“Bounds”

A New York Premiere

By award-winning Italian playwright, Tino Caspanello

Directed by Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva

Five women stand at the shore of an unknown coast.... Two are migrants, two are guards, one is both. In liminal space, they wait. While waiting, they reenact familiar games of childhood — and the power games of adults. 
 

Written in Italy in 2012, "Bounds" evokes Europe's 2011 migrant crisis and the many waves of crisis since, in which hundreds of thousands of migrants have fled hotspots of the Middle East and Africa by boat, headed for Europe's southernmost islands, including Greece's Lesbos, and the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Thousands upon thousands died in the crossing —others reached Europe only to be pushed back into the sea - others have not yet escaped the limbo of migrant camps. 

As the US slides further into the brutal migrant policies of the Trump administration, with kidnappings and rendition, foreign concentration camps, militarization of cities, mass roundups and deportations —"Bounds" is a parable for our own present moment.

In the words of playwright Tino Caspanello, “Bounds is a story about cages, violence, dreams, a story that reflects the actual living time that flows under our skin, a time that stands apart from the rules, obligations and prejudices that keep us from looking in the eyes of our neighbors.” 

“Stiffler” 

A US premiere.

By award-winning, Kosovan playwright Dorunting Basha.

A woman arrives at the hospital. She has a knife in her back. No one notices.

She arrives at the police station. She has a knife in her back. No one notices.

She arrives at the morgue. She has a knife in her back. No one notices.

A searing work of absurdist-macabre, Stiffler takes a hard look at femicide, sex work, and systemic neglect of women. 

As the Epstein revelations and the Pelicot trial lay bare a culture that repeatedly exploits and abandons women, Stiffler lands with fierce, stark relevance—and a clear cry for justice.

Founded in 2016, AnomalousCo is a predominantly queer/woman-led, feminist, transdisciplinary performance collective, collaboratively creating original works at the intersection of drama, new media, circus arts, installation and immersive performance, and music theatre. With a core team based in the US (New York), we maintain collaborative partnerships across the globe. Practice as research and experimental pedagogy are central to our work. Our methods are syncretic, drawing upon the rich lineage of twentieth and twenty-first century European and US performance practices. Our productions are devised in both professional and academic settings. Our work has been seen across the US, and in Poland, Romania, France, Russia, and globally online.

We are a theatre without borders: intercultural, international, multilingual and committed to:

• foregrounding minoritarian voices in the US and abroad;
• amplifying the voices and the perspectives of women;
• transcending national borders, working in collaboration with artistic teams around the globe - facilitated by new media technologies and forms - and creating multilingual works that give expression to a multicultural perspective;
• generating both original and pre-scripted works of performance that explode disciplinary boundaries and engage with the urgent issues of our time;
• adhering to a collaborative ethos: distributed leadership models, group decision making, and networked structures of cooperation.

American Theatre of Actors, Inc. (ATA) was founded in 1976 by James Jennings to promote the development of new playwrights, directors and actors, and to provide them a creative atmosphere in which to work. The plays are dramas, comedies, and hybrids, dealing with the social and ethical problems of contemporary society.

12,000 actors have worked at ATA including Dennis Quaid, Bruce Willis, Dan Lauria, Chazz Palminteri, Danny Aielo, David Morse, Edie Falco and Kathryn Hahn. Our productions are sometimes grouped as 'festivals,' such as a Playwrights Festival or a Directors Festival. In 2016 we began an initiative to feature women in theatre as directors and playwrights, today this is our WIT! (Women in Theatre) program.

**HEALTH & SAFETY at the ATA:
Late seating may be problematic.

ADA Access: Call 24 hours in advance for all wheelchair access. Please have an assistant if you are in a manual wheelchair to get over the front entryway steps. Electric wheelchairs must use our 53rd street entrance and we need to plan ahead with you. Call 212-581-3044 or 917-773-2933. Only 1 wheelchair spot is available per performance.

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Ticket purchasers are responsible for informing and providing this information if they are providing the ticket for a guest. Anyone that does not abide by our protocols may be denied entry to our facility.

We recognize that public health guidelines may change and therefore our policies are also subject to change without notice. If you test COVID positive within a week of being in our facility, you may have exposed others. Please call us as a tracing contact: 212-581-3044.