The Assembly Theater to Premiere New Musical IN CORPO This Summer

The Assembly Theater (HOME/SICK) in association with Dutch Kills Theater (The Antelope Party) will present the World Premiere of IN CORPO, a new musical by Ben Beckley and Nate Weida with music by Nate Weida. It is directed by 2017 Lucille Lortel Award winner Jess Chayes (HOME/SICK, Half Moon Bay) with music direction by Ben Caplan and choreography by lisa nevada. Previews begin June 21 at Theatre Row with opening slated for June 26.

In the last corporation on the planet, everything is great and everybody's happy! Then K, a survivor from the outside world, arrives at the behest of a mysteriously missing manager and challenges the seamless, numbing, but highly efficient status quo. Darkly zany and driven by a catchy electro-folk-funk score, IN CORPO is a daringly bold musical about the seductions of technology, the possibilities of authentic human connection, and what to do when the system lets you down.

IN CORPO draws freely from Franz Kafka's The Castle, Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," and the artists' own experiences negotiating hellish bureaucracies and corporate "day jobs." The common thread: a deep interest in the individual's relationship to forces that curtail autonomy and limit self-expression, as well as the ways employees adapt to and against these forces.

IN CORPO stars RJ Christian, Zoe Siegel, Jessica Frey, Austin Owens Kelly, Monica Ho, Wesley Zurick, Ben Beckley, Ben Caplan, and Devon Meddock. The production features dramaturgy by Stephen Aubrey, scenic design by Nic Benacerraf, costume design by Kate Fry, sound design by Asa Wember, and lighting design by Mary Ellen Stebbins. The production team also includes production stage manager Gerrit Blake, assistant stage manager Kate Budney, production manager Savanah Sanchez, technical director Eric Emerick, assistant scenic designers Sasha Schwartz and Bea Martino, assistant sound design and live mixing by Jack McGuire, assistant costume designer William Torruella de León, associate lighting designer Nicholas Pollock, assistant director Sarah Shapiro, and producers Meredith Lucio, Emily Caffery, Alley Scott, and Alec Silver.

Ben Beckley is a writer and actor. With designer Asa Wember, he created two acclaimed immersive phone-based experiences: Junction and KlaxAlterian Sequester (four stars in The Scotsman). His plays have been produced and developed with Red Bull, Northern Stage, F*It Club, Fresh Ground Pepper, Dutch Kills, and The Assembly. A monologue he wrote with Heidi Schreck was featured in some performances of Broadway's What The Constitution Means To Me, in which he understudied and appeared. Ben's work as an actor also includes premieres by Itamar Moses (Denver Center), Moira Buffini (Atlantic Theater Company), Christopher Durang (The Flea), Ariel Stess (Clubbed Thumb), and Lynn Rosen (New Georges). He appeared in the first national tours of Peter and the Starcatcher, Small Mouth Sounds, and the Jack Thorne/Matthew Warchus' Christmas Carol, and toured internationally with Temporary Distortion. On-camera credits include Poker Face, New Amsterdam, and Inventing Anna. Ben is a co-artistic director of The Assembly and has performed and co-created eight shows with the company. Ben has a B.A. in Dramatic Literature from Princeton University.

Nate Weida is a theatre composer and writer based in NYC. His work has been performed across the city at The Atlantic Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, Bushwick Starr, Judson Memorial Church, and Lincoln Center. He has written 14 musicals to date, including award winning Pirate La Dee Da currently under option by Disney. He also composed and performed in Night Vale Presents's podcast It Makes a Sound. Every year, he travels to Shanghai to work on the Reality Show with NYU and composes a new musical with the Possibility Project Foster Care Cast. He is an ensemble member of Pipeline Theater Company which produced his Byuioo in 2013. Currently he is an Artist-in-Residence at Judson Memorial Church, where he has been developing an operatic adaptation of The Oresteia with Micah Bucey; working on Salty Brine's Living Record Collection; and developing a new musicals with Ben Holbrook at Wildwind Performance Lab.

Jess Chayes is an award-winning director and producer of new work. She was an inaugural member of the BOLD Theater Women's Leadership Circle at Northern Stage, and is a founding co-artistic director of The Assembly, with whom she has co-created and directed eleven original productions. Recent productions include: Jane Anger (Jen Campos Productions and Shakespeare Theatre, DC), The Antelope Party (Dutch Kills), Off Peak (Hudson Stage and 59E59), Jordan & Venus Rising (Northern Stage), as well as new work development with The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, and Clubbed Thumb. Jess is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a co-founder of the New Georges Jam. Recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women and the Collaboration Award from the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition. www.jesschayes.com.

The Assembly is a collective of multi-disciplinary artists committed to realizing visceral, intelligent, and inclusive theater through sustained collaboration. The company has created eleven original theatrical works, including Seagullmachine (2018); Home/Sick, a NY Times and Backstage Critics' Pick ("a cutting edge young theater collective" - NY Times, 2011), revived in 2017 (JACK, Brooklyn); and I Will Look Forward To This Later (2016), praised for its "boldly unhip sincerity" (NY Times). The Assembly has performed at Theatre Row, La MaMa ETC, The New Ohio, The Prelude Festival, HERE Arts Center, toured to the Edinburgh and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals and The Odyssey Theater in LA, and taught at Columbia and Wesleyan Universities, NYU, and Dartmouth College. The Assembly's Deceleration Lab, launched in 2020, supports the creation of new theatrical projects that use and experiment with multi-perspective, multi-disciplinary, and collaborative models of creation. A cover feature about the company was published in The Drama Review (Fall 2016). Today, The Assembly is director Jess Chayes, writer/actor Ben Beckley, writer/dramaturg Stephen Aubrey (The Dark Heart of Meteorology), producer/actress Emily Caffery and Tony-award winning producer Meredith Lucio.

Since 2011, Dutch Kills (Alley Scott, Artistic Director and Alec Silver, Managing Director) has been committed to developing and producing new plays by the most exciting emerging theater artists in New York and beyond. Dutch Kills full productions include The Antelope Party by Eric John Meyer, Wolf 359's temping a At The Wild Project and the Adelaide Fringe, Selkie by Krista Knight at The Wild Project, Solitary by Duane Cooper and Blake Habermann at Edinburgh Fringe, Intelligence at Next Door at NYTW, Latter Days by Ben Beckley at Ars Nova and The Providence of Neighboring Bodies by Jean Ann Douglass at Ars Nova and Edinburgh Fringe, The Sister by Eric John Meyer at the 4th Street Theater and Paradise in Edinburgh, and In Quietness by Anna Moench at Walkerspace, among others. The company has produced dozens of developmental workshops and readings including works by Kate Benson, Alexandra Silber, and Erin Mallon. The company will present Wolf259's temping again this year at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more info visit www.dutchkillstheater.com.

IN CORPO runs thru June 21 - July 8. Performances are Tuesday - Friday at 8pm; Saturday & Sunday at 3pm & 8pm. Running time is 2 hours including intermission. Theatre Row is located at 410 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036. Tickets are $20 - $65, on sale shortly at www.assemblytheater.org. Join the mailing list at www.assemblytheater.org/contact to get notified as soon as tickets go on sale.

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