New Ohio Theatre presents the 2023 edition of Now In Process, its annual in-person presentation of work-in-progress projects. Three works from this year’s lineup comment on issues recently present in the public eye – war in Ukraine, race in America and extinction of entire species of animals – while the fourth is a meditative musical about an iconic Persian woman of Sufi tradition. The shows, conceived and produced by a diverse group of NYC-based artists, are Untitled Ukraine Project by The Mill (February 1 & 2), Embodied by Jaime Sunwoo / Free Rein Projects (February 4 & 5), Rubalee by Caborca (February 8 & 9) and Longing Lights by Deniz Khateri and Bahar Royaee (February 11 & 12). Each work will receive two performances on subsequent evenings, with the second night also available as live streaming.
Now In Process is New Ohio’s free-floating, ad hoc, instant-gratification, impulse-driven, pop-up work-in-progress showing that offers NYC indie theatre artists the opportunity to flex their muscles, share their current thinking and test their next great idea. Initiated in 2013, the series has hosted a wide roster of artists, among them The New Georges, Theatre in Quarantine’s William Joshua Gelb, Meta-Phys Ed., Eliza Bent and Knud Adams and many others.
Now In Process 2023 includes:
Untitled Ukraine Project (February 1 & 2)
by The Mill
Untitled Ukraine Project is a stage adaptation of selected short stories from Lucky Breaks, written by Yevgenia Belorusets, reimagined by playwright Sara Farrington, directed by Jaclyn Biskup and devised and performed by our ensemble of five female actors. The stories are often bleakly comic, beginning and ending abruptly, depicting the haunting effects of the 2014 Russian invasion on the lives of civilian women. A woman who runs a flower shop vanishes suddenly and no one asks questions. In another, a woman takes her war-induced rage out on her broken umbrella. In another scene, a woman on a crowded street suddenly decides she can no longer walk and renders herself forever a “living monument.” The absurdist tone and language of each brief story is transformed into a physical score, bending reality to capture the rootless tortured experience of female victims of war and occupation.
Embodied (February 4 & 5)
by Jaime Sunwoo / Free Rein Projects
Four performers convey multiple layers of embodiment as they share the accounts of fifty-five interviewees all responding to a single prompt: “Describe a time you were acutely aware of your race.” Responses range widely – tense, awkward, vulnerable, insightful, defensive, comforting and absurd – and are expressed through movement, verbatim performance, live sound manipulation, interactive projections and live feed cameras. Embodied explores how we perceive messages when they're being delivered by people with different race and gender identities and how individuals experience race in America – a survey of reflections, desires, insecurities, fears and defenses as people analyze their perception of self and others.
Rubalee (February 8 & 9)
by Caborca
In this experimental musical, featuring choral singers and black metal percussion, Rubalee, a young North Atlantic right whale, undertakes a migration across the equator to Eubalena, the legendary home of her endangered species. Changes in feeding patterns due to oceanic warming, butchery by shipping vessels, entanglement in fishing lines and an onslaught of industrial noise pollution have rendered their home waters a kind of hell. The impending extinction of her species, devastating on its own terms, becomes a stand-in for everything hanging in the balance of human behavior, including our own existence – while They, Them and Her debate strategies for saving the whales, of which less than four hundred remain in the North Atlantic.
Longing Lights (February 11 & 12)
by Deniz Khateri and Bahar Royaee
Based on Tazkirat al-Owlia, a mystical book by the thirteenth-century poet Attar Neishabouri about the biographies of great saints and elders of Persian Sufism, Longing Lights tells the story of Rabi a, the only female Sufi in this book. This work-in-progress piece is an experiment on opera and body language that is about the visible and invisible world of human thoughts; reflections that have been neglected in the midst of political and social upheavals between the iron lands and digital forests.
COVID-19 Safety Information:
Masks are required.
