bb brecht's HOLIDAY YULETIDE SPECTACULAR to Kick Off New Georges' 30th Anniversary Season

New Georges will kick off its 30th Anniversary season with a one-night-only special presentation of bb brecht's Holiday Yuletide Spectacular, created by Miranda Haymon. On Wednesday December 14, 2022, audiences are invited to spend their holiday party season with bb brecht and his friends at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie St, New York, NY 10002). Doors open at 7pm for an 8pm performance, followed by a bb brecht DJ set and special guest pop-up performances in Dixon Place's cabaret lounge. Tickets are available at dixonplace.org/performances/bb-brechts-holiday-yuletide-spectacular.

bb brecht is Haymon's alter ego and the star of an anarchic, queer, and very Black cabaret series in which bb brecht explores alienation, didacticism, and epicness in a 21st century world using unboxing videos, green screens, TikToks, autotune - whatever our churning culture may hand him. His Holiday Yuletide Spectacular is a pregame to bb brecht & THE WORK-IN-PROGRESS EPIC ADVENTURE 2023 WORLD TOUR, created by Haymon in collaboration with New Georges and The Hodgepodge Group, which will be presented in the 2023 Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater, January 18 & 21, 2023. Tickets to Under the Radar are $25 and may be purchased at publictheater.org/productions/season/2223/utr-2023/miranda-haymon-dtwg.

In addition to Haymon, bb brecht's Holiday Yuletide Spectacular is performed by Sivan Battat, Emma Buford, Marissa Joyce Stamps and Declan Zhang, with set/costume design by June Buck; lighting/video design by Zack Lobel; musical direction by Ellen Winter. It is produced by Lucy Powis with Jordan Powell as assistant director/producer.

bb brecht is an initial project of In Collaboration With New Georges, a new producing model in which New Georges forges active partnerships with artists to support small-scale productions of new works we love, we are invested in, and that we want to make part of our body of work. In Collaboration With future projects include Willa's Authentic Self by Lisa Clair, directed by Shannon Sindelar (Lisa Clair Group with Immediate Medium); and UNITED STATES v GUPTA by Deepali Gupta, directed by Caitlin Sullivan, produced by Lucy Jackson, with JACK.

In October, New Georges celebrated 30 years of producing new plays in New York City in a gala event at Carroll Hall featuring a soundscape created especially for the event by director KATIE BROOK (Dr. Ride's American Beach House). At the event, New Georges announced the company's first major fundraising campaign, New Georges Says Yes: A Campaign for the Next 30. The campaign has received a $100,000 anchor grant from The Howard Gilman Foundation and an additional $100,000 in matching funds as a gift from an anonymous longtime donor, with the goal of raising $1 million over the next 3 years.

"We've spent the pandemic pause re-envisioning New Georges for its fourth decade," said Artistic Director/Producer Susan Bernfield. "And giving a straight-out 'yes!' to artists using that time to embrace a reconfigured ingenuity. Theater projects here have always adjoined our role as a many-tiered platform for artists. That purpose and our ongoing values are infused in a new website; this campaign aims to help us keep putting them into practice, building relationships with artists and saying yes to their wildest ideas."

The gala event also included the official announcement of three additions to the New Georges board-Hilary Bettis, Deadria Harrington, and Miranda Haymon, each a key artistic collaborator. New Georges' emphasis on building artist community permeates every layer of the organization, and they are thrilled that these three theatermakers wish to deepen that relationship through board service. They join current board members Susan Bernfield, Morgan Brill, Annie Chanler, Danielle Porcaro and Alisa Schierman.

"Hilary, Deadria and Miranda are each defining their own paths in the field," said Managing Director/Producer Jaynie Saunders Tiller. "From our many conversations and our artistic work together, we know they share our ethos of big thinking and bypassing established models. Elevating these theatermakers with whom we've long been in conversation will help us put those plans in place."

New Georges' 2022/23 season continues with The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents The 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in The Grand Ballroom of The Renaissance Hotel, written and directed by Colette Robert with music by Dionne McClain-Freeney, choreographed by nicHi douglas, to be co-produced with The Movement Theatre Company at A.R.T./New York Theatres in May 2023. The Cotillion, the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, is experienced as a Black debutante ball in a major American city in real time and follows 6 well-to-do Black girls on the night of their Coming Out, from backstage preparations to the crowning of a bright new Miss Star-Burst.

At New Georges, we advocate for an intergenerational ecosystem of exuberant theatrical minds, furthering fierce new works along with long-term wellbeing, expanding aesthetic boundaries and gender equity in tandem. Since 1992, we have imagined a new kind of artistic home-a relaxed, participatory culture and a productive oasis in a competitive field. Our work is relational, not transactional. By meeting artists where they are and empowering them to see us as creative collaborators, we readily spot and support critical junctures in their process or body of work.

New Georges' focus is on women (cis and trans) and nonbinary artists. Founded in the wake of the Anita Hill hearings on the proposition that producing women is a political act, our practices are inherently non-patriarchal and intersectional. New Georges' responsive, open-ended play and artist development programs include The Room, our permanent workspace, founded in 1994. They serve New Georges' affiliated artists, the largest ongoing working community of women+ theater artists in New York City (270 strong).

As a pivotal home and launchpad for now two generations of artists, our impact reaches every corner of the culture. Premieres of more than 100 new works include first or transformative productions for Marielle Heller, Heidi Schreck, Diana Son, Anne Kauffman, Eisa Davis, Lee Sunday Evans, Lisa D'Amour, Tracey Scott Wilson, Sheila Callaghan, Carson Kreitzer, Tamilla Woodard, Daniella Topol, Cusi Cram and Kate Benson. For Rachel Chavkin, Charise Castro Smith, Lucy Alibar, Haruna Lee, Jen Silverman, Anna Ziegler and many more, we have been an early artistic home.

Honors for New Georges, its plays and its people include The National Theatre Conference's Outstanding Theatre Award, 3 Obie Awards, The Lilly Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn and Kesselring prizes.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.newgeorges.org

BOARD MEMBER BIOS

Hilary Bettis

is a critically acclaimed playwright, TV writer, and filmmaker. She hails from a Chicana mother who grew up on the border and a Southern father who grew up Methodist. Her work is a culmination of these cultures, exploring the American identity through a working-class Latinx lens. Her plays have been developed and produced all over the US and Mexico, including Alligator with New Georges in 2017. Theater accolades include Egerton Foundation New Play Awards, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Pulitzer nomination, and a finalist for the Blackburn Prize, among others. She's currently under commission at Roundabout Theatre, Miami New Drama, Untitled Theatricals, and is writing the Broadway musical book Lives in Limbo with Sergio Trujillo, Michelle Rodriguez, and Julio Reyes Copello. In television, Bettis won the 2019 Writer's Guild of America Award for her work on the critically acclaimed Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning FX series "The Americans." She wrote for the Emmy-nominated Hulu miniseries "The Dropout." She's currently developing a TV series with Mindy Kaling, and a limited series with Anonymous Content. She's an alumna of The Sundance Institute Episodic TV Lab, a graduate of The Juilliard School, and proud member of the WGAEast and proud board member of New Georges.

Deadria Harrington

is a New York City-based creative producer, artist and member of the Producing Artistic Leadership Team of The Movement Theatre Company. With The Movement she has developed numerous new works by emerging artists of color, most recently What to Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White and And She Would Stand Like This by Harrison David Rivers, directed by David Mendizábal and choreography by Kia LaBeija. Select producing credits include: The Architecture of Becoming (WP Theater), At Buffalo (NYMF, UB Buffalo Creative Arts Initiative, CAP21, TED 2019 Conference participant, MAP Fund Recipient), Alligator (New Georges/Sol Project). Harrington was a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012-2014 Producers Lab at Women's Project Theater, a Next Generation Leader of Color at the 2014 Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening, has participated in artEquity's National Facilitator Training, and serves as Co-Chair on the board of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York). She has worked on a consultant basis with Siti Company and artEquity. BA in Drama and Psychology, Vassar College. As New Georges' former Associate Director/Producer, she is thrilled to continue her relationship with the company in a board capacity.

Miranda Haymon

is a Princess Grace Award-winning writer, director and curator. Miranda has staged work with The Tank, New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout, Ars Nova, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, The Bushwick Starr, Signature Theatre and more. Fellowships/residencies include WP Theater, New Georges, SPACE on Ryder Farm, LCT Director's Lab, Wingspace, NYTW 2050, Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club and Arena Stage. Resident Director, Roundabout Theatre Company. As a writer, currently under commission by Jeremy O. Harris, developing several TV, comedy, and podcast projects. You can also find Miranda collaborating with their alter ego, bb brecht. Miranda is a graduate of Wesleyan University where they double majored in German Studies and Theater.

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