Theaterlab Presents
MINIFEST 2025
Curated by Orietta Crispino
Produced by Molly Shayna Cohen
Theaterlab’s beloved MINIFEST returns this year with a dazzling lineup of performances celebrating the miniature, all things tiny but exceptional, and transformative power of art seen in good company. Highlights include up-to-five-minute works spanning multimedia, a crafts workshop, immersive installations, and participatory art, all culminating in an enchanting audience wish-making ceremony.
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This year’s festival spotlights a host of remarkable artists. Our old friends Liza Cassidy, Claire Lebowitz, Michaela Lind, Nicole Renaud, Yoko Murakami, and Elena Vannoni bring their unique styles to the stage once again. They will be joined by Amy Staats – a celebrated playwright and performer who is one of Theaterlab’s NYSCA artists in residence this year to develop her script Nora’s Children as well as other new voices: Anne Fulper, Sara Galassini and Cecilia Fontanesi make their Theaterlab debuts, while our own Gabrie Kauit steps into the spotlight in the white box for the first time as a belly dancer. Lita Lofton and company preview their highly anticipated new take on Chekhov, On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Other Substances, opening shortly after the festival.
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The evening promises a signature Theaterlab reception with mini snacks, full-size drinks, and unforgettable conversations. Join us for a night of whimsy, wonder, and the remarkable all wrapped in a bow of community love and care just in time for Valentine’s Day.
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Performance Times:
Tickets:
General Admission: $35-50
Love For You: this $35 ticket is the minimum needed to cover the cost of your seat and keep the lights on.
Big Love For Us: this $50 ticket covers your ticket, plus helps us pay our artists.Â
Bring a friend and save: Use code SHARELOVE at checkout for two “Love for You” tickets for $60 (regular: $75) or two “Big Love for Us” tickets for $80 (regular: $100)
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MEET THE ARTISTS
Liza Cassidy has been collaborating and performing with Theaterlab since 2005. Most recently she directed Orietta Crispino’s LET ME COOK FOR YOU trilogy at Theaterlab and collaborated for the site-specific co-production with Pop-up Theatrics in Brooklyn. As a visual artist with a 15-year studio practice in Gowanus Brooklyn, NYC, and recently in Brattleboro, VT at The Cotton Mill, her focus is on large-scale abstract mixed media collage and plein air landscape paintings in oil. She hosts a monthly community mending/sewing session for adults and children at River Gallery School where she teaches painting and studio art. Additionally, she teaches painting in the local Refugee Community in Vermont and NYC. As a visual artist, she participated in Theaterlab’s Hotel New Work in 2016 and shows in NYC and Vermont.
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Anne Fulper is a writer and raconteur. She grew up along the Delaware Canal in Bucks County, PA, surrounded by ceramics from her grandfather’s Flemington, NJ pottery. Her grandfather’s work is included in museum collections like The Metropolitan Museum of Art. After discovering her grandfather’s handwritten glaze formulas, Anne and her sisters founded the Fulper Tile Company (1985–2000) to recreate these iconic finishes. Her current project, Shards, is a collection of essays that weaves together her experiences working with glazes, performing satire in NYC with The Sleazebuckets and Noh Radio, and growing up in a family steeped in mid-20th-century American pottery. Anne’s essays, infused with humor and insight, bring history to life, using family heirlooms as entry points into broader stories. A creative nonfiction writer with a flair for performance, she often pairs her work with audio, transforming each piece into an engaging, multidimensional narrative.
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Sara Galassini is an interdisciplinary theater artist, singer-songwriter, composer, community project facilitator and sound healing practitioner based in New York and Tuscany, Italy. Sara has worked internationally as a member of La MaMa ETC’ s Great Jones Company for 25 years; a member of the Trojan Women Project since 2017 and founder of the Sara Galas Band with award winning composer and musician Yukio Tsuji. A 5 year long collaborator of the Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup facilitating the Moving Memory Project, a movement based program for people with diverse abilities served by AHRC in all boroughs of New York City.
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Cecilia Fontanesi is a dancer, choreographer, and neuroscientist based in New York and Italy. She is a faculty member at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, as well as at the Dance Departments of Barnard College and Hunter College. Cecilia is also a co-founder of Parcon NYC, a movement collective that merges Parkour and Contact Improvisation. Her work explores the intersection of art and science, focusing on themes of interconnection, embodiment, and ecology. She has performed and taught internationally.
Gabrie Kauit is a NYC belly dancer of Chinese and Dominican descent. Her appreciation for Raqs Sharqi began at a young age. Since joining the JBelly School of Raqs led by master bellydancer Janelle Issis, she has performed in the NYC Dance Parade, The Secret Room, Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, and more with an upcoming performance at NYC Live Arts on February 16th. When not bellydancing, she can be found working in theatre, reading, or running around Queens.
Claire Lebowitz, born in Upstate New York and based in London and NYC, is an actress, playwright, and director of theater. Performed Off-Broadway in The Donkey Show directed by Diane Paulus. Former member of the Living Theatre in New York City. Assisted Judith Malina on The Brig (2007) (Obie Award for direction and ensemble) which opened in New York and toured Europe. Wrote and directed Bradass87 (2012-2013), a play about whistle-blower Chelsea Manning. Starred as Commander in Playing God VR project (2019) which screened at Cannes Film Fest and performed in The Time of Our Lies at The Park Theatre London. She directed and starred in Outside the Gate at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest Online 2022.
Michaela Lind is an award-winning performer, filmmaker, and co-founder of ARA Theater & Media. Filmmaker, Theatermaker, Award-Winning Performer, Co-Founder of ARA Theater & Media – “She wears the elements of all the great female clowns” – StagebizÂ
Lita Lofton is a director, producer, and performance artist specializing in movement-driven storytelling, immersive theatrical experiences, and glamour on purpose. Lofton is the co-founder of The Social Club Thtr and her work has been seen at TheaterLab, Access Theater, The Slipper Room, The Sultan Room, Ideal Glass Studios, and more. Her archival research can be seen in Season 2 of Random Acts of Flyness (HBO). Of Russian and African American heritage, Lofton seeks to tell stories of love, resilience, and joy as an act of rebellion. She is most inspired by fairytales and folklore – and the final girl in horror films.
Yoko Murakami is a Tokyo-born and New York City-based artist. Yoko creates movement-based work in the form of site-specific installations and experimental films. She enjoys creating works for spaces not traditionally designed for performance and is interested in finding new ways to activate and question how we interact with our environments. She has presented her creations in spaces like New York City’s Mabou Mines, Ace Hotel, Triskelion Arts, TheaterLab (New York, NY), Eshk Salon / Room Salon, and Aileyan Accessories, as well as at galleries and performance spaces across the U.S. Her new venture into experimental film has led to her works being selected and screened in international festivals in Seoul, Moscow, Naples, Belfort, Cyprus, Mexico City, and Lincoln Center in NYC, just in 2022.
Nicole Renaud is a French singer – “Parisian songbird” (Time Out New York) who accompanies herself on a one-of-a-kind transparent luminous accordion designed for her by British artist Paul Etienne Lincoln. Her multimedia show Couleurs, an original cycle of songs – a love story seen through colors – was created at Theaterlab in New York and featured at the Limoges Opera (France), the Biennale de la Chanson in Brussels (Belgium), and the Goetland Poetry Festival (Sweden). She sang for 2 years for French journalist and minister of culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, for his FRANCE CULTURE radio show and appears regularly on the French-German TV channel, ARTE. She has sung and scored music for award-winning films and commercials including animated feature films by the “king of independent film animation in the US”, Bill Plympton. She sings at high-end events around the world for brands such as Bulgari, Vuitton, Panerai, and more.
Amy Staats is a writer, actor, director, producer, and a 2018 Tow Playwright in Residence through the Atlantic Theater Company. She enjoys writing characters actors are thirsty to play with high stakes, complex emotional needs, surprising scenes, and a momentum that drives forward like whitewater rafting. The world premiere of Amy’s play Eddie and Dave had an extended run off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater and co-starred Amy in the role of Eddie Van Halen. Her one-act play, Throws of Love, has received multiple productions and is the winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival. Other plays include Bat Kitty (The Momentum Festival), I Hope She’ll Be Okay (New Works Now), and Hands (developed at ATC and SPACE at Ryder Farm). As an actor, Amy most recently performed the lead in the Broadway production of The Thanksgiving Play (u/s three performances). She is a resident artist at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor and SPACE on Ryder Farm (RIP), an affiliated artist with New Georges, and a semi-finalist at Sundance Theater Lab and The O’Neill Playwrights Festival. Her Russian spy/gymnastics dramedy Defected is in development with Olivia Wingate (MO Studios) and Wren Arthur (Olive Productions).
Elena Vannoni is an accomplished theatre director and set and costume designer with a rich background in the arts. She began her career by studying costume design at the Art Institute of Florence and later earned degrees in History of Music and Theatre from the University of Florence and Theatre Direction from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome. Her award-winning direction, including the 2005 National Prize of the Arts, highlights her talent. Notable works include Miss Julie by Strindberg and The Divine Mimesis by Pasolini. Elena draws from methodologies like Grotowski, Commedia dell’Arte, and Orazio Costa’s Mimesic Method, emphasizing physical performance. Her career has taken her globally, from Berlin to New York, where she earned a Master’s in Theatre Directing at Columbia University. Currently based in New York, Elena continues to work on various theatre projects, contributing her versatile artistic vision to the stage.Â
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COVID-19 policy: In guidance with the city and state COVID-19 policies, we will no longer be requiring masks, but strongly recommend them.