THE STELLA SHOW Will Have its World Premiere at IRT Theater

The Stella Show is a hilarious and heart-wrenching exploration of sisterhood, grief, and the unpredictable power of memory. Caroline Potter Shriver started working on The Stella Show in 2019 – it began as a letter to someone she lost very suddenly. With time, it transformed into a poem, a meditation, a dance, and ultimately a story that traverses the painful and magical ups and downs of grief. For the past two years, Caroline has been developing the show with director Marc David Wright, building an abstract inner world where dance, theater, and poetry intersect to bring to life the vibrant stories, characters, and adventures of Stella.

The Stella Show is The Village’s first work in progress brought to fruition as a full-length production. After being workshopped in segments at Salons produced by The Village and as a staged reading this July at Theatre Row, The Stella Show will premiere in-full for the first time in residence at IRT Theater as part of their 3B Development Series.

The show features lighting design by Asa Lipton, sound design by Amelia Way, costume design by Ellie Mae Ryan, and projection design by Claire A Talbott.

The performance will run approximately 60 minutes.

Caroline Potter Shriver is a performer, director, and writer based in Brooklyn. She graduated from Fordham University and The Ailey School, where she received a BFA in Dance and Latin American Studies. Caroline has taught dance around the United States and Latin America, partnering with arts and education non-profits, including the Maureen Orth Foundation, JUNTOS Collective, and Americorps’ ArtistYear. In 2021, she co-founded The Village, a collective that fosters the growth of emerging artists by creating a platform to debut works-in-progress. In 2021, she starred in a feature film, Capsules. This September, she had her directorial debut at the Ursinus Fringe Festival with the solo show A Public Private Prayer.

Marc David Wright is a director/producer of theatre and film, community creator, and arts educator. Born and raised in Bayonne, NJ, Marc crossed the Hudson to study acting at Fordham University (B.A. Theatre 2019). He discovered directing at school, where his production of Dark Play or Stories For Boys received an Ars Nova research grant to travel to Edinburgh Fringe, where it was named one of the “10 Must-See LGBT Shows” of the festival. Theatre: Singfeld! A Musical Parody About Nothing (Now Playing Off-Broadway), Planet W: A New Musical in Concert (The Green Room 42), Sanctuary City (Pasadena Playhouse, AD), Self Tape (Alchemical Studios), What to Expect When You’re Expecting Our Lord and Savior (The Players Theater), Dark Play or Stories For Boys (Edinburgh Fringe, Fordham). Film: Enterprise 25: A Cinematic Advent Calendar for Instagram, As You Like It or the Pursuit of Love in Shared Isolation, Slay!. Co-Founder and Creative Director of The Village, connecting emerging artists with New York audiences at seven sold-out Salon events. Proud drama teacher and director at several children’s and high school theatre education programs across New Jersey.

The Village is a New York City-based arts organization that produces dynamic, live events where emerging artists across all disciplines develop and share “artworks-in-progress” with engaged audiences. By uniting social connection with the creative process, The Village operates as an innovative home for artists, an enlivening community for audiences, and an accessible space for all. In addition to our core Salon events, through this play, The Village is growing as a production company. In the near future, other projects by resident artists will be produced as complete bodies of work. For more information, please visit our website iminthevillage.org

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