JERSEY SHORE FANTASIA to Receive First Staged Reading at The Tank This August

The Tank will present the first developmental staged reading of Jersey Shore Fantasia, or a play about the making of a play about MTV's Jersey Shore, and also a fallout guide to sexual assault in academic institutions and a record of the messiest senior thesis szn in SUCK University history on August 8th at 7pm. The 90-minute play, written by Courtney Taylor and directed by Abby Davis, is a dramedy about art, labor, and power, set within an embattled theatre department.

In 2017, a pretentious senior thesis play about masculinity and queerness in the show Jersey Shore spirals into chaos. Closeted playwright Amaya makes the play a reckoning with sexual violence after being assaulted by a fellow drama student. Bea, a dramaturg who left school following another assault in the department and now works at a bagel store, becomes increasingly involved in the play and with Amaya. All the while, Amaya’s dubious senior thesis advisor, The Academic, tries to stir controversy and turn the play into a site of post-2016 culture war content. The characters get tangled in the dynamic between art and power, lock in on the relationship between Pauly D and Vinny, and try to create impactful student theatre on shaky ground. In Jersey Shore Fantasia, it’s gym, tan, laundry, crash out.

The developmental staged reading marks the latest collaboration between playwright Courtney Taylor and director Abby Davis. The pair presented The Guy Who Killed Bigfoot at All Out Arts’ Fresh Fruit Festival in April 2024, and collaborated on the first-ever reading of Taylor’s nationally-recognized play No Entrance as part of the Neurodivergent New Play Series in March 2024. Davis made her Off-Broadway debut with Annie Brown’s 5th Grade Science Presentation by Matt Morse at Soho Playhouse’s Lighthouse Series, in July 2024.