Petri Projects
About Petri Projects
Launched in 2017, Petri Projects seek to support the development of new work by artists in the TEAM community and to decentralize project leadership within the organization. The program’s guiding values are artist autonomy; unique support for early-stage work; budget transparency and education; and anti-oppression (including anti-racism). Petri provides funding, rehearsal space, and producing support to seedlings of new theatrical work.
Current Petri Cycle
The 2024-2025 Petri Project Cohort includes artists: Ato Blankson-Wood, Eric Emauni, Curtis Holland, Libby King, Amyra León, and Leo Lion. Read more about current projects below.
DION BLACK, LED BY ATO BLANKSON-WOOD
An adaptation of Eurpides’ The Bacchae. An exploration of rage and retribution. An exclamation of Black Queer divinity.
SWEET CANAAN, LED BY ERIC EMAUNI
A new Afrofuturist Musical based on the life of Rachel Ross, a woman who, despite her circumstances (age, wealth, gender, race, and time), used the land she was gifted to lift up her family and her descendants. Sweet Canaan is an investigation of her will, the ancestral knowledge she carried and planted, and the future she dreamed of.
NEW AGE WORK SONGS, LED BY CURTIS HOLLAND
A collection of original spiritual songs expressed through tap dance.
MOM DANCE PRACTICE, LED BY LIBBY KING
Co-created by Amber Gray, Gaby Hoffman and myself, with videography by Adam Fontana, Mom Dance Practice is a movement-based meditation on the art of being a mom. I am interested in capturing quotidian and abstract movements of our MOM bodies both zoomed in and out and both indoors and outside. Through movement, interaction with nature and monologue, we explore the Holiness and mundanity of Mothering, all in pursuit of the question: “How do we give the daily dance of motherhood a voice?”
NO SENSE TO MAKE, LED BY AMYRA LEÓN
NO SENSE TO MAKE is a poetic symphony written through the lens of León’s personal experience with foster care, chronic illness and institutional racism. This piece will explore the nuance and chaos of the capitalist systems that structure our society and the cycles of exploitation and bloodshed that stem from them.
B MOVIE NIGHT: A Live Horror RPG , LED BY LEO LION
A live show where a rotating cast of improv performers, actors, comedians, and drag artists create an original Horror Movie in real time. This experimental show format fuses improv and roleplaying game show elements to create a raucous, bawdy, spooky atmosphere where audiences never know what’s coming next, because the actors don’t either.
Support for the Petri Projects Program is provided by the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
P_T _ND V_NN_ (pat and vanna) photos by Ben Holbrook
QUINCE photos by Catharine Krebs