Sarah Kane was an English playwright who is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Kane herself, as well as scholars of her work, such as Graham Saunders, identify some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy. The critic Aleks Sierz has seen her work as part of what he has termed In-Yer-Face theatre, a form of drama which broke away from the conventions of naturalist theatre. Kane's published work consists of five plays, one short film (Skin), and two newspaper articles for The Guardian.
The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group (1967–1980) during the period from 1975 to 1980, and took its name in 1980; the independent productions of 1975–1980 are retroactively attributed to the Group.
The Flea Theater, founded in 1996, is a theatre in the TriBeCa section of New York City. It presents primarily new American theatre, and provides a venue for film stars to act on a very small (74-seat) stage, as well as a smaller black box theater for experimental and new works. The theater was founded by Jim Simpson, Mac Wellman, and Kyle Chepulis The Flea earned early acclaim for original productions of post-9-11 play "The Guys" and political works by A. R. Gurney. According to the New York Times, “Since its inception in 1996, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances. Under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, The Flea is one of New York’s leading off-off-Broadway companies."
By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a 1975 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn, based on the novels of P. G. Wodehouse.
The Performance Group (TPG) was a troupe of experimental theater started by Richard Schechner in 1967 in New York City. TPG's home base was the Performing Garage in the SoHo district. After 1975, tensions led to Schechner's resignation in 1980, and the troupe reinvented itself as The Wooster Group under the leadership of director and theatre artist Elizabeth LeCompte.
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.
John Collins is an American experimental theatre director and designer. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Elevator Repair Service (ERS) and has directed or co-directed all of its productions since 1991. Most notable among his work with ERS is Gatz, a verbatim performance of the entire text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
Richard Kimmel is a New York City-based theatre director, writer, and theatrical producer. He is Executive Director of The Box, a venue for theater, music, and nightlife in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Artistic Director of Cannon Company, a performing ensemble.
J.T. Rogers is a multiple-award-winning, internationally recognized American playwright who lives in New York. Rogers has written more than five plays, including Oslo, Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar.
Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1980 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, Performance Space New York has hosted thousands of world-premiere and ongoing works by such artists as Eric Bogosian, Spalding Gray, Karen Finley, Penny Arcade, chameckilerner, Eddie Izzard, John Leguizamo, DANCENOISE, John Jesurun, Ethyl Eichelberger, Ron Athey, niv Acosta, Big Dance Theater, Annie Dorsen, Elevator Repair Service, Tim Etchells, Lawrence Goldhuber, Maria Hassabi, Emily Johnson, Taylor Mac, Sarah Michelson, Rabih Mroué, Okwui Okpokwasili, Julie Atlas Muz, Reggie Watts, and Adrienne Truscott, companies such as Big Art Group, Proto-type Theater, Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and New York City Players, Viveca Vázquez, as well as countless other emerging artists.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is a Nicaraguan-American playwright, screenwriter, and comic book writer best known for his work for Marvel Comics and for the television series Glee, Big Love, Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. He is Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics.
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an Off-Broadway theater company with a 65-seat space located at 46 Walker Street in the TriBeCa district of Manhattan, New York City. The non-profit theater company was founded in 1975 by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz in an old hat warehouse on Mercer Street, in SoHo. With a founding mission to produce rarely seen classical works, the theater company has grown from an Off-Off Broadway house in Soho, through multiple locations, to its current home in a 65-seat theatre located at 46 Walker Street between Broadway and Church Street in Tribeca, where they now produce mainly new works on an Off Broadway contract. They are an award-winning theater company which has won multiple prizes, including Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and awards from The New York Times.
Richard John Nelson is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the books for the Tony Award-winning musicals James Joyce's The Dead, the Broadway version of Chess, as well as the critically acclaimed play cycle The Apple Family Plays.
Richard Maxwell is an American experimental theater director and playwright in New York City. He is artistic director of the New York City Players.
Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named Artistic Director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.
The Incubator Arts Project was an Off-Off-Broadway theater located above St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City.
Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play is an American dark comedy play written by Anne Washburn and featuring music by Michael Friedman. It premiered in May 2012 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., and then ran from August through October 2013 at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Mr. Burns tells the story of a group of survivors recalling and retelling "Cape Feare", an episode of the TV show The Simpsons, shortly after a global catastrophe, then examines the way the story has changed seven years after that, and finally, 75 years later. It received polarized reviews and was nominated for a 2014 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play.
Julia Jarcho is an American experimental playwright and director and professor of dramatic literature. She is the Artistic Director of Minor Theater, a theater company which produces and debuts her new works. She won the 2013 Obie for Best New American Play for Grimly Handsome. Chief theater critic for The New York Times Ben Brantley has called her “a queen of experimental mayhem.”
Karin Coonrod is an American theater director and writer who teaches at Yale School of Drama. Coonrod is known for her modern adaptations of classic plays by William Shakespeare and other playwrights. She often chooses to direct plays produced from unusual sources such as lesser-known works by notable playwrights, adaptations from non-dramatic sources, and the writings of notable figures in history.
