The Assembly Welcomes Meredith Lucio as Producing Director; Emily Caffery Named Artistic Producer

The Assembly announced that Tony Award-winning producer Meredith Lucio has joined the company as Producing Director while Associate Producer Emily Caffery has been promoted to the role of Artistic Producer. In partnership with the company's four Co-Artistic Directors, Lucio and Caffery will continue to build an administrative foundation that supports The Assembly's mission of creating deeply collaborative work that reflects the unique perspectives of its artists and audiences, while they continue to solidify The Assembly's role as a vibrant part of New York's downtown theatre community. Lucio is an independent producer with broad experience producing theater in New York, both on and off Broadway and nationally. Caffery is a theater producer, actor, and administrator, and the Associate Producer of The Assembly since 2014.

"Meredith combines a formidable breadth of producing experience with an infectious enthusiasm, positivity and willingness to jump in and make things happen," said The Assembly's co-Artistic Director Jess Chayes. "We feel incredibly lucky to have her as a part of The Assembly during this crucial moment of growth."

"I'm thrilled to be a part of The Assembly's core ensemble," said Lucio. "The Assembly's unique approach to collaborative development is as daring as it is thrilling. To work with such dynamic artists, each of whom are sought after independently in the theatre industry, in a truly shared, developmental process was a producing opportunity I simply couldn't pass up."

Lucio's producing credits include as a Co-Producer of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical (Broadway, National Tour), The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Tony Award), lead producer on Bedlam's Hamlet and Saint Joan (OBA Best Revival Award), co-producer of The 39 Steps (New World Stages) and Rooms: A Rock Romance. She has served as a Program Director for Theatre Resources Unlimited's Producer Development and Mentorship Program and has been a speaker about the business of producing to audiences of teachers, self-Producing Artists and students with The Commercial Theatre Institute, the Off-Broadway Alliance, Scottsdale Community College, the International Thespian Festival, the Educational Theatre Association and the Texas Educational Theatre Association. In 2014, Meredith was inducted into the Richland H.S. Hall of Fame alongside famed singer Gary Morris and U.S. District 91 Congressional Candidate Wendy Davis. Ms. Lucio holds a Bachelor of Arts from Texas Wesleyan University and also is an alumna of Texas Tech University.

"Emily Caffery's promotion has been a long time coming," Assembly co-Artistic Director Ben Beckley said. "In her four-and-a-half years with the company, she's emerged as not only a gifted producer, but a trusted artist, collaborator, and friend."

"I'm delighted to be expanding my role with The Assembly," said Caffery. "The company's fundamentally collaborative process and commitment to deep artistic exploration make The Assembly an important voice in contemporary theater, and I am grateful to work among such a dedicated and thoughtful community of artists and audiences."

Caffery has worked previously as the Festival Company Manager of the PROTOTYPE Festival and, with The Public Theater, the Assistant Line Producer of The Under the Radar Festival and an assistant in both the Finance and General Management departments. She has produced six plays with The Assembly, in addition to workshops and special events. Other producing projects include Colt Coeur's Eureka Day, Emily Krause's Something for the Fish, and Hipokrit Theatre's Elements of Change in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, UNICEF, Comics Uniting Nations, and Greenpoint Innovations as part of Climate Week NYC. As a performer, she has appeared in The Assembly's Seagullmachine at La MaMa ETC and Wesleyan University, and has worked with The Bushwick Starr, The Playwrights Realm, The Brick, Columbia University School of the Arts, and regionally across Southeast Michigan. She has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and is an alumna of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Theater Institute.

THE ASSEMBLY is a collective of multi-disciplinary performance artists committed to realizing a visceral and intelligent theater for a new generation. Assembly members unite varied perspectives in service of wide-reaching, unabashedly theatrical and rigorously researched ensemble performances, crafted to spark conversation with their audiences. Their work embraces the complexities of our present moment; it is a call for empathy and engagement. Embracing collaboration as the core of the creative process, the company chooses projects through consensus and develops text, action and design side-by-side within the rehearsal environment. From workshops to productions to post-performance discussions, The Assembly is dedicated to rooting its artists, audiences, and peers in a profound sense of community.

The company has performed at venues across New York such as La MaMa ETC, Jack, New Ohio Theatre (Archive Residency Award), The Incubator, The Prelude Festival, HERE Arts Center, Horse Trade, and The Collapsable Hole, and has toured to the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, Wesleyan University, the Edinburgh Fringe (Fringe First nomination) and the Philly Fringe. In 2016, this process was documented by Professor Cindy Rosenthal in the cover essay of the industry's leading academic journal, The Drama Review: "Circling Up with The Assembly: A Theatre Collective Comes of Age." The Assembly's educational workshops are designed to foster empowered and empowering collaborators, training young artists in the ethics and techniques of their unique method of ground-up creation. The company has worked with students at Williams College Summer Theater Lab, The Atlantic Theater School, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Wesleyan University, as well as annual weekend intensives in NYC. The Assembly is Stephen Aubrey, Ben Beckley, Nic Benacerraf, Emily Caffery, Jess Chayes and Meredith Lucio.

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