Photos: Match:Lit to Present Queer TWELFTH NIGHT

Independent theater company Match: Lit will present a queer take on Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT, directed by Zeynep Akca. TWELFTH NIGHT runs through February 27 at Westbeth Community Room & Gallery (55 Bethune Street, New York, NY). Tickets $30, available at www.matchlit.org

TWELFTH NIGHT follows the journeys of ten folks through their most resounding moments of grief, love, and loneliness - and how we cope with it all.

TWELFTH NIGHT stars Nazlah Black as Sir Toby Belch, Arin Edelstein as Antonio, Lauren E King as Sebastian, Robin Murray as Viola, Naima Randolph as Maria, Regina Renée Russell* as Olivia, Owen Grayson Schiller as Malvolio, Kristin Sgarro as Feste, Anna Stacy as Duke Orsino, and Rachel Weekley as Curio/Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The production team includes Kristin Sgarro (Composer), Lisa LaGrande (Intimacy Director), Rudi Utter (Text Coach and Technical Director), Brynne O'Rourke (Assistant Director) and Sydnee Davis (Stage Manager).

Zeynep Akca is a queer, Turkish interdisciplinary teaching artist and director based in Brooklyn. Akca has previously worked with TADA! Youth Theatre, Acting Out! and Amas Musical Theatre, and currently works at Girl Be Heard. As a director, she has worked on plays in the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival, The Tank's Pride Fest, and at The Brick. She is the Artistic Director of No Exit Theatre Collective and a producer on SCOWL: Fight Theatre. She holds her Masters' in Applied Theatre from CUNY SPS.

Match: Lit was founded in 2015 and has in that time put six full productions on the map, five of them works by William Shakespeare. In 2018, they began their landmark BARDcore reading series-easily the event that puts them on the local monthly map, with 90-minute cuts of Shakespeare plays that get performed over bar trivia.To follow Match: Lit on social media and get sneak peeks of their past readings and other performances, you'll find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/matchlit, and on both Instagram and Twitter at @matchlittheatre.