The Public Theater Expands Public Works Program with ACTivate

The Public Theater has announced the expansion of Public Works with ACTivate, a new tier of the groundbreaking initiative designed to bind our community together by creating acts of participatory theater to examine the great issues and dilemmas of our time. Expanding the participant's role in the artistic process, ACTivate bridges the gap between the year-round classes and annual Delacorte pageant in September, engaging the ensemble in every aspect of the creative process and culminating in an original piece. This year, the ensemble will present TROY in The Public's LuEsther Hall for four invited presentations only, June 10-12.

Public Works is founded on a 360° transformational experience of theater: making theater, seeing theater, and discussing theater. In February 2015, Public Works launched ACTivate (Artist, Citizen, Theatermaker) to put the community into the "driver's seat" of creating a new work. All alumni of the Public Works Delacorte productions (18 years or older) were eligible to audition to be part of an ensemble-based process over 18 months. During this process, participants worked with Associate Director of Public Works Laurie Woolery in building ensemble skills through physical exploration, improvisation, vocal technique, scene study and creative writing.

In addition, they worked together to devise a new piece, TROY, with playwright Andrea Thome. Inspired by Euripides' The Trojan Women, the ensemble ventured into their neighborhoods and interviewed everyday New Yorkers about family, community and memory. Those interviews, as well as the original writings of the ensemble, are the inspiration for the piece, which examines the assault of a young black teen as the inciting crisis and explores the community dealing with what it is like to worry for the safety of their children.

"ACTivate represents a crucial new dimension of Public Works: our community members devising an original piece," said Public Works Director Lear deBessonet. "Completing the arc of opportunities that expand from our classes at community venues to our summer pageants at the Delacorte, ACTivate is a beautiful expression of the rigor and insight our Public Works ensemble members bring to the creation of vital new American theater."

The inaugural ACTivate ensemble features H. Sebastian Arteta, Lori Brown-Niang, Llewellyn Connolly, Bianca Edwards, Nanya-Akuki Goodrich, Brittany Franklin, Lourdes Guzman-Mercado, Aden Munassar, Arianne Recto, Éva Hanorah Stanton, Matthew Vazquez, and Fabian Zarta. This ensemble represents the full spectrum of diversity that is emblematic of the Public Works community.

In addition to ACTivate downtown at Astor Place, Public Works will also return to celebrate its fourth year at the Delacorte this fall with an enchanting new musical adaptation of Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT with music and lyrics by the critically acclaimed songwriter Shaina Taub, running September 2-5. Professional artists and community members from partner organizations in all five boroughs perform together on stage in this love story that follows the young heroine Viola, who disguises herself as a man when she washes up on the shores of Ilyria. When Viola's new boss, Duke Orsino, sends her to win over his unrequited love, the Countess Olivia, Viola's disguise proves too effective, and the Countess falls for the young girl dressed as a boy instead. Artistic Director of Baltimore's Center Stage, Kwame Kwei-Armah, directs this musical fever dream about love in all its many disguises, and transformative power of walking a mile in another's shoes.

For more information about Public Works' ACTivate and TROY, please visit www.publictheater.org.