Theater In Quarantine Announces New Premieres, May 20 - June 21

Theater in Quarantine, a pandemic performance laboratory from writer, director, and performer Joshua William Gelb and choreographer Katie Rose McLaughlin, announces a new series of live-streamed performances, running May 20 - June 21, that push the boundaries of live performance inside the digital space.

New collaborators include playwrights Caridad Svich and Dan O'Neil, actor Keith McDermott, and vocalist, songwriter, and producer Kyler Wilkins aka Ki5 who performs live from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Theater in Quarantine's new and continued partnerships include the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, CultureHub, and La MaMa. New works premiere on Thursday at 7pm and 9pm ET every three weeks at www.youtube.com/theaterinquarantine.

Premiering on May 20, La MaMa and CultureHub have commissioned The Little Hours by Obie-award winner Caridad Svich as part of their Experiments in Digital Storytelling program, which incubates story-driven artworks that harness digital distribution platforms, expand online audience engagement, and push the boundaries of current artistic forms.

Directed by Gelb and choreographed by McLaughlin, The Little Hours is a play-installation about two poet friends as they navigate their lives, and the delicate, vulnerable spaces in and between their friendship when one of them falls ill and the other is entrusted with setting down their shared thoughts and memories. The play is an investigation of faith, love, and grace, amidst scattered snapshots of an old artist-bohemian New York that may never return. We wait and dream in the little hours for a radical utopia, even while the world crumbles.

The Little Hours is performed by Keith McDermott and Gelb from separate closets across the East Village. It features video design by Gelb, sound by Kate Marvin, dramaturgy by Sarah Rose Leonard, and MiQ Software by Alex Hawthorn.

On June 10, Theater in Quarantine premieres The Nine O'Clock Problem by Dan O'Neil, a collectively built meta-faux-documentary of the inner and outer workings of Theater in Quarantine. Directed by Gelb and choreographed by McLaughlin, The Nine O'Clock Problem interrogates vulnerability via failure. The reality is that within that 28 second delay between when Gelb is actually live in his closet and when audiences see him, purportedly live, so much can go horribly wrong. Playing a version of himself, Gelb attempts to perform a one-man farce that goes quickly off the rails - and that's before Izzy wakes up.

On June 21, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival will present an evening of short works by Theater in Quarantine including a new commission featuring vocalist, songwriter, and producer Kyler Wilkins aka Ki5 who will perform live from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The complete archive of original works by Theater in Quarantine is available for free at www.youtube.com/theaterinquarantine. Please visit www.theaterinquarantine.com for more information.

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