One of my greatest sources of action and joy during this time has been my work with Free the Vaccine, a collaboration between the Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA) and Universities Allied for Essential Medicine (UAEM). Hundreds of us around the world are combining art and activism to ensure that whatever vaccine for COVID-19 is developed is sustainably priced, available to all, and free at the point of delivery.

This past week I worked with a few other participants based in New York to spread the word on Columbia’s campus. Here are the pictures:

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And here’s how Free the Vaccine described our action:

Graduation is strange for the Class of 2020, with students celebrating graduation virtually, many of them far from their college campuses. The Ligers—our hybrid Lab focusing on Columbia University—realized they could stage a proper sendoff for the Class of 2020 that also doubled as a call to free the vaccine! Our activists went to campus and dressed the university’s famous statue of Alma Mater in a face mask, with a fake pill bottle labeled “Free The Vaccine” and a sash wishing her graduates well. They also added the message to various other campus landmarks, including Columbia’s lion mascot. The result was a striking action, and a sweet message for graduating students!

Read more about the Free the Vaccine and the need to ensure the coming vaccine is free here. And feel free to spread these images far and wide to help get the message out!

I am thrilled to share that I am The Drama League’s 2020 Beatrice Terry Resident! The Beatrice Terry Residency supports womxn-identified artists who both write and direct their own work. I’ll be spending the residency re-developing my project How to Put On a Sock, which takes its audiences on an interactive sex ed tour of the United States.

Look at these fantastic fellow residents and fellows!!!

The Drama League has been a supporter for a few lovely years now, starting with supporting my gerrymandering project Packing and Cracking through a First Stage Residency. I’m overjoyed to continue working with them on How to Put On a Sock through their outstanding Beatrice Terry Residency program.

Speaking of Packing and Cracking: our online presentation of the project last week through the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center was a huge success! It was great to be able to present the show despite our in-person version that had been scheduled for March being canceled. We created an interactive online experience that allowed our audiences to form a community and discuss the important issues around redistricting and gerrymandering. We’ll be presenting Packing and Cracking more in the coming months, either online or in-person, whatever is possible. As we say in Packing and Cracking, stay safe, stay healthy, stay engaged. And also: stay tuned!

I hope everyone is healthy and hanging in there.

As the world moves online, I’ve been moving my performance practice online, too, and I am thrilled to share that my participatory project about gerrymandering, Packing and Cracking, will be presented online via LPAC at the end of this month. I was going to present Packing and Cracking through LPAC’s Rough Draft Festival at the end of March; of course, it had to be canceled. But my collaborator Joseph Amodei and I have transitioned the project into a participatory online one and are presenting it through LPAC and their new series LPAC in your Living Room.

We’re doing three performances: 4/22, 4/24, and 4/26. Tickets are very limited and available here. Grab them before they’re gone!

Tickets are now on sale for the two projects I’m directing that are coming up in March!

First is Town Hall by Caridad Svich at Barnard/Columbia, March 5-7. Tickets are here.

Second is Packing and Cracking‘s next iteration at LPAC’s Rough Draft Festival, March 26-28. Tickets are here. And a video of me talking about the project is here!

It’s such a joy to develop these projects and further my relationship with Columbia, my alma mater, and the team that’s been making Packing and Cracking for the past year+. I’d so love to share with you!

Packing and Cracking at SFX was a huge success!

Thanks to co-creator Joseph Amodei, performers Rory Kulz and Aubyn Heglie, design consultant Caitlin Ayer, and Caden Manson and everyone at the Wild Project and the Contemporary Performance Network.

Packing and Cracking will be back in NY and PA in March; stay tuned!

Amidst the holiday cheer and the end of the year, I’m gearing up for a ton of performances in early 2020!

First and foremost, Packing and Cracking, my performance project about gerrymandering, will be part of the SFX Festival, with a performance at the Wild Project on January 9 at 8pm. Artist driven and oriented, Special Effects (SFX) gathers experimental performance works by practitioners exploring contemporary issues. The theme of the 2020 SFX Festival is:

Asking: How do we combine difference? How do we assemble coalition? and what is the power of togetherness.

Tickets are available here!

Right after that, I’ll be diving into rehearsals for Town Hall by Caridad Svich at Columbia/Barnard’s Theatre Department, with performances March 5-7. And right after that, Packing and Cracking will have two more engagements: 1) In Queens through LPAC’s Rough Draft Festival, with performances March 26-28, and 2) in Pittsburgh through Carnegie Mellon Libraries’ dSHARP Gerrymandering Series, with a performance March 31. (And all the while, it’s also being developed through Anonymous Ensemble’s Avant Gardens Residency, which provides rehearsal space through July.)

More on March performances soon, but for now, be sure to buy tickets to Packing and Cracking at SFX here!

The late summer and early/current fall have been full of development (despite them not being full of website updates)! Towards the end of August I had a residency at the beautiful Irondale to continue developing my play It’s in the Bag. It was fantastic to get to rework the play, which looks at the forgotten history of women who’ve run for president, more specifically within the landscape of the 2020 election. I re-teamed up with media designer SooA Kim and actors Lily Ganser and Roma Scarano, and I got to bring in actors Jimmy Brewer and John Ford Dunker. They all made magic happen.

Some magic thanks to SooA and Irondale’s architecture

Some magic thanks to Irondale’s shelf of mugs

I’ve also been continuing to develop my gerrymandering project, Packing and Cracking, following the success of its first showing through The Drama League’s First Stage Residency. My collaborator Joseph Amodei and I recently shared a selection of it through a Gerrymandering Series organized by Carnegie Mellon’s Libraries, and we’re working on sharing it across the northeast in Spring 2020—stay tuned!

I’ve also been gearing up to return to my alma mater and direct Caridad Svich’s beautiful play Town Hall at Columbia/Barnard’s undergraduate theater department in the beginning of next year. I’ve gotten a wonderful slate of designers to work with me; we’ve just started dreaming about the design and the ideas are already so exciting.

And I’ve been writing grants! Did you know I write grants? You can read all about that here.

The past few weeks have been awash in wonderful work!

Audience members interacting with North Carolina and its many maps in Packing and Cracking at The Drama League

On Wednesday, I put together the first public showing of Packing and Cracking through The Drama League’s First Stage Residency, along with core collaborator Joseph Amodei and facilitators Kalyne Coleman, Roma Cutinho-Scarano, Ryan Dumas, Madison Fae, David Jackson, Rory Kulz, and Yaron Lotan. The showing was a huge success! Thank you to the very many of you who attended!

(Sometimes you have too much fun in a rehearsal room to remember to take pictures!)

At the end of last month, I had the pleasure of directing a reading of Meghan Kennedy’s Buffalo Bill or How to be a Good Man at PlayPenn. I had a wonderful cast of Philly actors, including Campbell O’Hare, Scott Greer, Trevor William Faye, Nancy Boykin, Matteo Scammell, and Donovan Lockett, and exceptional leadership and support from Artistic Director Paul Meshejian and Associate Artistic Director Michele Volansky.

And now I dive in to continuing to develop It’s in the Bag with an eye to putting it up before the 2020 election! There will be a reading at Irondale August 22 at 8pm; use the Contact tab on this site to reserve a seat.

This past week, two things happened related to my gerrymandering project, Packing and Cracking

Our winning map!

1) My collaborator Joseph Amodei and I won a map-drawing competition sponsored by Draw the Lines PA, a statewide civic education and engagement initiative that empowers everyday Pennsylvanians to draw their own congressional district maps. We won the Spring 2019 Adult West PA division and are now entered to win the entire state competition! Read all about our submission here and read about the other inspiring submission winners here. Thanks to Draw the Lines for its support!

2) The Supreme Court decision for Rucho v. Common Cause, the case that Joseph and I went to back in March, was released, and it deemed that federal judges cannot step in to correct partisan gerrymandering. There’s still hope to be had at the state level, based on state constitutions and various state reforms. But the decision was a major blow to the ability of our country to have fair elections, with Justice Kagan dissenting “with deep sadness.” Read more about the decision here.

Want to learn and feel even more? The Drama League showing of our work-in-progress Packing and Cracking is coming up on August 7 at 8pm. Reserve your spot here.

Last month I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with an MFA in Directing! Immense congratulations to all of my fellow graduates who inspired me and taught me so much over the past three years.

The two graduates of CMU’s John Wells Graduate Directing Program: Philip Wesley Gates and me!

Then in the beginning of June I headed to Prague to attend the Prague Quadrennial, where the design for my show How to Put On a Sock was featured.

HOW TO PUT ON A SOCK at the Prague Quadrennial

While there, I got to bask in the glory of The Waverly Gallery winning a TONY award!

In July I’ll be going to North Carolina to do research for my gerrymandering project, Packing and Cracking, and then directing a workshop of Meghan Kennedy’s haunting new play Buffalo Bill or How to Be a Good Man at PlayPenn’s 2019 New Play Development Conference. The summer is just getting started!

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Me accepting the WCDAC Award in the Philip Chosky Theater

The past few days have brought very exiting award news.

Over the weekend, I was honored to win CMU’s West Coast Drama Alumni Clan’s Award for 2019, given to “deserving'“ graduate and undergraduate students who are completing their studies in the school. It was an extra-special honor for my frequent collaborator Aaron Landgraf to win the award, too.

AND, this morning, the Tony Award nominations were announced, and The Waverly Gallery was honored with TWO (!): Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for Elaine May and Best Revival of a Play. Congratulations to all involved and to the many friends who were also honored!

In just over one month, I’ll be graduating from Carnegie Mellon!

In the time I have left, I’m focusing on two projects that I’m making with fellow CMU students: one about robot futures that I’m making with Michal Luria, a PhD candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute; and one about gerrymandering that I’m making with Joseph Amodei, an MFA student in the School of Drama’s media program.

Michal and I will be sharing our in-progress work in Pittsburgh, May 16-18, through Carnegie Mellon’s CS+X grant, which funds collaborations between computer science and the arts.

Joseph and I will be sharing our in-progress work in New York on August 7 through the Drama League’s Directors Project.

And—I’ll be continuing to develop It’s in the Bag this summer at the Irondale in Brooklyn.

More details to come about all of this, and more. Watch this space!

Packing and Cracking

Joseph and I went to the Supreme Court to hear two gerrymandering cases: Common Cause v. Rucho and Benisek v. Lamone.

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Read more about the cases here.

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We also attended a local event on gerrymandering reform hosted by Fair Districts PA and Draw the Lines PA.

Robot Futures

Michal along with collaborators Michael James and Judy Choi developing our project

Robot Futures

It’s in the Bag had its highly-praised run this past week, with our closing performance yesterday. An immense thanks to all involved: my actors: Lily Ganser, Will Harrison, Sam O’Byrne, Roma Coutinho-Scarano; my designers: Angela Baughman, Frank Blackmore, Jessica Cronin, SooA Kim, Shawn Nielson; my dramaturg Emma McIntosh; my stage manager Kyrie Bayles; and my production manager Vanessa Ramon.

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More pictures coming soon!

Tech has begun for It’s in the Bag, and the piece keeps getting more and more relevant.

Case in point, another recent New York Times article: “‘A Woman, Just Not That Woman’: How Sexism Plays Out on the Trail.”

Few Americans acknowledge they would hesitate to vote for a woman for president — but they don’t have to, according to researchers and experts on politics and women and extensive research on double standards in campaigns. Reluctance to support female candidates is apparent in the language that voters frequently use to describe men and women running for office; in the qualities that voters say they seek; and in the perceived flaws that voters say they are willing or unwilling to overlook in candidates.

Read the full article here, and get tickets for It’s in the Bag, playing February 20-23, here.

I’m deep in rehearsals for my thesis, It’s in the Bag, a time-bending look at the time-forgotten lineage of women+ who have run for President of the United States.

The piece reaches into the black hole of history and excavates nine women+ who have run for President or Vice President, telling parts of their stories, and especially the media’s various responses to them. It’s been fascinating to research these women and find the similarities—and sometimes find exactly the same words used by them or about them—across time.

One such example appeared to me earlier today. In a New York Times piece, a political science professor was quoted as saying:

Although Hillary Clinton didn’t become the first woman president, she paved the way for Americans to start thinking about it.

This immediately brought to mind Elizabeth Dole, who considered running for president in the 2000 election. When she pulled out of the race in 1999, she spoke along the same lines:

I think what we've done is pave the way for the person who will be the first woman president. And I'm just delighted at what has happened because I feel like we’ve really made a great contribution.

How much did she? How much did Hillary? The current election cycle will help us find out.

In the meantime, It’s in the Bag runs February 20-23 at Carnegie Mellon University. Tickets are available here. It’s a suggested show according to this Pittsburgh February Theater Guide. Don’t miss it!

The Waverly Gallery ended its incredible run today. In its celebrated limited engagement, it made the Best Theater of 2018 lists of The New York Times and The New Yorker. I’m so honored to have been a part of it. Congratulations to all involved!

I am thrilled to share that this summer, I will be working on a new project through a First Stage Residency at the Drama League. The project, called Packing and Cracking, is a multimedia mapmaking event that shows the process of manipulative political redistricting known as gerrymandering in real time. I’ll be teaming up with fellow CMU grad student Joseph Amodei, a North Caroline native, to look specifically at the status of redistricting in that state, which was recently featured in the New York Times.

The 1812 instance of gerrymandering that gave the practice its name, thanks to then Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry

Late last month, The Waverly Gallery opened to rave reviews! Read just one of them here—and then make sure to see it before it closes at the end of January! Info and tickets are here.

Right after opening I hopped back to school to finish out my second-to-last semester, continue work on my thesis play It’s in the Bag, dive deep into a few other performance projects I have in the mix, and start thinking about what I might do after I get my MFA. A lot of really exciting things are starting to come together! And one may or may not end up having something to do with this:

In an unexpected twist, I'm spending the rest of the summer and the first half of the fall assistant directing on Broadway! I'm assisting on Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery, directed by Lila Neugebauer, whom I've gotten to work with a number of times before. 

The Waverly Gallery follows a woman's slow decline due to dementia, which affects millions of Americans--and especially female Americans--every year. My summer at the Institute for Women's Policy Research helped me familiarize myself with some of the issues around dementia, which I've been able to share with the room over the past first week of rehearsals.

Performances of The Waverly Gallery begin September 25, with opening October 25, and closing January 27. Get your tickets today!

Barn Arts!

Last week at Barn Arts in Bass Harbor, Maine, was absolutely magical. I got to meet incredible new artists, including Andrew Simon and Brittany Parker and fellow Hamilton Residents Clare Cook, Mary Rose Go, Blake Horn, Keurim Hur, Alexis Ingram, Julia Izumi, Anna Lublina, Jake Simonds, and Kristi Stout.

Working in the barn with Kristi

I also got to put in so much time working on my upcoming project It's in the Bag, which looks at women+ who have run for President of the United States throughout the country's history.

AND, I got to talk to lots of people about one of those women in particular--Margaret Chase Smith--who was a Representative and Senator from Maine. It was so inspiring to hear Maine locals--including current Maine Senator Susan Collins--talk about how much Margaret Chase Smith means to them.

One of my fellow residents, Jake, interviewed me for his podcast, "likenobodyslistening." Check it out here to hear more about It's in the Bag and my process for making it.

The summer has been extraordinary so far, and there are still big things to come. Stay tuned!

The Hamilton Residents with Barn Arts founder Andrew!