She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

May 20th-22nd, 2022
Produced by Arlington Children's Theatre
Presented at Mankiw Theater @ Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall
785 Beaver Street
Waltham, Massachusetts 02452

Join me at the Jackson Mann Community Center in Allston/Brighton in April where I'll be facilitating a Play Reading Book Club for Burgerz!  Over the course of several weeks we will read the play, discuss the text, see the live performance, and be treated to a private reception with the artists.

ABOUT THE PLAY:
After transphobic slurs—and a hamburger—are thrown at theatre artist Travis Alabanza, a newfound passion is ignited. They became obsessed with hamburgers: How they are made. How they feel and smell. How they travel through the air. How the mayonnaise feels on your skin.

Burgerz is the climax of that obsession, exploring how trans bodies survive and how—by reclaiming an act of violence—we can all address our own complicity. Carving out a place for themselves as one of the UK’s prominent trans voices, Alabanza presents a performance that is powerful, hilarious, unsettling, and timely.

​ABOUT THE PLAY READING BOOK CLUB:
ArtsEmerson’s Play Reading Book Club (PRBC) is a dynamic theatre literacy and community education program that provides unique and radical access to scripts, artists, and conversations within the theatre.

Join myself and Dana Edell this spring for Kol Isha, an arts-based collective that offers a brave space for Jewish girls, non-binary and gender non-conforming teenagers to explore the intersections of racism, sexism and antisemitism in our lives. Together, through performance, we will address the urgent issues impacting our communities!

The project will meet twice a week at Temple Israel in Boston this May and June.  Specific dates and times to be determined. Space is limited and we will let folks know on a rolling basis until we're all filled. 

Join us as we study this new musical based on the life of legendary, South African singer and activist, Miriam Makeba. Written and performed by GRAMMY-nominated music sensation Somi Kakoma, Dreaming Zenzile takes us to Makeba’s final concert where she delivers the performance of her life, raising the conscience and the consciousness of a people.

Over the course of 3-5 weeks we will read, dissect and discuss the musical, guided by ArtsEmerson’s trained teaching artists, in preparation to see the live performance at the Emerson Paramount Center. This is a great opportunity to expand your theatergoing experience while meeting new people and extending your social and cultural networks!

ArtsEmerson’s Play Reading Book Club (PRBC) is a dynamic theatre literacy and community education program that provides unique and radical access to scripts, artists, and conversations within the theatre. 

The Play of Delights opens on Thursday 1/27!

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays—some as short as a paragraph; some as long as five pages—that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. The Play of Delights, inspired by his book of essays, is a response, homage, and meditation on his work, created by the students in the ensemble. Combining both original student-written material and essays from the book, this play mixes comedy, physical theater, music and puppetry to explore and celebrate delight, with all its beauty and complexities

Tickets are now on sale for the Apocalypse Project at Beaver Country Day School!

On the Altierra compound in Texas, young T dreams of the internet returning so she can be a YouTuber and document her generation. When a crisis expels a group, she joins the exiles on a trek across the broken land. This group faces constant danger as they search for safe-harbor—and possibly the answer to the question of what happened—at the rumored New Eden.

​This is a play about what happens when the young are left to deal with the disasters in a world they didn’t create.

This summer, for the second year, I'm leading the Waterfront Ambassadors program with the Trustees of Reservations.  The Waterfront Ambassadors is a youth employment program based in East Boston and has a mission to engage teens on waterfront issues in and around their neighborhoods, including environmental justice, climate resiliency and public access.  You can learn more about the program here.

This summer we're reaching out to young people in East Boston to find out what activities they'd like to do at the future Piers Park III, the Trustees' newest waterfront park.  We need everyone's feedback to make sure the park reflects the needs and wants of the local community so if you're from East Boston, or have a connection to the area, please consider filling out our survey!  There's a version for youth and adults, and it's available in Spanish and English.

I'm so excited to share that Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston has chosen the Coming Together Project as a recipient for one of their inaugural Arts and Culture Community Impact grants! Coming Together is an original show that explores stories of Jewish community-building during COVID. Since January, Rebecca Powell, Jesse Garlick and I have been collaborating with a group of 5 incredible community members to support them in interviewing people in their lives and creating a show around those interviews.

I'm so proud of the work our ensemble has done and deeply grateful to CJP for supporting it so that we can do justice that work. Performances will be live streamed by our community partner Temple Israel of Boston in late May so stay tuned for more info!

I just finished directing a really fun devised show with high school students at Beaver Country Day School in Boston.  It's streaming on the school's website through the end of February 2021!  bcdschool.org/2021/02/the-nest-us-winter-play/ 

The Nest is a show made up of stories about home. And “home” is a complicated, beautiful, challenging thing, especially right now. Home means different things to different people—we wanted to make space for all of this in putting the show together. For that reason, we were loosely inspired by the structure of the radio show This American Life, which has a weekly theme and brings together different (mostly true) stories exploring that theme. The Nest follows a similar structure, and the students act as hosts, guiding the audience through the stories.

The stories in the show were created through a process called devising in which we used writing, storytelling, movement, and visual art prompts to build the script. This is a collaborative process where all students have the opportunity to be playwrights, performers and designers, and we were able to celebrate each individual’s unique skills and perspectives.