Fiasco Theater Announces In-Person Programming For The Fall

With the return of live theater in New York underway, Fiasco Theater is delighted to announce its 2021-22 season. This season features the dynamic ensemble work and inventive reimagining of classics that has defined Fiasco's work since its inception, as well as an expansion into work on new plays and musicals, and the start of several new reading, performance, and development processes. Tickets are currently available for all presentations through the end of 2021.

Founded in 2009, Fiasco Theater is known for award-winning productions of Cymbeline, Into the Woods, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and other re-imagined classics, as well as for excellence in theater education through workshops, master classes, and their annual Free Training Initiative. This fall, Fiasco will launch three new performance initiatives - Open Your Ears, Some Of Its Parts, and Without A Net, offering audiences dynamic new ways to see and hear plays and musicals, and to be a part of the creative process.

Open Your Ears is Fiasco's new reading series-a chance to share texts with an audience, giving everyone a chance to hear the play together. Creative teams can both try out new ideas here, as well as take projects forward that have bubbled up from Groundwork, Fiasco's internal workshop series, to see how they land. Some Of Its Parts is an initiative designed to let the audience in on Fiasco's conceptual development process, sharing elements of a show such as music, movement, casting, cutting, and design ideas-a laboratory of leaps and experiments for how a production might evolve. Finally, Without A Net is a new program in which a play is table-worked, thrown on its feet, and shared with an audience in a free-wheeling, joyful performance in only two weeks.

"We cannot wait to share space and stories again," said Artistic Directors Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody, and Ben Steinfeld. "At its core, theater has always been about coming together to share an experience - one that can never be exactly replicated. Each unique audience is an integral part of the process and we are thrilled to invite the community to join us to enjoy and participate in these powerful shows and exciting new programs."

Fiasco is prioritizing the safety of artists and audiences and has put protective COVID measures in place for all in-person projects: Everyone involved must be fully vaccinated, they have hired a full-time Covid Compliance Officer for each project, and artists and staff will be tested twice weekly. All audiences must show proof of vaccination and stay masked at all times.

On September 23 at 7 p.m., Fiasco will initiate the "Open Your Ears" series with a reading of Aphra Behn's hilarious 1688 proto-feminist restoration comedy THE LUCKY CHANCE at Theatre Row. Tickets are available here. Tickets are choose-your-price ranging from $20-$60.

Cast: Jasmine Batchelor, Noah Brody, Tina Chilip, Carole Davis, Paul L. Coffey, Crystal Finn, Andy Grotelueschen, Ben Steinfeld, Paco Tolson. Directed by Emily Young.

On October 7 at 7 p.m., Fiasco Theater will begin "Some Of Its Parts" with an investigation of Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, a sweeping morality parable about a community looking for clarity after conflict, and the transformative power of radical love and empathy. Also at Theatre Row. Tickets are free and are available here.

From November 18 through 20, Fiasco will present the culmination of the first "Without A Net" project, three performances of Aditi Brennan Kapil's IMOGEN SAYS NOTHING at The Connelly Theater. This piece about a theater company in transition, a bear who loves the stage, and the power of who gets written into (and out of) history is the ideal piece to launch this new initiative. Tickets are available here. Tickets are choose-your-price ranging from $25-$75.

THE LUCKY CHANCE and IMOGEN SAYS NOTHING are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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