2024-2025
“Art isn’t easy.”
— Stephen Sondheim,
Sunday in the Park with George
In the wake of historic SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, and in the shadow of a looming IATSE strike, television and film work crept back — SOME of it — while theater continued to wobble forward.
Workshops and readings also made a comeback. I reunited with many old friends, playwrights Peggy Stafford, Melisa Tien, Mary Hamilton, Matthew Paul Olmos, and Dominic Finocchiaro. Meanwhile, I began my most ambitious play yet - a deep dive into the French Revolution. Starting it in a master class with David Henry-Hwang, I continued to work on it in an invaluable class with Kate Tarker.
The death of Chris Durang — an early advocate for me — and of Rolls André — a longtime friend and collaborator — came as twin shocks in early 2024.
ambulette + Disrupted
Readings
January 27, 2024
by Melisa Tien and Peggy Stafford
RiverArts (Westchester, NY)
We had a packed audience readings of ambitious works in progress.
All three terrific playwrights (Amina Henry was the third) were folks I’d worked with before. I’d played a clueless amateur actor in 2017 for Peggy Stafford Everything Is Here, and I’d helped support Melisa Tien in 2021 for the intimate, long-form interview project she conceived for The Assembly’s Deceleration Lab. Now I was playing a lonely retiree for Peggy - writing experimentally in an impressionistic vein - and a brutal venture capitalist for Melisa - writing experimentally in a naturalistic vein.
snowday
Workshop (Screenplay)
March 14, 2024
by Joey Rotter
with Adinah Alexander, Shanna Bess, Rachel Gatewood, Gibson Grimm, Neal Lerner, Caitlyn Marr, Conner Marx, Aaron Roitman, Simone Stadler, Donna Svennevik, and Paulo Quiros
Adinah recommended me for this crackerjack screenplay that smashes together a humdrum teaching retreat with a terrifying paramilitary operation.
untitled
Workshop
April 8-12, 2024
by Mary Hamilton
with Brittany Allen, Ben Beckley, C.A. Johnson, Francesca Fernandez McKenzie, Jack Moore, Greg Mozgala, Susannah Perkins, and Zoë Winters
New Dramatists
It was great to work with Brittany Allen, Greg Mozgala, and Susannah Perkins again, and I loved working with Francesca and Zoë for the first time.
angel’s share
Workshop
April 25 and 27, 2024
by Dominic Finocchiaro
dir. Jess Chayes
Northern Stage
This play, about two parents grieving the loss of their child, has always been a heartbreaker. Now I was doing it as a dad.
untitled
Reading
April 30, 2024
adapted by Talene Monahon, dir. Jess Chayes
I hope to be able to share more about this secret project soon. For now just let me say — Talene and Jess are remarkable artists, with some tricks up their sleeves.
SING IT TO THE AIR, SING IT TO THE GROUND, SPILL THE WINE, TAKE THAT PEARL
Workshop (Musical)
May 14, 2024
book by Matthew Paul Olmos, songs and lyrics by WAR
with Elena Araoz, Gloria Vivica Benavides, Jesse Castalleno, Jorge Cordova, Pat Floyd, April Guthrie, Luis Moreno, JJ Perez, Liz Ramos, Ana Grethel Solis, and Heather Velazquez
New Dramatists
There’s no show that means more to me than HOME/SICK, the show I co-devised and appeared in that chronicled the rise and fall of the radical Weather Underground. Lots of people wrote lots of nice things about that piece, but no one captured it with more intelligence AND feeling than Matthew Paul Olmos.
He understands revolutionary politics like almost no one else, and that insight is on full display in this remarkable musical.
it’s always the end of the world
Reading
October 27, 2024
by Dominic Finocchiaro
with Jessica Cannizzaro, Jacqueline Guillen, Douglas Harris, Danielle Slavick, Karsten Otto
GOODBYE, MY FANCY
Workshop
February 10, 2025
by Fay Kanin, dir. Jess Chayes
with Carmen Berkeley (Mary Nell), Camila Canó-Flaviá (Ginny Merrill), Veanne Cox (Miss Shackleford), Lennox T. Duong (Clarisse), Stephanie Everett (Amelia and Jo), David Garrison (Professor Dingley), Annie Golden (Mrs. Birdeshaw), Andy Lucien (Cole), Jenn Lyon (Ellen Griswold), Maria-Christina Oliveras (Grace Woods), Rachel Resheff (Susan and Carol), Patrick Sabongui (James Merrill), Maggie Siff (Agatha), and C.J. Wilson (Claude Griswold)
Saturn’s Children
Workshop
Febuary 12, 2025
by BEN BECKLEY, dir. Jess Chayes
It’s unfortunately a great time for plays about the French Revolution.