14Y Artist Residency

A New Local Artist Residency Program

Starting in January 2021, the 14Y Theater and Gallery we will provide artists with the space, time, and financial resources to create new work.

This new residency program will support artists at a critical time and create space for them to incubate work that reflects the changing realities of our lives at this moment in time.

The 14Y will host a new group of local artists, showcase two LABA Second Stage full productions virtually, and curate three residencies for LABA-alumni-affiliated artists.

Thanks to the generosity of CANVAS, a collaborative giving fund dedicated to Jewish arts and culture, and supporters like you, we secured enough funding to start with three residencies. Additional funds can help us accommodate up to six local artists with a residency at the 14Y Theater. Support local artists by making a donation today!

 

The Urgent Need

Since March 2020, the arts and theater industry from Broadway to our own black box theater, have been on pause to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In the last 9 months, the visual and performing arts field has lost 2.7 million jobs. But these staggering numbers, representing only established artists, fail to take into account emerging creatives—those holding down multiple jobs as they stage new work off-off Broadway, or exhibiting in a gallery downtown—the artists of our future.

For nine long months, only a ghost light illuminates our dark theater—as our diverse community of artists and culture creators remain in the shadows waiting for the chance to come back into the light to create and share new art with our community again.

As an organization that places community at the heart of all that we do, we know that local artists need our support now more than ever before. Our new residency program will support artists at a critical time and create space for them to incubate work that reflects the changing realities of our lives at this moment in time.

 

Upcoming Artist Residencies

NAME GAME by Sara Felder and Yehuda Hyman

A cross-country (Oakland and NYC) performance collaboration between veteran performance artists/writers Sara Felder and Yehuda Hyman on naming, Jewish identity, re-inventing/claiming yourself, and how to do that crazy dance in the Zoom box.

Sara Felder is a solo theater artist, playwright and juggler. While the themes of her plays and performances are serious, her form is comic, engaging, vaudevillian. She strives to integrate personal experiences with the urgency of this moment in history. Out of that mix, she creates funny and provocative theater.

Yehuda Hyman is a playwright, dancer, choreographer and performer and the Artistic Director of Mystical Feet Company. Yehuda lives in Brooklyn, a little too close to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

 

DEAD + ALIVE by Richard Suadek

After finding a dead body, a man feels obligated to perform the Jewish rites of shemira, or “guarding”, the body—but the body has other ideas.

Richard Saudek grew up making faces at himself in the mirror while he brushed his teeth. Then, at the age of ten, he ran off to perform in the circus for a number of years. Currently he’s a member of One Year Lease Theater Co, and teaches clown classes in Northern Greece each summer with OYL.

 

THE HUG by Tal Beery

Inspired by ceremonies to address historical trauma arising from the Passover plagues, Tal Beery is building structures for reconciliation, physical closeness, and the sharing of truths.

Tal Beery is an artist, educator, and arts administrator. His work considers the links between aesthetics, institutional design, and political imaginations. A serial institution-maker, Beery is co-founder of Eco Practicum, an artist-run school for ecological justice; founding faculty at School of Apocalypse, examining the connections between creative practice and notions of survival; and founding member of Educational Ecologies Collective, a consulting firm generating tools for institutions of higher education to promote climate justice. He is also a core member of Occupy Museums, an artist collective whose projects have exposed corrupt links between high art and high finance.

 

THE DOING by Liba Vaynberg

This is a piece that stitches together autobiographical elements from Vaynberg’s previous piece for LABA (Queen’s Quest) that was performed at Tikkun as well as texts on waiting… everything from Beckett to Mount Sinai. What do you do when there’s nothing to do? What do you doubt and what do you believe?

Liba Vaynberg (Playwright/Actor): Described by The New York Times as “wonderfully real and raw,” Liba Vaynberg is a first generation American writer and actor. Bilingual in English and Russian, she studied Molecular Biology & International Studies at Yale before getting an MFA at Columbia. Plays include: The Gett (Rattlestick), Round Table (Fault Line, 59E59), Scheiss Book (United Solo, Theater Row, Dixon Place, Wild Project), Queen’s Quest (Tikkun/LABA, United Solo), The Oxford Comma (Xavier University), The Russian & The Jew with Emily Perkins (The Tank, COJECO). As a performer: New Amsterdam (recurring), Madam Secretary (recurring), Annie Blumberg in the PBS broadcast of The Soap Myth opposite Ed Asner, Bekah Brunstetter’s The Oregon Trail at The Women’s Project, Novaya Zemlya at HERE, and Golem of Havana at La Mama. Regionally, she has worked at Yale, Williamstown Theater Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre, Penguin Rep, and Miami New Drama.

 

SUPPOSE THEY GAVE HYMIE WILHELM A SHOW AND NOBODY CAME by Willie Zabar

Laughable German musician Hymie Wilhelm has spent the last year working on his one-mensch show. He was so engrossed in the writing process that he didn’t notice a global pandemic had taken hold. Having already paid the deposit on the space, Hymie chose to proceed with his performance despite the absence of an audience and the advice of those around him. Join Hymie Wilhelm as he delivers song and story to an audience of zero in his most ambitious performance yet.

 

More About 14Y’s Artist Residency Program

All of the artists that will benefit from this new residency program will have a history of work with the 14Y Theater, including NYC or Global LABA alumni, or as part of our past theater seasons.

Conscious of this moment, we will also prioritize producing artists of color. Each artist will have access to our theater space at the 14th Street Y, stipends to support their works, and technical support from our Arts + Culture staff. These residencies will culminate in eight new interdisciplinary works of art, detailed above.

Each residency will be shared with our community through virtual events broadcasted from the 14Y Theater, featuring performances of the works in progress. After each performance, Arts + Culture staff will lead a conversation with the artists along with leading voices in the field. The talkback sessions will address topics such as, “The impact of COVID-19 on the Arts” and “LGBTQ and Identity.”

Right now, we have just enough funding to support three artists-in-residence. We are actively looking for additional funds to help us accommodate up to six local artists with a residency at the 14Y Theater.

Please consider making a donation today to support local artists!

DONATE TODAY

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