The Tank Presents Three World Premieres This Spring - I WAS UNBECOMING THEN, WAR STORIES, and SURFACING

The Tank will present three World Premiere productions as part of their Spring 2020 season. All performances will take place at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues).

"These three shows and this group of artists embody our focus at The Tank-to empower emerging artists to tell vital, untold stories while bending form and genre," said Artistic Director Meghan Finn. "Each one of them will surprise, delight and intrigue and I can't wait for Tank audiences to share in the experience."

The World Premiere new musical I Was Unbecoming Then features a book and lyrics by Lyndsey Bourne (We Share Spoons), music by Sam Kaseta (Dizzy Ire) and direction by Ilana Khanin (Ancient Greek Corn). Previews begin April 2, 2020, with opening night set for April 9, for a limited run through April 25, 2020.

It's 2006 and a high school choir is getting ready to compete. While the altos and sopranos tune and re-tune to changing harmonies and hormones, they learn to shape themselves in the dissonance. I Was Unbecoming Then is a choral play-thing about the minefield of girlhood - when good hair was never so important.

The cast of I Was Unbecoming Then will include Queen-Tiye Akamefula (Anatomy of a Suicide), Nile Assata Harris (Frankenstein), Evie Brandford-Altsher (The Forest), Amanda Centeno (Gobstopper), ChiWen Chang (Gobstopper), Caitlin Cobb-Vialet (Triplight), Siena D'Addario (Sisters on the Ground), Brenna Donahue (Dreamboat), Keyana Hemphill (Gobstopper), Annie Hoeg (What A World! What A World!), Lizzy Jarrett (The Happy Garden of Life) and Sara Rahman ("The Uncanny Upshurs").

I Was Unbecoming Then will feature set design by Caitlin Ayer (Lord of the Flies), costume design by Hahnji Jang (A Midsummer Night's Dream) and lighting design by Dallas Estes (Good & Noble Beings). Creative Producer is Morgan Lindsey Tachco.

I Was Unbecoming Then is presented with support from The NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts.

The performances schedule for I Was Unbecoming Then will be as follows: Thursdays at 7pm; Fridays at 7pm; and Saturdays at 3pm & 7pm. There will be additional performances on Sunday, April 5 at 3pm; Wednesday April 8 at 7pm; Friday April 10 at 3pm; Friday April 17 at 3pm; Sunday, April 19 at 3pm; Monday April 20 at 7pm; and Wednesday April 22 at 7pm.

Tickets range from $25-$30, with student & senior tickets available for $15. Tickets are available for purchase at www.thetanknyc.org.

War Stories, a World Premiere new play written by Marthe Rachel Gold (Lake Anne) and directed by Christina Roussos (Bathsheba's Psalms), begins previews May 7, 2020, with opening night set for May 15, for a limited run through May 30, 2020.

Marthe Rachel Gold's War Stories, set in World War II New York City, is the story of Ruth, a young musician from a working-class immigrant family who has come to the city to pursue personal freedom and political relevance. Exploring the world through labor politics, through music and through relationships, she is deeply committed to supporting the "good" war. Her views are challenged by Nat, who comes from a wealthy industrial Jewish family and sees all wars as capitalist and corrupt. War Stories embeds their personal struggles within the context of those of workers and conscientious objectors, against a backdrop of anti-Semitism and awash in the music of the time period.

The cast of War Stories will include Rafael Benoit (Strangers in the Night), Ali Dachis (Fish in the Dark), Sophia DeLeo (Big River), Brandon Fox (Harmony in a Flat), Kyle Leibovitch (The First Course), Woodrow Proctor (Pass Over) and Jonathan Randell Silver (Bump).

War Stories will feature set design by Maryam Khosravi (Ask For Jane), costume design by Sabrina Bianca Guillaume (Black Exhibition by Garyxxfisher), sound design by Hannah Birch Carl (The Shipment), music by Zachary Catron (The Battle, Not the War) and lighting and projection design by Jon DeGaetano (Uncle Vanya).

The performances schedule for War Stories will be as follows: Thursday-Saturday at 7pm. Exceptions: there will be additional performances on Sunday, May 10 at 7pm; Saturday, May 16 at 3pm; Sunday, May 17 at 3pm; Friday, May 22 at 3pm; and Saturday May 30 at 3pm. There will be no performance on Thursday, May 14.

Following the Sunday May 17 3pm and Saturday May 23 7pm performances, War Stories will present a talk back: the first (5/17) on the subject of the labor movement of the era and the second (5/23) on conscientious objection.

Tickets range from $25-$35 and are available for purchase at www.thetanknyc.org.

The World Premiere of Surfacing is created and performed by Kimi Maeda (ephemera trilogy). Previews begin June 4, 2020, with opening night set for June 6, for a limited run through June 21, 2020.

Surfacing is an intimate portrait of a woman caring for an assemblage of rooms and objects from her past that have come to life as a breathing creature. However, the arrival of a stranger and rising floodwaters test their relationship and ultimately lead the woman to transform into the very force that she was trying to protect the creature from. Using unassuming found objects, Kimi Maeda's new solo performance piece explores the responsibility we have to the past and the future while we try to carve a place out for ourselves in the present.

The performances schedule for Surfacing will be as follows: Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesdays at 7pm; Thursdays at 7pm; Fridays at 7pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 7pm; and Sundays at 3pm and 7pm.

Tickets range from $25-$35 and are available for purchase at www.thetanknyc.org.

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