Black Box Studios to Launch 18th Season in Northern NJ

Established on Teaneck's Cedar Lane in the Fall of 2008, Black Box Studios now enters its 18th season with a unique mix of professional theater offerings and proprietary collaborative performing arts education for kids, teens, and adults.

Currently in residence at Debonair Music Hall, Black Box has commenced programming and workshops that will continue throughout the forthcoming season at the Teaneck legacy rock club, in select area private schools, and in other special venues throughout the NJ and NY area.

Collaborative Theater Education

The professional director, actress and teaching artist Jessica Schechter is working alongside Matt this semester to run Monday night's long-running Improv Comedy Workshop and Adult Acting Workshop for serious theater students 18+. In January and again in early June, both adult groups perform their work together, improvisational comedy and a full-length play. While enrollment for the Fall semester is just about closed for both classes, there are still spots for Spring 2027: blackboxclasses@gmail.com.

The partnership between Teaneck's Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School and BBS has jumped into its 15th season with professional actress/teaching artist Ilana Schimmel directing The Drama Society's Winter Musical, a full production of the classic 1776. Simultaneously, Matt continues in-school Drama Electives for freshman and sophomores that meet regularly throughout the school year. In the Spring, he will direct a full-length comedy with the bar-raising group, composed this year of approximately twenty-five students who perform on-stage and work intensely behind-the-scenes. For a second season, Black Box is also working with day school Yeshivat He'Atid to offer an elementary school Drama Club, scheduled to present a one-act comedy in early Spring under the guidance of professional actress and teaching artist Alison Miller, professional actress/dancer and founder/artistic director of Leonia's Liberty Arts Theater.

Professional Theater

Special events coming up soon from BBS include an installment in the company's 'Writers & Actors' series on Thursday, November 19th at The Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee. There, world-class writers and familiar actors present scenes-in-progress from brand new works for the stage and screen in an eclectic evening of original comedy, drama, and somewhere in-between.

At Debonair, BBS will present one-night events such as 'Oracle' from up-and-coming mentalist Judah Mantell as well as select musical acts and a special holiday variety show curated by comedian/podcaster Steve Goldberg. Many more purely theatrical offerings, including further collaborations with Liberty Arts and well-known actors from NJ and NYC, are soon-to-be-announced.

With author and playwright Michael Gurin and music director Collin Couvillion (both NJ residents), Black Box has been developing and will soon present revivals of the popular shows Twist Of Faith and The Rock Musical Soul Searching along with the brand new Life After Warsaw: The World of I.B. Singer In His Own Words.

Founded by professional playwright, director, and producer Matt Okin, Black Box Studios remains the area's first collaborative performing arts school and is now known as the 'incubator' for new and under-produced works alongside world-class writers including Eric Bogosian, Paul Schrader, Beth Henley, Craig Lucas, Neil LaBute, John Patrick Shanley and the Estates of Sam Shepard and of Edward Albee, with collaborations in progress with The Estate of IB Singer as well as with artists such as Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket), Ken Levine (the most-produced writer of classic TV sit-coms in America), and more. Black Box also serves as a Consulting Producer for special projects in film and theater, most recently and notably for The Thomas A. Dorsey story Take My Hand and Spandex: The Musical featuring 80's pop icon Tiffany.

Black Box can be followed on Facebook at @bbsnynj and @blackbox_shows on Instagram.

Photo Credit: Danny Howard Hamilton: