Best life
By Melisa Tien
October 21 - November 6, 2021
If you could turn back time, what would you do differently? In this absurdly funny and unsettling play, a woman of color can rewind time, but only within the last five minutes. The result: her exchange with a white woman in a cafe becomes increasingly alarming, inspiring a perpetual revolution.
Directed by Susanna Jaramillo
Set Designer: Deb O
Costume Designer: Alicia J. Austin
Lighting Designer: Christina Watanabe
Sound Designer: Carsen Joenk
Production Stage Manager: TaTyana Smith
Production Assistant: Karen Loewy Movilla.
Featuring Cherrye J. Davis as Lourdes & Erin Anderson as Sheryl
Location: 20 Putnam Ave in Brooklyn. C or G train to Clinton-Washington. Shuttle to Franklin Ave
Performance Dates & Times
Thursday, Oct. 21: 7:30 pm (preview)
Friday, Oct. 22: 7:30 pm (preview)
Saturday, Oct. 23: 7:30 pm (opening)
Wednesday, Oct. 27: 7:30 pm
Thursday, Oct. 28: 7:30 pm
Friday, Oct. 29: 2:30 pm & 7:30 pm
Saturday, Oct. 30: 7:30 pm
Wednesday, Nov. 3: 7:30pm
Thursday, Nov. 4: 7:30 pm
Friday, Nov. 5: 2:30 pm & 7:30 pm
Saturday, Nov. 6: 7:30 pm
Tickets
$15.00 Preview
$20.00 General Admission
(Available Here)
This production 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, The Puffin Foundation, and by Kickstarter crowdfunders
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Melisa Tien (Playwright) is a playwright, lyricist, librettist, and producer. She is the author of the plays BEST LIFE, THE BOYD SHOW, YELLOW CARD RED CARD, and FAMILIUM VULGARE, co-author of the music-theater works SWELL and MARY, co-creator of the podcast/auditory experience ACTIVE LISTENING, and creator of the theatrical experiences UNTITLED LANDSCAPE and COMMUNITY FOREST. She has been published in the anthology Theater Artists Making Theatre With No Theater (Tripwire Harlot Press, Spring 2020), and has authored essays for New Music USA and Innovations in Socially Distant Performance.
A New Dramatists resident playwright, Melisa is a member of The Assembly Theater Project’s 2021 Deceleration Lab, a recipient of a 2020-2021 grant from the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre, a commissionee of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Project, a commissionee of the University of Northern Iowa’s Opera Program, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting. She holds a BA from UCLA, an MFA, from Columbia University, and she currently teaches a course in experimental theatrical writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Learn more at www.melisatien.com
JACK's programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, City Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, The New York Community Trust, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Lozen Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program in partnership with Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Foundation, The Lida Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Bains Family Foundation, and Ridgewood Savings Bank, in addition to many generous individuals.
Susanna Jaramillo (Director, she/her) is a New York based director and stage manager hailing from Cranford, New Jersey. Recent credits include: Wine in the Wilderness (Roundabout), Bite Me (Roundabout), Daddy (John Jay College), African Caribbean MixFest (Atlantic Theatre Company). Select academic theatre direction includes: Yellow Face (Front Row Theatre Co.), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (iNtuitons Experimental Theatre), Little Shop of Horrors (Quadramics Theatre Co.). Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a BSE in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Deb O (Set Design, she/her) just finished production designing Man and Witch the movie in Glasgow Scotland. Selected set and costume designs: Trilobite (Flint Rep, MI; New Victory, NY) Field and Forest (Isabella Rossellini’s Farm, NY) This Is Reading (Reading Train Station, PA) Manmade (600 Highwaymen) Aubergine (Park Square Theater, MN) Ready Set Go: Race, I Migration, Black Conference (Falconworks, NY), Airness (Humana Fest, KY) Selkie and Lessons From Aloes (Z Space, CA) Thieves (El Portal Theater, LA) Sweeney Todd (Perseverance Theater, Alaska) Christmas Carol and Middletown (Trinity Rep, RI) Light: A Dark Comedy (New Victory, NY) Rite Of Spring (Kimmel Center, PA) Three Sisters, Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Ivanov, Platonov, Uncle Vanya (Lake Lucille, NY) The Nature of Captivity (Mabou Mines, PS 122) Salsalandia (La Jolla Playhouse, CA) Savannah Disputation (The Old Globe, CA) The Lacy Project (Premiere Yale) The Mistakes Madeline Made (Yale Rep). She received her MFA from Yale. See more of her work at http://www.debo.nyc or follow her on instagram @debodesign.
Alicia J. Austin (Costume Design, she/her) is a costume designer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the recipient of the Princess Grace Theater Award for Costume Design.
Christina Watanabe (Lighting Design, she/her) is an award-winning lighting designer and educator for theatre, dance, music, and events. NYC: Lincoln Center, The Public, WP Theatre, EST, Primary Stages, Cherry Lane, 59E59, HERE, New Ohio, Theatre Row, Urban Stages, INTAR, Bushwick Starr, Theatre for the New City, more. Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep, Virginia Stage Company, Charlottesville Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks, White Heron Theatre Company, Florida Rep, Bristol Valley Theatre. TV: Colin Quinn (co-design). USITT Gateway Mentor. Knights of Illumination winner. MFA: NYU. Member USA 829. www.StarryEyedLighting.com.
Carsen Joenk (Sound Design, she/her) is a director and sound designer interested in work that uses non-hierarchical methods of collaboration to create equitable, ensemble-driven processes. She is the co-artistic director of Rat Queen Theatre Company, a resident artist with New Light Theatre Project, a 2020-2022 Roundabout Emerging Directors Group member. Carsen was the 19/20 Wingspace Directing Mentee, a NAMT 2018 Directing Observer, and a 2019 FAIR assistant director at OSF. Select Sound: Dutch Kings (Brave New World Rep), rail. (Philadelphia Fringe), The Great Novel (NLTP + The Flea), "DADDY" (asst. The New Group), A Bright Room Called Day (assoc. Juilliard), Something for the Fish (CPR), Fiction. (600 Highwaymen).
TaTyana Smith* (Stage Manager, she/her) is a New York based stage manager from Brooklyn. She graduated from the City College of New York with a Bachelor's Degree in Theater. She’s worked at The Wild Project, Lincoln Center, The Lark and The Public Theatre. Her off-Broadway credits include: Porto, Cullud Wattah and the PlayOn!Shakespeare festival. TaTyana is very excited to be working on Best Life. She would like to thank her family and friends for their support.
Karen Loewy Movilla (Production Assistant, she/her) is a Colombian artist based in New York City. Her work celebrates hyper femme aesthetics, female and trans biology, and maligned attributes of “womanhood”. Her pieces use digital media, embodiment, spoken word, and puppetry to confront academic texts, inherent biases, and oppressive systems. She was the stage manager for Teatro Dallas’ A Grave is Given Supper, and part of the stage management team for Third Rail Projects’ Then She Fell. She is a Boston University graduate and a 2021 MFA Sarah Lawrence College graduate.
*Appearing with permission of Actors' Equity Association.