En Garde Arts to Present 73 SECONDS Solo Performance Inside Lower Eastside Girls Club Planetarium

Hidden inside the Lower Eastside Girls Club is a 64-seat planetarium built for stargazing. From April 29 – May 18, 2026, En Garde Arts will transform this site into an intimate space for storytelling, inviting audiences to gather beneath the stars for the world premiere of Jared Mezzocchi’s 73 Seconds. Directed & co-developed by Obie-winner Aya Ogawa (The Nosebleed), Mezzocchi’s solo piece explores the fragile line between the personal and the cosmic. Set to open on Monday, May 4, tickets are now on sale.

In many families, the most important stories aren’t hidden, they simply drift by, unspoken. Years later, the children of those families find themselves tracing the faint constellations of what was never said.

In 73 Seconds, two-time Obie Award–winning artist Jared Mezzocchi tells the true story of his relationship to his mother after learning she once worked at NASA and had been a contender for a space mission. Growing up, this chapter of her life was unknown to him. Outer space, family, and our inability to cope with long-term catastrophe collide in 73 Seconds as Mezzocchi telescopes between personal grief and collective memory, probing the stories we inherit, and the ones we almost never hear.

Using analog technology from the 1980s, overhead projectors, cassette tapes, and VHS camcorders, he constructs a live documentary, blending intimate storytelling with lo-fi magic. 73 Seconds is an inventive, deeply felt new work that asks a son to assemble the truth of his own life from stories that arrived too late.

The creative team for 73 Seconds includes Calvin Anderson (Production Designer: Scenography Lead & Production Manager), Ryan Gamblin (Production Designer: Sound Lead), Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, (Production Designer: Light & Video Lead), Vinny Mraz (Production Designer: Technology Lead), Carly Osnow-Levin (Production Manager), and Olivia Fletcher (Production Coordinator).