Dream State of Affairs

Jan 29 – 31, 2015

By Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith

Presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center in partnership with Elastic City

For our ten year artnership, we’ve scored a performance: a where-we-are but in your shoes. There are written prompts that overlap–a set of tasks that form a fairy tale weee invite you to complete.

We’ll play with race, lust, consent, underpaid labor and childhood shit; the cat and the meow. You’ve a choice: consent to be on stage or around it, as you will. We will take care of you.

The Arts Board Member and Development Director: Erin Markey
Lighting Design: Amith Chandrashaker
Stage Management: Ana Mari de Quesada
Rigging Consultant: Jon Harper

This work was created, in part, with a space grant from BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Venus

Dec 4 – 13, 2014

Written by: Suzan-Lori Parks

Directed by: Niegel Smith

In Suzan-Lori Parks’ highly theatrical, historical drama,Venus, the “Venus Hottentot,” a young Black woman in 1810 South Africa, is whisked away to England under false pretenses and sold to a freak show. After achieving great success for her employers, she attempts to make it on her own, but love and economics collide when she becomes the mistress of a white doctor. Unforgiving, humorous and tragic, Parks deftly blends theater of the absurd and romantic realism to question the perceived value of a black woman’s body in a white world.