| FOREST MALLOY’S NINA TO PREMIERE JANUARY 23 – FEBRUARY 9 AT THEATERLAB | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 02:25 pm EST 01/14/25 | |
|
|
|
| FOREST MALLOY'S NINA TO PREMIERE JANUARY 23 – FEBRUARY 9 AT THEATERLAB Directed by Katie Birenboim, Cast Includes Francesca Carpanini, Nina Grollman, Jasminn Johnson, Aigner Mizzelle, and Katherine Reis Nina, a new play by two-time O'Neill semi-finalist Forrest Malloy, is set to premiere in a strictly limited engagement at Theaterlab (357 W 36th Street, Manhattan) from January 23 – February 9, 2025, with an opening set for Sunday, January 26. Directed by Katie Birenboim, Nina invites audiences into the women's dressing room at a prestigious New York City conservatory. Tickets are now on sale at www.theaterlabnyc.com . Nina centers on five young actresses in their final year of study who laugh and cry, fight and flirt, compete, plan and dream… until a shocking revelation forces them to confront the foundations of their bonds. As final performances of Chekhov's The Seagull loom, themes of love, art, and unfulfilled potential echo onstage and off. Nina is a fast-paced, behind-the-scenes look at the always high-stakes, often ridiculous environment of actor training, illuminating the tensions, intimacy, and even cruelty that define the making of great art and the strongest of female friendships. The cast of Nina includes Francesca Carpanini (Broadway's All My Sons & The Little Foxes), Jasminn Johnson (Broadway's Ain't No Mo), Lortel recipient Aigner Mizzelle (Broadway's Chicken & Biscuits, nicHi Douglas' pray), Katherine Reis (Broadway's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Max's Gossip Girl), and Nina Grollman (Broadway's To Kill A Mockingbird & The Iceman Cometh). "Some very kind people have called Nina my 'love letter to the theater'," says playwright Forrest Malloy. "For me, Nina is a reaffirmation, maybe to a corpse, but a reaffirmation all the same. While it does deal with questions of ambition and the high price of being an artist, I think the play finds most of its power in the dynamics between its five young women. The gay male fascination with Women has yielded a long line of cultural iterations, some base (the Housewives universe), some vivid and complex (Tennessee Williams, the Housewives universe). I hope Nina takes her subjects seriously but refuses to let them off the hook. And I hope she makes audiences laugh their asses off." "I've spent my entire life — educational, professional, and otherwise – fascinated by relationships between women," says director Katie Birenboim. "For me, it's not just about ‘girl power' or pink pussy hats (though those are great too), but the complex dynamics that underscore these relationships: with love comes hate, with envy comes admiration, with intimacy comes misdirection, and all the other juicy feelings in between. These juxtapositions and tensions are what make female friendships so strong, so interesting, and so ripe for study and the stage." The creative team for Nina includes Wilson Chin (scenic design), Ásta Bennie Hostetter (costume design), Wheeler Moon (lighting design), Brandon Bulls (sound design), Denise J Grillo (props consultant), Jack Serio (consulting producer), and Morgen E. Doyle (production stage manager). Nina is produced by Katie Birenboim and Francesca Carpanini. Performances of Nina will take place January 23 – February 9, 2025 at Theaterlab , located at 357 W 36th Street, 3rd Floor in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, January 24 for an opening on Sunday, January 26. The performance schedule is Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 PM and Sundays at 2 PM. The anticipated running time is 100 minutes, no intermission. Tickets, which start at $36 for general admission and $45 for reserved seating, can be purchased at www.theaterlabnyc.com . About the Artists Forrest Malloy (playwright) is a writer, actor, and teacher. Writing credits include original plays Heddy and Sebastian, both semi-finalists for the O'Neill Fellowship, and book and lyrics for the original musical Kickline , a finalist for the 2022 Kleban Prize. NYC Performance credits include Troilus and Cressida (Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park), Bernie and Mikey's Trip to the Moon (Strangemen Theater Company). Regional credits include Indecent (Weston Playhouse, VT), and I Now Pronounce (Actor's Theater of Louisville). MFA: Juilliard (Laura Pels Prize for Acting, Alan D. Marks Career Fellowship). Katie Birenboim (director & co-producer) is a director, producer, and theatre commentator. She is currently the Associate Director for the Annie National Tour, which will play Madison Square Garden for a month this holiday season featuring EGOT-winner Whoopi Goldberg. Other associate work includes: Anne of Green Gables (Broadway-aimed workshop), Gypsy (Goodspeed Opera House), and Chains (Mint Theater Company) for Jenn Thompson and The New Yorkers (City Center Encores!) and The Royal Family of Broadway (Barrington Stage Company) for John Rando. On her own, she's directed The Secret Garden (Berkshire Theatre Group), an evening of new Jewish plays (Jewish Plays Project/Berkshire Theatre Group), and a number of workshops of Denise J. Grillo's new play, Complicity . Katie co-produced Sunday in the Park with George at Axelrod Performing Arts Center, featuring Graham Phillips and Talia Suskauer, in 2024. She also hosts an arts podcast, entitled Call Time with Katie Birenboim, which can be found on all podcast platforms. Princeton A.B., NYU M.A., and a proud member of Actors' Equity Association. www.katiebirenboim.com About the Cast Francesca Carpanini (Producer/Cate) was last seen on Broadway in the revival of All My Sons, alongside Annette Bening and Tracy Letts. Other New York theatre credits include: The Little Foxes (Broadway), This Beautiful Future (TheaterLab and The Cherry Lane), Dead Poets Society (Classic Stage Company), The Tempest (Shakespeare in the Park). London theatre: The Woods (Southwark Playhouse). TV/Film: The Good Wife. Training: Juilliard. She will next be seen in Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming feature for Netflix. Nina Grollman (Lillith) (they/them) is an actor and musician based in Brooklyn. Select past credits include: To Kill A Mockingbird (Broadway), Shhhh (Atlantic Theater Co), The Iceman Cometh (Broadway), and The Hard Problem (Lincoln Center). Film/TV Credits: Bad Monkey (Apple TV), and Red Oaks (Prime Video). Their music moniker is Softee, and they've been named by Rolling Stone, Paper, and Billboard as an artist to watch. Jasminn Johnson (Kyla) Broadway: Ain't No Mo. Off-Broadway: The Slow Dance (59E59), King Lear (New York Classical Theater), Blues for An Alabama Sky (Keen Company). Regional: Crumbs from the Table of Joy (PlayMakers), Tornado Tastes like Aluminum Sting (CATF), Blues for an Alabama Sky (Barrington Stage, Berkshire Theater Award Nominee); Twelfth Night (Shakespeare on The Sound). TV/Film: Motherland (Upcoming), The Equalizer (CBS), The Politician (Netflix). The Juilliard School. Aigner Mizzelle (Erika) is a NYC based multi-hyphenate creative. She earned her BFA from NYU Tisch, training with Playwrights' Horizons Acting Studio and the Experimental Theater Wing. Aigner is grateful to have originated the role of Latrice in Douglas Lyons' Chicken & Biscuits on Broadway, and most recently received a Lucille Lortel award for her work in nicHi Douglas' (pray). Katherine Reis (Zoe) can most recently be seen recurring on the HBO Max reboot of Gossip Girl. Reis shot a lead role opposite Gina Torres and Goran Visnjic in Robert Aguirre Sacasa's pilot The Brides, where she played the youngest bride of Dracula. She did a season-long arc on the hit TNT dark comedy Claws , as well as the NBC series Rise . Reis recurred on Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Her additional television credits include NBC's Chicago P.D., and Law & Order: SVU, and CBS's Bull, and Unforgettable. In film, Katherine was seen in Jason Lester's independent feature film Taipei . Katie Holmes directed her in All We Had, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and she appeared in Todd Solondz's Wiener-Dog. On the stage, Reis made her Broadway debut in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. She also starred in Adam Rapp's The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois at the Atlantic Theater Company. About Theaterlab Theaterlab is a women- and artist-led laboratory dedicated to researching the nature of live performance, including theater, music, and hybrid forms. We also focus on audience development as a creative project, regarding the theatrical experience as a creative public assembly and audience members as a key partner in fulfilling our mission. Theaterlab's mission is to serve New York's diverse communities of artists as well as the general public by presenting and developing emerging new work. In addition to producing and presenting new work, Theaterlab provides affordable space for rehearsal and project development, including TLAB SHARES, a curated rental series. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | Tim Blake Nelson to be honored by Theatre East/ Laurette Taylor Award/ January 20 - Official_Press_Release 02:27 pm EST 01/14/25 |
| Next: | Inside Broadway to Receive $25,000 Award from the National Endowment for the Arts | Touring Production Kicks Off Tomorrow in the Bronx - Official_Press_Release 02:24 pm EST 01/14/25 |
| Thread: | |
Time to render: 0.009105 seconds.