Theater in Quarantine Announces Fall Season With Heather Christian, Madeleine George, Raja Feather Kelly and More

Theater in Quarantine, a pandemic performance laboratory from writer, director, and performer Joshua William Gelb and choreographer Katie Rose McLaughlin, has announced a new series of live-streamed performances that push the boundaries of live performance inside the digital space. Running October 19 - December 14, the season features premieres by Obie Award-Winning composer Heather Christian, Alex Falberg of PigPen Theatre Co. and Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Madeleine George. Collaborators include actor Eric Berryman and choreographers Sunny Hitt, Raja Feather Kelly, and Van-Kim Tran. New dance and theater works premiere every other Monday night on Gelb's YouTube channel.

On October 19, Theater in Quarantine, in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works, premieres "Notes from an Enumerator, or 1500 Rubles and a Revolver," an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's months-long investigation of prison conditions in Siberia called "Sakhalin Island." The production, written by Alex Falberg, marks Theater in Quarantine's first two-person production performed live in two separate locations by Eric Berryman (The Wooster Group's The B-Side) and Joshua William Gelb. With the performance coinciding at the end of our highly contested national census, creators Falberg and Berryman, both current employees of the U.S. Census Bureau, bring a unique perspective to Chekhov's self-imposed mission.

November 2 and November 30 mark a return of Theater in Quarantine's popular dance series, Closet Works, a monthly lab of short works performed by Gelb featuring choreography by Katie Rose McLaughlin (Hadestown) and guest artists. The November 2 edition will focus on efforts to get out the vote and include guest Sunny Hitt. November 30 features French choreographer Van-Kim Tran. Closet Works is presented by the Invisible Dog Art Center with additional support from Mamie Kanfer & Justin Stewart.

A new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine Geroge will premiere on November 16. Created by Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop) and McLaughlin, the new work is part of La MaMa and CultureHub's "Experiments in Digital Storytelling" and will premiere on Ars Nova's new digital platform, Ars Nova Supra.

Theater in Quarantine will close its fall season on December 14 with a premiere by Obie Award-winning composer Heather Christian. Presented in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works, the new work is directed and performed by Gelb and features choreography by McLaughlin.

Shortly after the coronavirus pandemic closed all theaters, Joshua William Gelb transformed a 2' x 4' x 8' closet inside his East Village apartment into a white-box theater. Starting on March 30, Gelb and his collaborators began releasing pre-recorded studies in movement, clown, camera orientation, and perspective - building towards more complex theatrical experiences. On April 23, they premiered Theater in Quarantine's first live-stream performance: an adaptation of Kafka's The Neighbor which was followed by an unauthorized edit of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape and collaborations with artists like Scott R. Sheppard (Underground Railroad Game), Nehemiah Luckett (Jazz Singer), and Ellen Winter (36 Questions).

Theater in Quarantine's most recent productions, "The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy" and "Footnote for the End of Time," were met with critical acclaim. Jesse Green in his New York Times critic's pick review declared that Theater in Quarantine has produced "some of the New Medium's most imaginative work from some of its simplest materials." Helen Shaw in Vulture wrote that Theater in Quarantine "makes confinement a virtue, a prompt to imagination." Maya Phillips in The New York Times noted, "These small-scale, digitally savvy productions, filmed live from a converted closet in Gelb's Manhattan apartment and accompanied by innovative visual and audio effects, have matched the texts in their idiosyncratic approaches."

Theater in Quarantine's fall season also marks new partnerships for the Company with Ars Nova's Supra, Invisible Dog Art Center, and Theater Mitu's Expansion Works. In addition, Gelb and McLaughlin are part of La MaMa's new "Breaking It Open" residency program supported in part by CultureHub.

Please visit joshuawilliamgelb.com for more information and youtube.com/joshuawilliamgelb to stream all of the Theater in Quarantine original works.

Theater in Quarantine Fall 2020 Season

Notes from an Enumerator, or 1500 Rubles and a Revolver

October 19 at 7pm and 9pm

in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works

Created by the ensemble

Written by Alex Falberg

Directed by Joshua William Gelb

Performed by Eric Berryman and Joshua William Gelb

Choreographed by Katie Rose McLaughlin

In 1890, Anton Chekhov fled his burgeoning career as playwright to take an unauthorized census of the inhabitants of Sakhalin Island, a prison colony at the furthest reaches of Siberia. These enumerations would result in his only non-fiction work, which The New Yorker called "the best work of journalism written in the nineteenth century." This investigation of prison conditions in Siberia has been newly adapted for Theater in Quarantine in what will be their first two-person production, performed live in two separate locations by Eric Berryman and Joshua William Gelb. With the performance coinciding at the highly contested end of our own national census, creators Alex Falberg and Eric Berryman, both current employees of the U.S. Census Bureau, bring a unique perspective to Chekhov's self-imposed mission.

Special night-before-the-election edition of Closet Works v6

November 2 at 7pm and 9pm

Creators include Sunny Hitt, Joshua William Gelb and Katie Rose McLaughlin with special guests

Presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center

November 16 at 7pm and 9pm

new work written by Madeleine George

Created by Raja Feather Kelly and Katie Rose McLaughlin

A new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George, created by Raja Feather Kelly and Katie Rose McLaughlin. The work is supported by CultureHub and will premiere on Ars Nova's new digital platform, Ars Nova Supra.

Closet Works v7

November 30 at 7pm and 9pm

with French choreographer Van-Kim Tran

Presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center

new work by composer Heather Christian

December 14 at 7pm and 9pm

in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works

Directed and Performed by Joshua William Gelb

Choreographed by Katie Rose McLaughlin

A new work by Obie Award-winner composer Heather Christian. Presented in partnership with Theater Mitu's Expansion Works, the new work is directed and performed by Gelb and features choreography by McLaughlin.

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