THE VALKYRIES Joins LadyFest At The Tank With All Female Creative Team

The Valkyries written by Jessica Owens and directed by Blayze Teicher will be presented as part of The Tank's LadyFest, a festival featuring pieces written, directed, produced, acted, managed, and designed all by female or gender non-confirming artists. The festival is "in celebration of womxnhood and the female voice, in all its glory."

In The Valkyries the tenuous strands of connection between three women in an all-female doomsday cult start to unravel-revealing how women deal with trauma, what lengths they are willing to go to, what traumas they're willing to inflict on others, and what portion of their own autonomy they are willing to give up, to feel they've regained some semblance of power.

"When I learned about LadyFest, I knew it was the perfect home for the next iteration of this piece," Owens has said, "and I am so thrilled to be working alongside such amazing people, not just in the rehearsal room but also throughout the festival as a whole."

The production, which is produced in association with The Tank, has performances on Sunday, August 18th, Monday, August 19th, and Tuesday, August 20th at 7:30pm and features Scenic and Lighting Design by Kailey B. Hays-Lenihan. Carsen Joenk serves as the Sound Designer, and Patty Garvey* Stage Manages.

The cast includes Alex Beechko as Drew, Amy Berryman* as Hilda, Allison Haglund as Gunnie, and Ashley Marie Ortiz* as She.

*Actors appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association

Performances take place at The Tank (312 West 36th Street - 1st Floor). Tickets are available here. Or on The Tank's website at www.thetanknyc.org

Jessica Owens (Playwright) is a Brooklyn based Playwright, Dramaturg, Producer and Theatre Administrator. Recent writing includes The Valkyries (Dixon Place, The Tank) and I LOVE NEW YORK: a found text american dream (Dixon Place, The Tank) Dramaturgy includes the upcoming Farragut North (5th Floor Theatre), The Glass Menagerie (Pigeonholed Theatre), I Once Found Myself in an Isolation Chamber (The Tank), The Pitchforks (The Loading Dock, The Drama League), Macbeth (Columbia Stages), Northern Lights (ATHE Development Workshop), Ascent, and MAY: A New Musical Fable. Jessica has worked at institutions such as The Broadway League, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Public Theater, and Creative Artists Agency. She is a Script Reader for Roundabout, The Public, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, YouthPLAYS Publishing, Jewish Plays Project, and various other playwrighting competitions. Co-Founder of The Varsity Theatre Company and Initiative for Millennial Theatre Artists. She holds a BA from Vanderbilt University and an MA from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts & Birkbeck College.

Blayze Teicher (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director who develops Queer, magical, and political stories for theatre and film. She served as the Resident Director of the Off-Broadway immersive show Trainspotting Live and as an Artistic Associate of The Parsnip Ship, a podcast series of new plays paired with live music. Select productions include The Virtuous Fall of the Girls from Our Lady of Sorrows by Gina Femia (The Flea), The Diplomats (Winner: Best Direction, Fresh Fruit Festival, DUAF) by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, Charlie's Waiting (Under St. Marks) by Melisa Annis, How to Field Dress an Android (University Settlement), Mother Knows Best (New Light Theatre Project), Paper Towels (The Brick) by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, The Day the Sky Turned Black (United Solo Festival) and, upcoming, Moses by Grace Connolly (HERE SubletSeries). Development credits include Andrew Rincón's I Wanna Fuck Like Romeo and Juliet(The Parsnip Ship), Andrew Rincón's You Got That Same Kind of Lonely (Amios), Grace Connolly's The Escape (Primary Stages, The Playwriting Collective), Ben Ferber's I'm Very Online (The Dirty Blondes, BAM Attic), Alexander Sage Oyen's A Night Like This (54 Below), and Gina Femia's The Mermaids' Parade(The Parsnip Ship). As a filmmaker, her work has screened at several festivals across the country, including Frameline, Out on Film Atlanta, and Cinema Diverse, and has been featured on Huffington Post, Broadway World TV, and Funny or Die. She directed the original series Interested In now streaming on Amazon Prime channel myDekkoo and served as Script Supervisor/Assistant to Randy Harrison on New York Is Dead (Winner: Best Comedy, New York Film & Television Festival, Tribeca Film Festival). Currently, she's the Producing Manager for The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Blayze has assisted for Portia Krieger (2ST Uptown, NYMF), Ilana Ransom Toeplitz, Carolyn Cantor, Lauren Keating, and Sarna Lapine.

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