Drama Desk and Obie Award-Winning Keen Company Presents KEEN AFTER HOURS, Connecting Audiences with Luminaries of the Theatre – FREE! Every Monday Night at 6:30pm
Next Up: Thomas Jay Ryan (March 1st) and Jennifer Ashley Tepper (March 8th)
Coming Up: Brian Eugenio Herrera (March 15th), Nick Blaemire (March 22nd) and Dan Domingues (March 29th)
Today Keen Company Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein announced new guests for upcoming evenings of the highly popular FREE event, Keen After Hours: BrianEugenio Herrera on March 15th, Nick Blaemire on March 22nd and Dan Domingues on March 29th, joining the previously announced Thomas Jay Ryan(March 1st) and Jennifer Ashley Tepper (March 8th). Keen After Hours is free and open to all.
Brian Eugenio Herrera is, by turns, a writer, teacher and scholar – presently based in New Jersey, but forever rooted in New Mexico. Brian’s work, whether academic or artistic, examines the history of gender, sexuality and race within and through U.S. popular performance. His book Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century U.S. Popular Performance (Michigan, 2015) was awarded the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and received an Honorable Mention for the John W. Frick Book Award from the American Theatre and Drama Society. With Stephanie Batiste and Robin Bernstein, Brian serves as co-editor of Performances and American Cultures series at NYU Press. Also a performer, Brian’s autobiographical storywork performances (including I Was the Voice of Democracy and TouchTones) have been presented in venues large and small across the United States, as well as Beirut and Abu Dhabi. Brian is also the Inaugural Resident Scholar for The Sol Project, an initiative dedicated to producing the work of Latinx playwrights in New York City and beyond; is a longstanding contributor to the Fornés Institute, a project committed to preserving and amplifying the legacy of María Irene Fornés; and is part of the Core Facilitation Team with ArtEquity, an organization dedicated to creating and sustaining a culture of equity and inclusion through the arts. Brian Eugenio Herrera is Associate Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, where he is also a core faculty member in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and a faculty affiliate with the Programs in American Studies, Music Theater and Latino Studies.
Nick Blaemire is an actor and writer living in Brooklyn with his wife Ana and their dog, Leo McGarry. BROADWAY: Godspell revival, Cry-Baby (Original Cast) and Glory Days (Music/Lyrics). OFF-BROADWAY: Jon in Tick Tick Boom! (Keen Company; Drama Desk nomination), Davy in Found (Atlantic), Bernstein in Dogfight (Second Stage). TOURING: Mendel in Falsettos (1st National), Abraham in Altar Boyz (1st National). REGIONAL: Plankton in SpongeBob (Nederlander Theatre), Benvolio in The Last Goodbye (Williamstown), Randall in Bring it On (Alliance Theatre). FILM/TV: “Dash & Lily,” “Fosse/Verdon,” “The Big C,” “Crossbones,” “The Good Wife,” “Zero Hour,” “Law & Order: CI.” OTHER WRITING: A Little More Alive (Williamstown, KC Rep, Barrington Stage), Soon (Signature Theatre; Stephen Sondheim Young Artist Citation), Fallout (with Kyle Jarrow), Space Dogs (with Van Hughes and Tina Landau). POP MUSIC: “Superstitious Drive” EP, “The Ampersand” EP and “The Hustle” EP, all available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Dan Domingues‘s Off-Broadway credits include The Public (The Tempest, Wild Goose Dreams, Fidelis, The Great Immensity), Gingold Group, Sheen Center, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Abingdon Theatre, BAM, 59E59 Theaters, INTAR, Atlantic Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre. Regional: Alley Theatre, White Heron Theatre Company, Arena Stage, The Guthrie, Goodman, NY Stage & Film, Hangar Theatre, Studio Theatre, Cape Playhouse, Weston Playhouse, Kansas City Rep, Rep of St. Louis, Pioneer Theatre, Long Wharf, Florida Stage, Portland Stage, George Street Playhouse. Film: Run All Night, Future ’38, In Stereo. TV: “5A5B,” “West 40s,” “The Blacklist,” “Royal Pains,” “Law & Order.” MFA: A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Associate artist: The Civilians. Creator and co-host of “Hot Date,” a podcast for movie fans.
Thomas Jay Ryan has twice appeared with Keen company, in In the Matter of J Robert Oppenheimer and Travels with My Aunt. He has had a long and varied theater career on and off Broadway, regionally and abroad. Perhaps best known for playing the title role in Hal Hartley’s Cannes festival prize winning Henry Fool film trilogy, he has collaborated five times with theater director Ivo van Hove, most recently in the revival of West Side Story, currently on hold. Other Broadway credits include In The Next Room, The Crucible, and The Nap. Off-Broadway, he has appeared at most every major theater in New York in such productions as Dance Nation, Eureka Day, The Amateurs, 10 Out of 12, The Lady from Dubuque, The Temperamentals and Venus, among many others. His collaborations with Daniel Fish include Tom Ryan Thinks He’s James Mason… and Eternal. His most recent films are Dash Shaw’s Cryptozoo (in competition at Sundance ’21) and Onur Tukel’s Scenes From An Empty Church (premiering later this year). He has won Joseph A. Calloway and two Drama Desk Awards, and received Drama League and Gemini Award nominations.
Jennifer Ashley Tepper is the author of The Untold Stories of Broadway book series, published by Dress Circle. NBC New York has called the books an “inspiring must-read.” Published in 2013, 2014, and 2016, each book has occupied the #1 spot on Amazon.com’s Best Sellers List in Broadway & Musicals. Volume 4 will be released this March to mark the one-year anniversary of the Broadway shutdown. Tepper is producer of the musicals Be More Chill, Broadway Bounty Hunter, and Love In Hate Nation, recent projects that are part of a decade-long collaboration with the group known as Joe Iconis & Family. From producing small concerts in basements to producing a show on Broadway, Tepper has cultivated the theatrical collective which The New York Times called “the future of musical theatre.” She is also the Creative and Programming Director at Feinstein’s/54 Below, where she has curated or produced over 3000 shows, including musicals in concert, original solo acts, theatrical reunions, songwriter celebrations, and more. Tepper’s leadership at the venue has gained praise from publications including Huffington Post, New York Times, Buzzfeed, Playbill, Newsday, New York Post, and more. On Broadway, Tepper has worked on [title of show], The Performers, Godspell, Macbeth, and The Parisian Woman, and off-Broadway Smokey Joe’s Café and Boy’s Life. Tepper is the conceiver and director of The Jonathan Larson Project which premiered in fall 2018 and received an original cast recording from Ghostlight Records. She is historian consultant on the upcoming tick, tick… BOOM! movie and co-creator of the Bistro Award-winning concert series, If It Only Even Runs A Minute, now in its 11th year. Tepper recently received a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. She was named one of the 10 professionals on Backstage Magazine‘s “1st Annual Broadway Future Power List,” which stated: “Proving herself both a zeitgeist predictor and theatrical historian with her eclectic programming, Tepper is leading the conversation on contemporary musical theatre.”
New this season, Keen After Hours connects audiences with luminaries of the theatre world, every Monday night at 6:30pm on Keen Company’s website and Facebook page. Team Keen and a special guest will discuss their careers, their artistic process, and take questions from the audience. Recent guests included George Ashiotis, Kate Baldwin, Kathleen Chalfant, Lilli Cooper, Adam Gwon, Chisa Hutchinson, Jasminn Johnson, Mia Katigbak, Kevin Kilner, Marsha Mason, Jonathan McCrory, John-Andrew Morrison, Matthew Saldivar, and Michael Urie.
Keen Company is an award-winning Off-Broadway theater creating story-driven work that provokes identification, reflection, and emotional connection. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, the company tells stories about the decisive moments that change us. Keen also runs a developmental new work initiative for mid-career playwrights and a unique educational outreach program for teens in all five boroughs of NYC.
As part of Keen Company‘s 21st Season, the company will be producing a year of audio theater. Hear/Now welcomes patrons into a theater of their imagination now through June 2021, featuring the world premiere of five new audio plays by Pearl Cleage, Kate Cortesi, finkle, James Anthony Tyler, and musical team Melissa Li and Kit Yan. All new audio plays will be released completely free for patrons on Keen Company’s website as well as through popular podcast platforms. For early access and exclusive perks, support Keen Company by joining as a season member. Membership levels start at just $1 a month and bonus content, including talkbacks with playwrights and artists, panels with experts, behind the scenes interviews, digital programs, opening night premiere parties, and more. Look for Hear/Now on your podcast app and learn more about membership packages at www.keencompany.org.
Up next at Keen Company will be the benefit broadcast of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, starring Kathleen Chalfant, directed by Jonathan Silverstein. Benefit Livestream will air Saturday March 13th at 7pm EST. This is a fundraiser event and tickets are just $25.
For my money, the theatre is up there in the ten top reasons to be human. I leave my home and go sit in a dark room with complete strangers and watch actors do their stuff because I want to be inspired. I’m asking to be involved. I’m volunteering to be led down any old path they choose as long as they don’t let go of my hand.
And if I see a show, and it is NOT so very good – I will try to divert you, because I don’t want you to come to the temple when the preaching isn’t up to snuff. I will bar the door, I will swing from rafters, I will yell FIRE just to set your feet on a path that does not lead to disappointment. Do something different with your evening I will say. Save your money for dinner with a friend you haven’t seen in months because you are too frigging busy. Go take a walk with your dog or your child or your significant other. Go to bed early, I will say. Don’t come to the theatre when it is less than it can be.
I’m an usher snob, and that’s all there is to it.
