The Tank to Present Free Performance of Crystal Skillman's OPEN in November

The Tank, in partnership with The Flying Carpet Theatre Company, announced the return of a special production of Crystal Skillman's magical play OPEN, featuring the original direction of Jessi D. Hill and starring Lily Ali-Oshatz. The production will play a free preview performance on Monday November 14, 2022 at 4pm at The Tank (312 West 36th Street), which is co-produced by the #HealMeToo Festival, with funding from ART/NY. Tickets are available at TheTankNYC.org.

Following this performance, OPEN will embark on a tour with OnStage! Festival to four Italian locations: Cagliari (Lucido Festival) on November 18, Teatro del Lidoo in Ostia on November 20-21, Pescara at Florian Espace on November 22, and finally to Rome (Festival Mauro Rostagno) on November 24. More information can be found at Onstage's Festival site HERE.

In this LGBTQ love story, a woman called The Magician presents a myriad of tricks for our entertainment, yet her performance seems to be attempting something more impossible than illusion-to rescue her girlfriend from death after a vicious attack.

With a message of resilience for the LGBTQ+ community, OPEN received raves from the original showing in New York, and was nominated for an Offie following the debut of livestream of moving film of the live performance in the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play was originally produced at The Tank in 2019 in partnership with All for One, featuring Drama-Desk Award Nominee Megan Hill.

Since that time, many theatres have programmed OPEN across the U.S., including in New Mexico, Minneapolis, Louisiana, Florida, Ohio, and an upcoming West Coast debut this Spring. The play asks its audience to revel in the joy of queer love, yet grieve and process the trauma of fighting against intolerance in this timely, cathartic story.

The production's creative team includes lighting & scenic design by Sarah Johnston (Medea at BAM), sound design by Emma Wilk (Riddle of the Trilobites, New Victory Theater, A Clockwork Orange at New World Stages), and costume design by Madeline Wall (Kodachrome, Lee Strasburg Institute). The stage manager is Sydney Golden (Griswolds' Broadway Vacation, 5th Avenue Theatre) and Production Management is by Nick Cotz (AFO Theater Company).

This production is made possible with a grant from USArtists International (Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation), the Dramatists Guild Foundation, with permission from Dramatists Play Service.

All attendees and artists of an in-person performance at The Tank NYC will be required to display proof of full covid vaccination before being admitted to the space, either by showing a vaccination record (vaccination card) at least two weeks out from the final dose of an approved vaccine, or by using New York's free Excelsior Pass service, available here.

Patrons will also be required to wear medical grade masks while indoors at all times.

ABOUT THE TANK

Founded in 2003, The Tank is an Obie Award-winning, multi-disciplinary non-profit arts presenter and producer, which provides a home to emerging artists working across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling. Led by Artistic Director Meghan Finn, Managing Producer Molly FitzMaurice and Director of Artistic Development Johnny G. Lloyd, The Tank champions emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. In doing so the company removes the economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. From the company's home with two theaters on 36th Street, The Tank serves over 2,500 artists every year, presents over 1,000 performances, and welcomes 36,000 audience members annually. The company fully produces a curated season of 13-18 theatrical World or New York premieres each season. During the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis, The Tank has launched CyberTank, a virtual gathering space and programming platform for artists to share work. With weekly themed variety shows, ongoing series and evening-length shows made for the virtual frame, CyberTank has already presented the work of over 4,000 artists in over 500 performances to 20,000 audience members across the country and the world since March 17, 2020.

Recent Tank-produced work includes The New York Times Critics' Picks Taxilandia by Flako Jimenez (2021), OPEN by Crystal Skillman, directed by Jessi D. Hill (2019); Red Emma & The Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan, directed by Katie Lindsay (2018); and The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, directed by Meghan Finn (2016), as well as Drama Desk Award-nominated productions The Hunger Artist (2018), The Paper Hat Game (2017), the ephemera trilogy (2017), Ada/Ava (2016) and youarenowhere (2016).

ABOUT THE FLYING CARPET THEATRE COMPANY

Incorporated in 2003, Adam Koplan (Founding Artistic Director) created The Flying Carpet Theatre Company (FCT) after spending formative time training at Playwrights Horizons in New York City and at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Over nearly 20 years, The Flying Carpet Theatre Company has created and/or premiered 20+ original plays including early works by artists who continue to shape the American Theatre such as Robert Lopez (Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, Frozen) and Geoff Sobelle (All Wear Bowlers, The Object Lesson, Elephant Room). We have performed our shows in our home bases of New York, NY and Atlanta, GA and have toured nationally to AZ, CA, CO, CT, HI, ID, IL, IN, MA, MI, MO, NV, PA, WI, WY, and internationally to Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Dublin, Prague. FCT generate new theatre that uses American historical stage traditions - physical theatre, circus arts, Vaudeville, puppetry, stage magic, dance, cabaret performance, autobiographical storytelling, live music performance, etc. - to share stories about big ideas. American entertainment history reflects the best and worst of our society, and we utilize this tension to investigate flashpoints in our culture. By rooting our work in age-old theatrical forms, we pursue innovative theatrical experiences that connect us to our basic human need for telling stories while inspiring necessary, complicated and deep discussion. FCT is committed to delighting, inspiring and challenging audiences by making performance art in collaborative, communal, non-hierarchical creative spaces and bringing our transformative theatre to communities across the globe. www.flyingcarpettheatre.com. Insta: @flyingcarpettheatre

ABOUT ONSTAGE! FESTIVAL

OnStage! Festival is significant as the only American theater festival in Italy. Created to celebrate independent, "Off Off" American Theater in Italy, OnStage!festival follows in the long-running, successful footsteps of InScena! Italian Theater Festival in New York, and mirrors it across the ocean. OnStage!festival is the American Theater Festival in Italy. It is organized by KIT Italia and The International Theatre, in partnership with Kairos Italy Theater, Music Theatre International and with several Italian and American institutions. Under the direction of Artistic Directors Donatella Codonesu and Tomaso Thellung, Human Rights On Stage 2022-23 is a special edition of OnStage! festival, launched in January 2019 and having had a re-loaded edition in November 2019 and a second one in November 2021. http://onstagefestival.it/. Insta @onstage_festival

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.TheTankNYC.org

BIOS

Crystal Skillman

(Playwright, she/her) is the author of Rain and Zoe Save the World (Jermyn Street Theatre World Premiere, 2018 Earth Matters on Stage Prize), Open (The Tank w/All for One, Edinburgh Fringe, 2021 Offie Nomination), Mary and Max with Bobby Cronin (Landestheater Linz, Theatre Calgary, 2021 Broadway World Award Winner, 2018 MUT Award Critics Prize), This Show Is Money with Gaby Alter (The Civilians R&D Lab), King Kirby (The Brick, Audio Drama out from Broadway Podcast Network), Pulp Vérité (2019 Kilroys List, Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Prize), Geek! (Vampire Cowboys) and Cut (Theatre Under St. Marks). Crystal is a core member of the Playwrights' Center. Her work has been seen and developed at Women's Project, MCC Theater, The Atlantic, The Civilians, Soho Rep, and Ensemble Studio Theater. Comic book/animation writing credits include work for Marvel, WebToon Studios, "Adventure Time", and the new series Cosmic Critters. Crystal's work as a fictional podcast writer includes work for Girl Tales, Stories Podcast (Wondery Kids), and the upcoming Magician's Magician (2021 Austin Film Festival Top 20 Percent, 2021 The Gotham Market Selection, 2021 The Orchard Project Audio Lab, sold to Boom Integrated). The Rocket Men, a new play commission from Alabama Center for the Arts, will be presented by the Playwrights' Center and produced at Athens State University this spring. www.crystalskillman.com

Jessi D. Hill

(Director, she/her) is a theatre director based in New York City. Latest credits include Crystal Skillman's OPEN with All for One/The Tank, Chisa Hutchinson's Surely Goodness and Mercy at Keen Company, and Larissa Fasthorse's Vanishing Point at HERE Arts Center. New York credits include new work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe's Pub, The Playwrights' Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, The Women's Project, 59E59, P73, The New Group, Rattlestick, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Musical Theatre Festival, New Dramatists, The Lark, Clubbed Thumb, The Playwrights Realm, New Georges, The Wild Project, and many others. She has been a director and teacher in professional training programs at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center/NTI, Powerhouse/NY Stage & Film, NYU/Tisch, Playwrights Horizons, and others. Jessi is a recipient of the Denham Fellowship from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and on the Artistic Team at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater NYC. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Berlin and Hamburg. She is currently Interim Artistic Director or The Flying Carpet Theatre Company. MFA: Yale. Member SDC. Current projects: www.jessidhill.com

LILY ALI-OSHATZ

(Kristen, she/her) is a Brooklyn-based artist with a focus on activism and creating/performing new musicals and plays. She is an active member of Ring of Keys, a musical theatre advocacy community for queer women, transgender, and gender nonconforming artists. Her first musical, The Extraordinary Fall Of the Four-Legged Woman, played Off-Broadway at SoHo Playhouse in the 2016 Fringe Encore Series. She collaborates often with Mark Galinovsky and their work has been presented at Joe's Pub, Club Cumming, Don't Tell Mama, the Zero to Fierce Festival in Arcata, California, Musical Theatre Factory, the #HealMeToo Festival and The Tank. Their commission through Piper Theatre, Prospect Hill, played outdoors in July 2021 in Park Slope, Brooklyn with direction by Jessi D. Hill. An audio version of her solo Me Too musical, SHE SAID, played at the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe. Dear Mr. C, her collaboration with Tidtaya Sinutoke and Naomi Matlow, received a workshop production at the nationally recognized Polyphone Festival in Philadelphia in spring 2022. Lily is a founding producer of the 2020 philanthropic national campaign, THE LESBIAN BAR PROJECT, that raised over $117K to protect the remaining Lesbian bars in the United States. Working on OPEN with this team of artists is a dream job. BFA NYU Tisch. lilyalioshatz.com