things to come

Theaterlab Presents

Curated by Jack Meriwether

Commissioned by Theaterlab, the bi-monthly performance series “THINGS TO COME” returns to the Garment District theater for a second volume on May 18. Curator Jack Meriwether continues their vision of bringing together emerging and established voices in the New York performance world for an evening of experimentation, community, and play. The series is excited to invite the poets Ariana Reines (A Sand Book, Tin House)and Wo Chan (Togetherness, Nightboat), music duo DAYS (Ethan Philbrick on cello and Ned Riseley on vocals), dance artist Tess Dworman, and conceptual artist Yoshiko Chuma to Theaterlab’s iconic Gallery Space.

As with the inaugural show, attendees will be invited to take home a keepsake limited-run zine printed by Garden Press and compiled of works from the performers and curator. Seating will be limited to ensure an intimate experience, so make sure to get your tickets to this one-night-only performance event.

Thursday, May 18th, 7pm

Reserve a seat for $15 HERE

COVID-19 safety: Vaccinations and masks are required to enter the venue. Masks will be also available at the door. The safety of our audience and artists is a priority. Thank you for helping us keep Theaterlab a safe space for everyone. If you have any questions about our COVID-19 policy, please email us at theaterlab36@gmail.com.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jack Meriwether is a writer and performer from Ohio. After studying studio art and theater in Chicago, they moved to New York City in 2016 to intern for the gallery Queer Thoughts and find freelance work as a runway model. Since then, they’ve published “The Panic Trilogy,” a series of poetry chapbooks, have acted in upcoming film projects Albedo: or Apples and Oranges dir. C Hu and Sean Dahlberg and Hold dir. Joshua Kaufman, and since 2017 have regularly hosted their performance series Bring Your Own Body, most recently at the 2022 East Village Zine Fair. In 2021, they presented A Dark Corner to Scream Into at Theaterlab, a performance piece in collaboration with their brother Matthew Meriwether, in fulfillment of a grant from NYFA. In July of 2022, they presented a new solo work The Human Compact in collaboration with voice actor Victoria Pedroza, at Otion Front Studio.

Tess Dworman is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, voiceover actor, and audio describer. Her choreographic work has been presented at many theaters across NYC including Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, New York Live Arts, PS122, and the Chocolate Factory Theater. In 2020, Tess was honored as an “Outstanding Breakout Choreographer” by the Bessies New York Dance & Performance Awards. She currently performs in the work of Juliana F. May and Tere O’Connor.

Photo by Amelia Golden

DAYS is Ned Riseley and Ethan Philbrick. Based in New York, Ned is a musician and writer and Ethan is a performance artist and cellist. Together, they create chamber music that merges and deconstructs their classical backgrounds, bringing together voice and cello in intimate ways that look to the natural and the mystical for inspiration.

Photo by Amelia Golden

Wo Chan who performs as The Illustrious Pearl is a poet and drag artist. They are a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and the author of Togetherness (2022). Wo has received fellowships from MacDowell, New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, The Asian American Writers Workshop, Poets House, and Lambda Literary. Their poems appear in POETRY, WUSSY, Mass Review, No Tokens, The Margins, and elsewhere. As a member of the Brooklyn-based drag/burlesque collective Switch N’ Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art, National Sawdust, New York Live Arts, and the Architectural Digest Expo. Find them at @theillustriouspearl

Photo by Mettie Ostrowski

Yoshiko Chuma landed in Manhattan in 1976 (Japanese-born), a conceptual artist and founder of the performance art collective The School Of Hard Knocks. For more than 40 years, Chuma has been an irreverent fixture of New York City’s downtown performance scene, mounting works at home in the city as well as abroad that vary in scale and medium. Classically undefinable, Chuma’s work is “a mixture of play and seriousness, anarchy and reflection” (Dance Magazine), and intentionally challenges the relationship of performer to audience, content to form, and meaning to making. The School of Hard Knocks’ work is often collaborative, and uses members of the collective as well as an international cast of artists to create complex and dynamic pieces that attempt to capture the chaos and multitude of contemporary life. Among her accolades, Chuma has received a Guggenheim Fellowship ,Bessie Awards, and others. From June 1-11, 2023 La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York will present the world premiere of Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks’ new work Shockwave Delay.

Photo by Robert Flynt

Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, Obie-winning playwright, performing artist, translator, and educator. Her books include A Sand Book, winner of the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award, The Cow, winner of the Alberta Prize, Coeur De Lion, Mercury, and The Origin of the World. Her Obie-winning play Telephone was commissioned by the Foundry Theatre and has been performed and published in Norwegian translation (2017) and a KW Berlin (2018) among others.

Ariana’s poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Artforum, Art In America, The Believer, The Boston Review, Bomb, Granta, Harpers, The Los Angeles Review Of Books, Poetry, and more. Reines has been a Macdowell fellow, a resident at the TS Eliot House, a fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts, a Brown Foundation fellow at the Dora Maar House, the poetry fellow at the University of East Anglia, has judged the National Poetry Series, The White Review Poetry Prize and been a nominator for the Foundation for Contemporary Art.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Theaterlab’s programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.