The New Ohio serves New York's most adventurous theatre audiences by developing and presenting bold work from today's vast independent theatre community. They believe that the best of this community, the small artist-driven ensembles and the daring producing companies that operate without a permanent theatrical home, are actively expanding what theatre is, how it's made, and who makes it. From their home in the West Village's historic Archive Building, the New Ohio provides a high-profile platform for downtown's most mature, ridiculous, engaged, irreverent, gut-wrenching, frivolous, sophisticated, foolish and profound theatrical endeavors.

Audience members are required to have proof of full Covid-19 vaccination and wear a mask to be admitted into the venue. For the latest health and safety protocols, visit https://newohiotheatre.org/playing-now/covid-19-protocols.

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