PLAYS FOR THE PLAGUE YEAR
Nov 4 – 27, 2022 (The Public Theater, New York)
By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Niegel Smith
On March 13, 2020, as theaters shut their doors and so many of us went into lockdown, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public’s Writer-in-Residence Suzan-Lori Parks picked up her pen and her guitar and set out to write a play every day. What emerged is a breathtaking anthology of plays and songs that chronicle our collective experience and the hope and perseverance that occurred throughout that troubling year. Performed in the intimate music venue, Joe’s Pub, PLAYS FOR THE PLAGUE YEAR is a theatrical concert featuring the music and plays of Suzan-Lori Parks. At once, both a personal story of one family’s daily lives, as well as a sweeping account of all we faced as a city, a nation, and a global community. Niegel Smith directs this life-affirming new work that beams with humor and humanity, bears witness to what we’ve experienced, and offers inspiration as we shape our future.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 4 – 27, 2022
THE RITUAL OF BREATH IS THE RIGHT TO RESIST
Sept 16-17, 2022 (Hanover, NH)
Oct 14-15, 2022 (Stanford, CA)
Composed by: Jonathan Berger
Visual Artist: Enrico Riley
Librettist: Vievee Francis
Conductor: Kamna Gupta
Choreography: Neema Bickersteth, Trebien Pollard, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Social Impact Directors: Dr. Shamell Bell, Gwen Carr
Stage Manager: Jason Kaiser
Featuring: Neema Bickersteth, Greg Ward, Fung Chern Hwei, Titilayo Ayengade, Mikael Darmanie, Bonnie Whiting, Trebien Pollard, Isaiah Robinson and a community chorus.
Designed by: Reza Behjat, Gabriel Berry, Peter Nigrini, Camilla Tassi
Co-Commissioned and Produced By The Hopkins Center
Co-Commissioned By Stanford Live
Creative Producer Kim Whitener
An offering. An opera in seven movements.
A call for justice.
Responding to the murder of Eric Garner, this meditative and immersive work is a creative act of resistance. Centering the voice and plea of an activist / daughter / soprano, The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist interweaves music, text, visuals and movement, gathering us together as co-conspirers—to breathe and keep breathing any way we can. The opera is preceded by six days of digital and in-person rituals, inviting participants to share in communal acts of healing and reflection. Visit the ritual website.
“[Neema] Bickersteth’s heroic and transporting performance deserves praise without measure. She was truly the show’s breath of life on opening night of a two-day run. Her achievement was supported and amplified by everything around her, from the scenic and supple projection design by Peter Nigrini to Reza Behjat’s pointed lighting, all under Niegel Smith’s disarmingly simple and lucid direction.”
-Steven Winn, San Francisco Classical Voice
Click here to purchase your tickets for Hanover, NH September 16 – 17
Click here to purchase your tickets for Stanford, CA October 14 – 15
THE HANG
Photo by Maria Baranova
Jan 20 – Mar 6, 2022 (HERE Arts Center, New York)
Book and Lyrics by Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
The Hang is a ritual celebration of queerness, questions, and the eternity of a moment. Rooted in the jazz tradition and operatic form, it imagines the final hours of the life of Socrates, as he asks his friends to use every moment left to think on virtue. What transpires is a centuries-long communal consideration, full of jazz, dance, debates, and queer romps.
“Niegel Smith’s direction lends a sweet let’s-put-on-a-show ambiance to all the philosophical bickering.”
– Robert Holfer, The Wrap
“Under Niegel Smith’s direction, with lyrical choreography by Chanon Judson, the other company members acquire showcases for their lavish gifts.”
– Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 20 – Mar 6, 2022.
The Fre
Feb 28 – Mar 20, 2020* (The Flea Theater, New York / *performances interrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
In the land of two bridges, a rambunctious group of fun loving anti-intellectuals, The Fre, spend their days cavorting in the mud. Into their midst returns Hero, now a dandy aesthete, who longs to finally sever the bridges and escape the mad mud pit. But first he must convince the leader Frankie Fre and the other fatuous inhabitants that there is a better life outside of the swamp – even as his heart calls him to stay. In this queer love story, audiences will literally and figuratively jump into the mud (a giant ball pit) with the Fre as we hash out our current cultural divide.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 28 – Mar 20, 2020
Southern Promises
Mar 11 – Apr 14, 2019 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by Niegel Smith
Provocateur Thomas Bradshaw returns to The Flea, revisiting his incendiary 2008 play SOUTHERN PROMISES in a new production helmed by Artistic Director, Niegel Smith. On his deathbed, a plantation owner vows to set his slaves free, but his wife rejects the request and chaos soon erupts on the plantation. Based on slave narratives and featuring an all PoC company of actors, SOUTHERN PROMISES is a brilliant examination of the deeply disturbing and utterly corrupting power of American slavery and its lasting grip on our country’s hearts and institutions. The Flea ends its Color Brave Season bringing this haunting reality onto the stage of The Sam.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Mar 11 – Apr 14, 2019.
How to Catch Creation
Jan 19 – Feb 24, 2019 (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
By Christina Anderson
Directed by Niegel Smith
A young writer’s life turns upside down when her girlfriend drops some unexpected news. Fifty years later, four artists feel the reverberations of that moment—and its unexpected consequences—as their lives intersect in pursuit of creative passion and legacy. In this bold, imaginative work, Christina Anderson, “a gifted playwright you want to pay attention to” (Variety), dissects the universal act of creation to inspire the dreamers and idealists in us all.
“Engrossing and meticulously plotted, the Goodman’s production of How to Catch Creation is lightning caught in a bottle, an absolute triumph for director Niegel Smith and his exquisite ensemble. Written by Christina Anderson, this joyful and visceral work is alive in a way that very few stage plays achieve.”
-Sherri Flanders, The Chicago Reader
“The pairing of playwright Christina Anderson and director Niegel Smith is a gift to modern theater. They get it right!”
-Ebony Magazine
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 19 – Feb 24, 2019.
Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce
Dec 14 – 15, 2019 (Power Center for the Performing Arts, Ann Arbor)
Dec 12, 2019 (Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.)
Dec 14 – 15, 2018 (Royce Hall, Los Angeles)
Dec 11, 2018 (Town Hall, New York)
Nov 21 – 30, 2018 (Curran, San Francisco)
Dec 12, 2017 (Town Hall, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
Christmas as calamity. Celebrating the holiday season in all of its dysfunction, Taylor Mac, is joined by longtime collaborators designer Machine Dazzle, music director Matt Ray and a band of eight to reframe the songs you love and the holidays you hate.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 14 – 15, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 12, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 14 – 15, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 11, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 21 – 30, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 12, 2017.
Hype Man: a break beat play
Nov 10 – Dec 18, 2018 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Idris Goodwin
Directed by Kristan Seemel & Niegel Smith
Featuring: The Bats, the The Flea’s resident acting company, including Tay Bass, Conor Bell, Sonja Cirillo, Justin Jorrell, Matt Stango and Shakur Tolliver.
Designed by: Anton Volovsek (Scenic Designer), Sarah Lawrence (Costume Designer), Xavier Pierce (Lighting Designer), Wendell Hanes (Music Composer/Supervisor/Editor), Jabob Brasi (Assistant Director), Haley Gordon (Stage Manager) and Keenan Hurley (Sound Designer).
In HYPE MAN: a break beat play we meet Verb, Pinnacle, and Peep One, a trio on the verge of making it big as America’s next hip hop crew. But the shooting of an unarmed black man in their hometown throws them off their beat. Their friendship is tested. Their moral compass is challenged. HYPE MAN immerses audiences in a chilling conversation amongst the beats and rhymes of pulsating hip hop.
“Co-directors Kristan Seemel and Niegel Smith’s energized staging featuring members of The Bats, The Flea’s resident company, has the actors in motion all over the space, even at one point cleverly on view through windows suggesting another place outside. There’s a gorgeously presented number with them performing a terrific rap composition. Also, the intensity of their performances are magnified by close proximity.”
– Darryl Reilly, Theaterscene.net
“Goodwin’s Hype Man is a loud and clear clarion call for blacks and whites, cops and civilians, and everyone to get on up and openly, honestly discuss America’s ongoing problems of racial violence and inequality. None of us get to sit this one out.”
–Pete Hempstead, TheaterMania
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 10 – Dec 18, 2018.
Scraps
Aug 15 – Sep 29, 2018 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Geraldine Inoa
Directed by Niegel Smith
Featuring: Kieron anthony, Andrew Baldwin, Alana Raquel Bowers, Bryn Carter, Ure Egbuho, Christopher Garofolo, Roland Lane, Michael Oloyede, Tanyamaria & Camille Upshaw.
Designed by: Ao Li, Andy Jean, Kate McGee, & Megan Deets Cully.
Violence Choreography: Michael G. Chin
What we always hear: “Black Male Shot by White Police Officer.”
What we never see: how loved ones struggle to cope amidst their anger and grief.
“You should be paying a lot of attention to The Flea Theater after last year’s theatrical homerun Syncing Ink. Running now is Scraps, a take on the after effects of police brutality. This new play is super intense, gets a little weird in the final 20 minutes, and hits quite close to home for some of us…but, overall: it’s superbly written, directed, and performed. Trifecta alert!
Scraps is the first production of The Flea’s “Color Brave” 2018-19 season and features members of The Bats, their resident acting company that is chock full of future megastars. All five cast members shine under Flea Artistic Director Niegel Smith’s brave direction. And, heroic playwright Geraldine Inoa puts this issue front and center, forcing audiences to reckon with this devastating epidemic.“
– Sam Maher, Yes Broadway
Click here to purchase your tickets for Aug 15 – Sep 29, 2018.
Father Comes Home From The Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
May 25 – June 24, 2018 (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Niegel Smith
Hero, a Texas slave, faces a simple yet monumental choice: join his master in the Confederate army and be granted his freedom afterward— or remain enslaved at the plantation. Filled with music, wit and poetic wisdom, Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks’ “masterpiece” (New York magazine) challenges us to navigate our own moral compass in a country that both unites and rips us apart.
“This must-see Chicago production in the Owen Theatre truly is a remarkable feat of direction, notable for its maintenance of total truth and for its application of counterbalancing consistency to an intentionally deconstructive and eclectic piece of writing. […] But Smith makes all of that feel utterly logical: It’s much harder to pull that off than you might think, especially when you did not direct the original production. This is just not a piece that could withstand a hands-off director. Rather, Smith functions as a guide through the terrain of Parks’ historical imagination, homing in on her sociopolitical imperatives and yet also letting her struggling characters breathe, and be, and not know what to do for the best, or where history may or may not be taking them. As a result you find yourself caring deeply about the fate of almost everyone you see.”
– Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Click here to purchase your tickets for May 25 – June 24, 2018
Syncing Ink
Sep 25 – Oct 29, 2017 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By NSangou Njikam
Directed by Niegel Smith
“Now what you hear is not a test/I’m rapping to the beat!”
Gordon wants to learn how to rap, thinking it will gain him respect, admiration, and the attention of a beautiful woman. What he doesn’t know is that his journey to learn how to rhyme will take him not just deeper into Hip Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose. Based on true events, NSangou Njikam leads us on a lyrical voyage to discover what it really takes to freestyle.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 25 – Oct 29, 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music – World Tour!
October 10, 2019 (Berliner Festspiele, Berlin)
June 28 – 30, 2018 (Barbican, London)
June 2 – 9, 2018 (Kimmel Center, Philadelphia)
Mar 15 – 24, 2018 (The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles)
Sep 15 – 24, 2017 (Curran, San Francisco)
Oct 11 – 20, 2017 (Melbourne Festival, Australia)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
We take to the road (and air) to bring this radical fairy realness ritual across continents and oceans.
A 24-hour music theater work about how communities are built as a result of being torn apart. Consisting of over 246 songs–some original and many pre-existing popular songs (popular in the US from 1776 to the present day)–as well as over thirteen hours of original text, the work is a deconstruction, reimagining, reframing, and reenactment of 240 years of US history.
Hailed as a Ring Cycle for the 21st century, A 24-Decade History will be seen outside the US for the first time in Melbourne. Part celebration and part exorcism, it’s a no-holds-barred extravaganza of music, history, performance and art.
Click here to purchase your tickets for October 10, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for June 28 – 30, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for June 2 – 9, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Mar 15 – 24, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 15 – 24, 2017
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 11 – 20, 2017
Syncing Ink
Feb 3- March 5, 2017 (Alley Theater, Houston)
By NSangou Njikam
Directed by Niegel Smith
“Now what you hear is not a test/I’m rapping to the beat!” Gordon wants to learn how to rap, thinking it will gain him respect, admiration, and the attention of a beautiful woman. What he doesn’t know is that his journey to learn how to rhyme will take him not just deeper into Hip Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose. Based on true events, NSangou Njikam leads us on a lyrical ride to discover what it really takes to freestyle. Directed by Niegel Smith, Artistic Director of New York’s Flea Theater.
“Under director Niegel Smith’s guiding hand, the characters and scenes slip easily into flashbacks, drug- induced dream sequences and spiritual epiphanies where hip hop terms like Flow incarnate into goddess-like creatures. The show is also just plain funny throughout.”
– Tarra Gaines, CultureMap – Houston
“Director Niegel Smith shoots these actors out of a cannon and expertly gives them plenty of room to fill up the space with big personality.”
– Jessica Goldman & Brandon Caldwell, Houston Press
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 3 – March 5, 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Sep 15 – Oct 8, 2016 (St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
Taylor Mac’s glittering performance art concerts chart a (highly) subjective history of popular music and activism in America from the nation’s founding in 1776 to the present day. Created with a bevy of collaborators, including music director / arranger Matt Ray, co-director Niegel Smith, 2015 MacArthur Fellow Mimi Lien, lighting designer John Torres, and longtime fellow traveler and costume provocateur Machine Dazzle, this highly anticipated World Premiere will be the first time Taylor Mac performs the complete 24-decade history in its entirety.
“Taylor Mac’s 24-Hour Concert Was One of the Great Experiences of My Life. I’ve slept on it, and I’m sure. “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” is sublime.”
– Wesley Morris, The New York Times
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 15 – Oct 8, 2016
HIR
Oct 16, 2015 – Jan 3, 2016 (Playwrights Horizons, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Somewhere in the suburbs, Isaac has returned from the wars to help take care of his ailing father, only to discover a household in revolt. The insurgent: his mom. Liberated from an oppressive marriage, with Isaac’s newly out transgender sibling as her ally, she’s on a crusade to dismantle the patriarchy. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it.
“Directed by Niegel Smith with a daring combination of realism and madcap absurdity, “Hir” sometimes recalls the better works of David Rabe, Sam Shepard and Christopher Durang.
But Mr. Mac has his own gloriously skewed vision of the toxins fouling the American family from within, and in its avowedly loopy way “Hir” reflects current concerns about the decline of the middle class, as well as the trauma war veterans endure.”
– Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
“A beautiful trinity of Nielsen’s pained and profound performance, Mac’s script, and Smith’s direction.”
– Hilton Als, The New Yorker
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 16, 2015 – Jan 3, 2016
HIR
Feb 27 – Mar 22, 2015 (Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Obie Award winning drag icon, queer performance artist, and playwright, Taylor Mac has penned a hilarious and unsettling comedy that is a deconstructed family drama put through a commedia wringer in a style he coins Absurd Realism. It is simultaneously a farcical and disarming satire, a discourse on power, and a blistering critique of “troglodyte fascist hetero-normative” culture.
Isaac returns home from picking up the dismembered remains of his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan, only to find that his home has likewise been blown asunder. His house is a mess, his formerly macho father has suffered a stroke, his mother (played by Sally Wingert, Star Tribune 2013 Artist of the Year) runs the disintegrating household with tyrannical glee, and his sister is now his transgender sibling, intent on subverting traditional gender-centric paradigms and linguistic forms–replacing him and her with the play’s eponymous pronoun ‘hir’.
“Taylor Mac’s play is one of the most daring I’ve come across, and this Niegel Smith-directed production hits all its weird notes with a disturbing clarity that makes the experience bracing, nothing less than thrilling. The effect is near-perfect.
Hir is a show that will make your mind rattle like a popcorn popper, and your heart lurch with shades of the American experience and the sense of pressures having built to bursting across the suburbs both literal and figurative. It’s also, easily, one of the best shows I’ve seen in Twin Cities theater over the past half decade.”
– Quinton Skinner, MN Monthly
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 27 – Mar 22, 2014
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.
Marisol
April 10 – May 11, 2014 (Luna Stage – West Orange, NJ)
By José Rivera
Directed by Niegel Smith
Set in early 90s New York City, Oscar Nominee (The Motorcycle Diaries) José Rivera’s powerful and poetic Marisol plunges audiences into the story of a young Latina woman forced to navigate a world left in disarray when her guardian angel leaves her to fight a battle of biblical proportion. In the magic realism style of his mentor Gabriel García Márquez, Rivera creates an urban fantasy, filled with humor and pathos, urging society to recover our long-lost compassion and to wrest our world from the brink of destruction.
“Rivera’s voice is distinctive, and the play is at once brutal and poetic, fantastical and resonant of truth. At Luna Stage in West Orange, where it currently is receiving its New Jersey premiere, Niegel Smith directs a vibrant production with an excellent cast.”
– Ronni Reich, The Star-Ledger
HIR
Jan. 29 – Feb 23, 2014 (Magic Theatre, San Francisco)
**Extended through March 2, 2014**
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Newly enlightened Paige is determined to forge a deliriously liberated world for her two wayward children: Isaac, recently discharged from the Marines under dubious circumstances; and Max, tender, jaded, and sculpting a third-sex gender identity for hirself. Hailed as “one of this country’s most heroic and disarmingly funny playwrights” (American Theatre Magazine), Magic welcomes back renowned theatre artist Taylor Mac (The Lily’s Revenge) with this hilarious drama.
“the best Bay Area play I’ve seen this season. In several seasons, in fact… Niegel Smith is the perfect director for what Mac calls ‘absurd realism.’ Though every gag line draws a laugh, each stammer, brief pause or elongated silence also hits a dramatic bulls-eye. And Smith’s pacing is spot on.”
– Woody Weingarten, The Marin Scope
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 29 – Mar 2, 2014
Macbeth
September – October, 2012 (NYU Tisch Grad, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith
Shakespeare’s great tragedy weaving ambition, seduction, and ruthlessness appears as a Year Three Graduate Acting production for the first time in decades. The path to the throne twists and turns into the way of dusty death, as a supernatural goad to the dark aspirations of Lord and Lady Macbeth transforms into a nightmare in the harsh light of day.
Lady Rizo: Ordained
November, 2011 & January 2012 (Joe’s Pub, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith
It’s Lady Rizo’s final performance before being ordained into the temple of glitter. Aggressively feminine and possessing a distinct absence of inhibition, she will attempt to lead you in a night praising the power of song, giggles, madness and glamorous glances. Will we survive? Yes – if her spectacular new gown has anything to say about it.
For a Barbarian Woman
October 2011 (Fordham University & Ensemble Studio Theatre, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Savianna Stenescu
On the edge of the Black Sea, the greatest poet of the Roman Empire, Ovid, and an American/NATO colonel are forever transformed by a barbarian woman. Two millennia apart, boundaries of politics, time and desire continue to be shattered. Who will survive?
SEED
September – October, 2011
(Classical Theatre of Harlem & Hip Hop Theatre Festival, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Radha Blank
Burnt-out social worker Anne Colleen Simpson decides to leave the field on a high note, with a book detailing her career, but when Chee-Chee, a gifted twelve-year-old from the ‘projects’ collides into her life, she’s forced to confront his young mother and the shadows of her past. Anne and Chee-Chee develop an unlikely friendship that leads to an explosive encounter threatening both their futures.
Infused with the vibrant rhythm and verse of Hip-Hop culture, Seed weaves through the fault lines of a gentrified Harlem, begging the question: How far are you willing to go to protect the future of a community and its children?
“This masterpiece of theater explores, challenges, and provokes us to take some action” -NYTHEATER.COM
NEIGHBORS
February – March, 2010 (The Public Theater; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Branden Jacobs Jenkins
Have you seen the new neighbors? Richard Patterson is not happy. The family of black actors that has moved in next door is loud, tacky, shameless, and uncouth. And they are not just infiltrating his neighborhood—they threaten his reputation, his family, and his comfortably progressive lifestyle. This wildly theatrical, explosive play on race marks the major debut of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a member of the Public’s Emerging Writers Group.
FELA!
August 2008 – March 2012 (37 Arts – NYC; Broadway – NYC; National Theatre – London; Ecko – Lagos; & US/World Tour)
Associate Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Bill T. Jones, Written by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis
His story inspired a nation. His music inspired the world. FELA!, is the true story of the legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, whose soulful Afrobeat rhythms ignited a generation. Inspired by his mother, a civil rights champion, he defied a corrupt and oppressive military government and devoted his life and music to the struggle for freedom and human dignity. FELA! is a triumphant tale of courage, passion and love, featuring Fela Kuti’s captivating music and the visionary direction and choreography of Tony-Award winner Bill T. Jones.
ETHER STEEDS
August, 2009 (Fringe NYC; New York)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Jason Williamson
Ether Steeds is a ritualistic examination of the chasms between a mother, a daughter and the sea. Set against the back drop of rural North Carolina – cheap beer, anonymous gentlemen and the ashes of the dearly departed spur Mamma and her venus-fly-trap obsessed daughter, Skeeta, toward the inevitable. WINNER – Best Ensemble, FringeNYC
WE DECLARE YOU A TERRORIST
July, 2009 (SPF; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Tim Lord
Eight hundred civilians are taken hostage during the performance of a hit Moscow musical. In the aftermath, the playwright is plagued by the story of his captor – a young woman willing to die for her cause – in an intense drama where one person’s patriotism is another’s act of terrorism.
METRO PSALM
May, 2009 (Samuel French Festival; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by J. Julian Christopher
A haunting incident onboard a NYC subway train explodes into an indictment of faith, class and personal responsibility.
TALES OF THE LOST FORMICANS
November, 2008 (Fordham University; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written By Constance Congdon
Formicans are a wealth of knowledge. They have become quite adept at the annals of wisdom, and luckily their species has severe long-term memory deficiencies, so recording was easy. Visiting aliens do their best to interpret the absurd actions of a complex family unit living in a strange land – the suburbs of the United States.
CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM
February – March 2008 (The Public Theater; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith, Written & Directed by Richard Nelson
Conversations in Tusculum reimagines the intense interaction among Brutus (Aidan Quinn), Cassius (David Strathairn), and Cicero (Brian Dennehy) leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar, the leader they had once followed into battle but whom they have come to despise. Passionate in their beliefs but torn by their sense of loyalty, they struggle to continue believing in him despite their fear that his actions may pose great dangers to the nation.
TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
October, 2007 (Dartmouth College; Hanover, NH)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Suzan-Lori Parks
In Suzan-Lori Park’s magnificently etched theatrical landscape, two African-American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, attempt to cheat fate as they navigate women, work, poverty, gambling, racism and their troubled upbringings.
MAUD – The Madness
May – June, 2007 (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Consumed by grief due to his father’s untimely death, the protagonist of Tennyson’s “little Hamlet” rages at a world of injustice and hypocrisy. When Maud, his beautiful childhood friend, resurfaces and gleams with the possibility for reconciliation and renewal, she becomes the one bright thing that may save him from the violent extremes of emotional triumph and despair. The New York premiere of the drama Tennyson’s contemporaries described as ” prose run mad.”
RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS
August – September, 2006 (Fringe NYC & Fringe Encores; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Andrew Barrett
Music throbs. Drugs flow. Sex unites. It’s the 90’s. And the enticing world of the Circuit Party beckons. A comedic and unapologetic look into an exclusive world that inevitably comes crashing to an end by Monday morning.
A SOLDIER’S PLAY
Ocotober – November, 2005 (Second Stage Theatre; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Jo Bonney, Written by Charles Fuller
It’s 1944 and the mysterious murder of a black Sergeant set’s off an exploration of the complicated anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many have absorbed white racist attitudes.
LIMBS: A PAGEANT
July 2005 (Here Arts Center; New York, NY)
Conceived and Directed By Niegel Smith
Written by Nathan Christiansen, HIllary Miller, Zachary Price, Alva Rogers & Jordan Seavey
Five amputated soldier’s from WWI to the Korean War to Shock and Awe arrive in the living room of American Family. Ushered through early morning news shows, fast food lines, a makeover by a queer-eyed-guy and ultimately landing in front of a television at the local Veteren’s Hospital – each of these forgotten heroes yells, whispers and sings to share their buried voice.
THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
January – March, 2005 (Second Stage Theatre; New York, NY)
Assistant Directors: Niegel Smith & Darren Katz
Directed by James Lapine, Written by William Finn & Rachel Sheinkin
Six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser. This hilarious tale of overachievers’ angst chronicles the experience of six adolescent outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime.
DISPOSABLE MEN
February – March, 2005 (Here Arts Center; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Kristen Marting, Written & Performed by James Scruggs
King Kong, African American men, and Frankenstein collide in humor-laced tales about theme restaurants featuring mutilation with dessert, and party motivators with major minstrel twists. Disposable Men is a richly interactive live multimedia performance. It explores the uncanny relationship that African American men and classic Hollywood monsters share . . . the unfounded fear of, and the imaginative ways that they are killed.
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
Sept 2003 – Aug 2004 (The Public Theater & Broadway; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by George C. Wolfe, Written by Tony Kushner
In 1963 Louisiana, against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, Kennedy’s assassination and the Vietnam war, the friendship between Caroline Thibodeaux, a divorced African American maid and Noah Gellman, the eight-year-old son of the Jewish family for whom she works, suffers from uncontrollable shifts. The acceptance of change – from taking money from a child to coping with memories of the past – does not come easily and threatens to crush Caroline’s relationships and spirit. It’s finally through her independent teenage daughter’s vision and strength that Caroline realizes that change can, in fact, set her free.
FUNNYHOUSE
April 2003 (Non-Stop-Flight; Providence, RI)
Produced & Directed by: Niegel Smith
A deconstructed romp, splicing and dicing the original text of Adriane Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro with a maddening Africani score mixed live by Providence’s DJ Mikey! An easily forgettable, but none-the-less captivating 20-minute performance in loop. Proof that I needed to crawl before I could walk.