The Chocolate Factory Theater and On The Boards Present ATTEND THE OPENING World Premiere

On The Boards (Seattle, WA) and The Chocolate Factory Theater (Queens, NY) have announced the world premiere of attend the opening, a new mail art project by Seattle-based writer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist Kristen Kosmas. This project marks the launch of a multi-year co-commissioning initiative between the two institutions, supported by the Onassis Foundation USA.

Near the beginning of the lockdown in April 2020, On The Boards Artistic Director Rachel Cook and Chocolate Factory Theater Artistic Director Brian Rogers initiated a conversation around the shortcomings of the newly-ubiquitous digital, screen-based art experience; and identified a shared longing for "liveness" and more analogue forms of expression. And then Kristen Kosmas's first mail art pieces arrived, unsolicited, in their respective mailboxes.

In 2021, On The Boards and The Chocolate Factory Theater will co-commission Kristen Kosmas to expand her ongoing mail art project, attend the opening, in which she mails hand made collage works, unprompted, to her extended community. These works form a tactile accumulation of personal connections and a record of the shifting narrative of the global pandemic. From April to November 2021, Kosmas will create 32 small-scale collage works and will mail them to individuals across the U.S., free of charge. Recipients will be chosen by lottery from a pool of individuals who have been nominated by friends or loved ones.

The works comprising attend the opening will exist as gifts, performances, and intimate one-to-one exchanges. Upon completion, the works will be collectively published in book form in 2022.

In the past ten years, On The Boards and The Chocolate Factory Theater have developed deep ties to Kosmas and her work, commissioning and presenting her works There There (2012), The People's Republic of Valerie (2017) and The People's Republic of Valerie, Living Room Edition (2019). There There is included on OntheBoards.tv.

attend the opening will mark the launch of a multi-year co-commissioning partnership between On The Boards and The Chocolate Factory Theater. Supported by a Eureka Commission from the Onassis Foundation USA, two additional artists will be commissioned to create postal service-driven works in 2022 and 2023.

Kristen Kosmas has had new works commissioned by the Chocolate Factory (NYC), On the Boards (Seattle), Performance Space 122 (NYC), The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf (NYC), Seattle University's SITE Specific, Dixon Place (NYC), and the New City Theater (Seattle). Her work has been presented in Seattle, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and in New York City at numerous venues including the Chocolate Factory, PS 122, La Mama, Dixon Place, Prelude Festival, Barbès, the Ontological/Hysteric Downstairs Series, and the Poetry Project. Her play Hello Failure was published by Ugly Duckling Presse; her multi-voice performance text This From Cloudland appears in issue #4 of PLAY A Journal of Plays; The Mayor of Baltimore + Anthem, There There, and The People's Republic of Valerie, Living Room Edition were published by 53rd State Press; and her play APEX appears in 15 Second Plays Curated by the Debate Society published by UDP.

For more information visit: https://www.ontheboards.org/

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