SOHO REP. PROJECT NUMBER ONE Artist's Work Available to View Through July

Soho Rep. is presenting eight works created by artists comprising Project Number One, the organization's 2020 initiative bringing theater-makers onto the Soho Rep. staff in a moment of extreme precarity for the artistic community.

In the last year, the artists have considered ways to re-envision production processes, artist compensation and labor, season models, and other issues. At the core of the project-bridging the typical gaps and leveling power dynamics between institution and theater-makers-was a bi-weekly three-hour meeting they had wth Soho Rep. staff members, and sometimes including artist Board members, Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab co-chairs, and members of the company's continuing Lab cohort. Each Project Number One artist was given a budget of $10,000 to create a public-facing project that could take any form.

The first of these, David Ryan Smith's The Story of a Circle, is out now on YouTube Live, where it will be available to stream through Thursday, May 27. Becca Blackwell, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Stacey Derosier, David Mendizábal, Ife Olujobi, Carmelita Tropicana, and Jillian Walker will also share their works in the coming weeks, online and for in-person visitors to Soho Rep.

Soho Rep. Project Number One Presentations

David Ryan Smith

The Story of a Circle

Released on May 20; available to stream through Thursday, May 27

Link Here

Smith writes of this project he's been working on with Abigail Jean-Baptiste, "The Story of a Circle is a story about neighborhood, love, family and a little house on Tacoma Circle. Think of it as a performable collage about what home means to me. There's some history, some songs and you get to meet my parents. What could be better?I hope you will join me on this trip down south to the Blue Ridge Mountains where I was born and raised. Much love and see y'all in Asheville on the 20th!"

David Ryan Smith (he/him) Broadway: One Man, Two Guvnors; Passing Strange. Off Broadway: Where We Stand (Women's Project) Passage (Soho Rep); A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Romeo & Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles (The Public Theater), Gone Missing (City Center/Encores! Off Center), Mankind (Playwrights Horizons), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theater), The Glory of the World (BAM), #9 (59E59); The Rover (NY Classical Theater); Marat/Sade (Classical Theater of Harlem). Select Regional: Repertory Theater of Saint Louis, Shakespeare Theater Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, Barrington Stage, American Conservatory Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Crossroads Theater Company. Film: The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Medal of Victory, Bee Season. Education: MFA, American Conservatory Theater, BFA University of Evansville. He is a member of the Young Partner Board at The Public Theater and teaches acting at Playwrights Horizons Theater School-NYU.

Carmelita Tropicana

That's Not What Happened

Virtual Launch Event June 8th | 7:30pm

RSVP for the Zoom Panel Discussion Here Beginning June 1

Carmelita Tropicana describes this project, "That's Not What Happened is a podcast that explores the difficult, humorous, and often imperfect process of remembering. The first 12 episodes trace my life in Cuba, with Mima, my grandmother, my father, a comandante who fought in Castro's revolutionary forces, and the two Jose's in my life: the 19th century Cuban revolutionary poet José Marti, who died for Cuban independence from Spain, and my friend, the queer Cuban-American performance theorist José Esteban Muñoz, who passed away at 46 in 2013. The podcast follows a non-linear episodic structure that juxtaposes memories from my childhood, my obsessions (especially with food), and the legacies of queer figures who have been both personally and historically transformative."

The podcast was created with Ela Troyano (Dramaturg, Director), Margaret Crimmins (Sound Design), Marc Ribot (Music, crediting needs approval), Aliza Shvarts (GIFs) and Cristina Martinez (Production Coordinator), and will be shared by Soho Rep. via e-blast and available here. On June 8, Carmelita Tropicana will discuss-and read excerpts from-the podcast at an online launch event.

Alina Troyano aka Carmelita Tropicana (she/her) has been performing in New York's downtown arts scene since the 1980's, straddling the worlds of performance art and theater with irreverent humor, subversive fantasy, and bilingual puns. Current works online include Pandemic Fight, Theater for One Project (2020) and Rad Women for Pandemic Times, 100 Years / 100 Women, The Park Avenue Armory (2020). Tropicana is a Guggenheim Fellow and Obie recipient in Theater. Select awards include Creative Capital, Anonymous Was a Woman, New York Foundation for the Arts. Publications include Memories of the Revolution: The First 10 Years of the Wow Café Theater, (2015) edited with Holly Hughes and Jill Dolan and Carmelita Tropicana: Performing Between Cultures (2000). Tropicana was an original member of the WOW collective, served on the Board of Directors of PS New York, formerly PS 122 (1998 - 2016) and New York Foundation for the Arts (2015 to date).

Jillian Walker

The Orange Essays

Readings Released June 3

IG Live Discussion June 10 | 7:30pm

RSVP to the IG Live Session Here, Beginning June 3

Walker describes The Orange Essays on her website: "A series of invocations and provocations in the form of a spell/book of lyrical essays that assume that, as Eunsong Kim points out, 'Form & Content, Form & Power are inseparable.' The Orange Essays pray and play with this fact. This is a love letter, to us, in the field. The theatrical field."

On June 3, Soho Rep. will share links to readings of The Orange Essays, and on June 10, Jillian Walker will host an Instagram Live discussion of this project.

Jillian Walker (she/her) writes and performs sacred texts for the theatre. Her work has taken the form of plays, musicals, lecture-sermon-concert gatherings, and self-reflective space for remembrance and liberation. She draws deeply on her training as a dramaturg (MFA Columbia), Black Spiritual wisdom, and the ongoing work of Black feminist thinkers to bring process-driven performance to life. Some of her work(ings) include SKiNFoLK: An American Show, co-presented by The Bushwick Starr and National Black Theatre (NY Times Critics' Pick, Kilroys List, Antonyo Award), Sarah's Salt., and Songs of Speculation. Jillian is currently co-conspiring with The TEAM as a writer/performer on Reconstruction, and Soho Rep., where she is the 2020-21 Tow Playwright-in-Residence. She is a 2020 Lilly Award recipient who also enjoys co-conspiring with the readers of her monthly newsletter, The Free List.

www.thisisjillianwalker.com

David Mendizábal

Eat Me!

Available Beginning June 17 | 7:30pm

RSVP Here Starting June 10

David Mendizábal writes of Eat Me!, his autobiographical film, "I've been contemplating the relationship between creation and destruction. How sometimes something needs to break before something else can grow and how self-actualization looks like personal accountability and healing. Inspired by the Ecuadorian ritual of preparing and eating guaguas de pan or bread babies as a way to mourn those we've lost, I started a project I'm calling, Eat Me!, releasing ideas of myself I've held onto for years in order for new ones to rise."

David Mendizábal (he/him) is a director/designer, one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of the Obie Award winning The Movement Theatre Company, and the Associate Artistic Director of The Sol Project. Select directing credits include: Don't Eat the Mangos (Magic Theatre/Sundance/Sol), On The Grounds of Belonging (Long Wharf), the bandaged place (NYSAF), Then They Forgot About The Rest (INTAR), The Maturation of an Inconvenient Negro (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), And She Would Stand Like This (w/ choreo. by Kia LaBeija), Look Upon Our Lowliness, and Bintou (The Movement), and Tell Hector I Miss Him (Atlantic / Drama League Nomination). He is a member of the Latinx Theatre Commons, alumnus of The Drama League Directors Project, LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble, NALAC, artEquity, and Lincoln Center Directors Lab. David was a participant in the TCG Leadership U: One-on-One program from 2017 - 2018, where he was the Artistic Associate at Atlantic Theater Company. BFA - NYU/Tisch @ PHTS | davidmendizabal.com | IG: @its_daveed

Shayok Misha Chowdhury

Public Obscenities

June 22 | 7:30pm; available for seven days after initial release

RSVP at sohorep.org Beginning June 15

Chowdhury shares an excerpt of his play-in-progress, Public Obscenities, and participates in a virtual conversation via Zoom. As Chowdhury told NYFA, "This year, with the gift of time Soho Rep's given me, I'm writing a play that's been brewing in me for over a decade. It's a bilingual play, called Public Obscenities, in Bengali and English, inspired by a dream my uncle once had. In the dream, he was in a movie theatre. And he described the movie to me in meticulous detail. And then he said: 'you're the artist, go make it'." Check out an excerpt of the play here.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury (he/him) is a writer, director, and many-tentacled maker. He is the creator of VICHITRA, an experiment in queer South Asian imagination. The project has been commissioned by Ars Nova, The Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, Joe's Pub, Dixon Place, and National Queer Theater. Misha is a Resident Artist at HERE Arts Center, a member of the Devised Theater Working Group @ The Public, and an alumnus of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Ars Nova's Maker's Lab, New York Theatre Workshop's 2050 Fellowship, and residencies at BRIC, The Drama League, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. Recent: MukhAgni (Under the Radar); How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia (Joe's Pub); Englandbashi (HERE Arts). Upcoming: The Other Other with Kameron Neal (Ars Nova), a queer Carnatic extravaganza (The Bushwick Starr), and a new collaboration with Aleshea Harris (New York Theatre Workshop). In progress: SPEECH with Lightning Rod Special; Antioch Mass with Troy Anthony. A Fulbright and Kundiman fellow, Misha has been published in The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. shayokmishachowdhury.com

Stacey Derosier

PEEP SHOW

See Schedule Below

Soho Rep. (46 Walker Street, NYC)

Advance Registration, for Timed Entry, Will Be Required at sohorep.org

Estimated Duration of Experience: Approximately 20 Minutes

Stacey Derosier invites the public to experience-in-person-an installation she is creating at Soho Rep. She describes the work as an immersive, as-you-like peep show with a sense of play and dissatisfaction, set within a comically large booth.

Says Derosier, "In the midst of mandated isolation I became fascinated with the singular booths that snuck their way to the forefront of my life-pop-up COVID testing sites, voting cubicles, and, more abstractly, Zoom windows. I found sublime in the mundane and the excitement of watching a photoshoot of dress-up unfold in my inaccessible backyard. This brought me back to the imagined places I visited in the past with my best friend, my partner-in-crime, cousin extraordinaire.

Stacey Derosier (she/her) (NYC lighting designer). Credits include: Here We Are (Theater for One), School Girls, Or the African Mean Girls Play (Berkeley Rep), All the Natalie Portmans (MCC Theater), Stew (Page 73), How to Load a Musket (Less Than Rent), The Copper Children (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Men on Boats (Baltimore Center Stage), for all the women who thought they were Mad (Soho Rep.), White Noise conceived by Daniel Fish (NYU Skirball), the bandaged place (NYSAF Powerhouse), Playing Hot! (Pipeline Theater Company), The Climb (Cherry Lane - Mentor Project), Mies Julie & Dance of Death (Classic Stage Company), Novenas For a Lost Hospital, No One is Forgotten, Lewiston/Clarkston (Rattlestick Playwright's Theater), The Revolving Cycles Truly & Steadily Roll'd (Playwright's Realm) & was the 2018 Lilly Award recipient of the Daryl Roth Prize. www.staceyderosier.com

Becca Blackwell

The Body Never Lies

See Schedule Below

In the lobby of Soho Rep (46 Walker Street, NYC)

Advance Registration Will Be Required at sohorep.org

Becca Blackwell is creating the installation The Body Never Lies in collaboration with Max Bernstein and Amanda Villalobos. Blackwell writes that the work is "a two-booth installation of giving and receiving. In the receiving booth, one can listen to up to 100 heart beats, isolated or all together. This booth is meant to recreate the feeling of being in places of gathering (theaters, clubs, shows, churches, etc.), something our bodies have missed during this past year. The giving booth offers the opportunity to leave a sound from one's body, be it a scream, a heartbeat, a fart, a giggle or a unique sound one's body may make to be a part of a larger library of body sounds." More details to come.

Becca Blackwell (they/them) is an NYC-based trans actor, performer and writer. Existing between genders, and preferring the pronoun "they," Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expand our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Some of their collaborations have been with Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, Richard Maxwell, Erin Markey, Sharon Hayes, Theater of the Two Headed Calf and Lisa D'Amour. Film/TV includes: "High Maintenance," "Ramy," "Marriage Story," "Shameless," "Deadman's Barstool," and "Jack in the Box." They have toured their solo shows They, Themself and Schmerm and Schmermie's Choice across the US. Blackwell was a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award, the Franklin Furnace award and the Creative Capital Award.

Ife Olujobi

No Play

Available Beginning July 15

See Schedule Below

Book will be available in the lobby of Soho Rep (46 Walker Street, NYC)

Ife Olujobi releases No Play, a book exploring the concept of work. The initial run will be exclusively available at 46 Walker street on the final weekend of Becca Blackwell's and Stacey Derosier's installations. Olujobi plans to be present at the theater to sell the work herself as much as possible. All proceeds will go to an organization of Ife's choosing.

Olujobi says of No Play, "This project invites anyone who makes (or made, prior to the pandemic) their living, either financially or spiritually, in the theater-to reflect on how their idea of and relationship to work has changed over the course of the past year, and how their lives have changed as a result. The investigation will culminate as a book, featuring dispatches from theater folk who are navigating life away from the stage in the midst of a pandemic and national racial reckoning."

Ife Olujobi (she/they) is a Nigerian American playwright and screenwriter from Columbia, Maryland. She is a 2019-20 New Voices Fellow at The Lark, a 2020-21 Resident Artist at Ars Nova, a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre, an alumnus of both the 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater and the 2020 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, and the recipient of a 2020 Sloan Foundation commission from Manhattan Theatre Club. Her plays include Jordans, Smoke, MARKETPLACE, and others, and her work has been seen at The Public, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Charity Randall Theater, Bishop Arts Theater Center, and more. She is also the founder and editor of Townies zine, managing editor of The Supplements at Soho Rep, and a former assistant editor at the Criterion Collection. She received her BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2016.

Soho Rep. Hours for Becca Blackwell and Stacey Derosier's Installations and Ife Olujobi's Book

Timed-entry tickets will be available within these time frames. Ife Olujobi's No Play will be sold at the theater during the last weekend of these events.

Thursday, June 24, 4-8pm

Friday, June 25, 4-8pm

Saturday, June 26, 2-8pm

Sunday, June 27, 2-8pm

Thursday, July 1, 4-8pm

Friday, July 2, 2-8pm

Saturday, July 3, 2-8pm

Friday, July 9, 4-8pm

Saturday, July 10, 2-8pm

Sunday, July 11, 2-8pm

Friday, July 16, 4-8pm

Saturday, July 17, 2-8pm

Sunday, July 18, 2-8pm

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