Reconstructing
A NEW WORK BY THE TEAM
RECONSTRUCTING, the TEAM’s latest work helmed by a multi-racial writing collective of 21 artists aged 29-99, wrestles with the question of how, in the aftermath of slavery, we might move through history together.
RECONSTRUCTING will feature at the Under the Radar Theater Festival in New York City from January 9-11, 2026. The show will then tour for performances at Carolina Performing Arts at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on February 21, 2026 and the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College from April 2-3, 2026.
About RECONSTRUCTING
Onstage is a two-story house. From one angle, it’s mucked out after a flood. From another, it’s a new development wrapped in Tyvek. And from another, it’s “Tara” from Gone with the Wind being transformed into an Airbnb. The piano can’t be tuned. Someone is quilting in the corner. Come in.
Co-written by 22 Black-, POC-, and white-identifying artists ranging in age from 29 to 99, RECONSTRUCTING is a new work from internationally-renowned theater collective the TEAM that asks how, in the aftermath of slavery, we might move through history together. Propelled by a quilt-like score, this “complex and combustible project” (Sarah Holdren, Vulture) slips between fact and fiction, performance and ritual, process and product, to tell a story of historical figures and fictional characters seeking and fleeing intimacy—and us as makers doing the same.
RECONSTRUCTING Complete Credits
Created by The TEAM
Written by Brenda Abbandandolo, Denée Benton, Eric Berryman, Vinie Burrows, Rachel Chavkin, Eisa Davis, Josiah Davis, André De Shields, JJJJJerome Ellis, Kate Freer, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Jeremy O. Harris, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Marika Kent, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Nick Vaughan, and Jillian Walker
Directed by Rachel Chavkin and Zhailon Levingston
Composers: James Harrison Monaco, Jillian Walker, and Maya Sharpe with Eric Berryman
Choreographer: nicHi douglas
Featuring: Eric Berryman, Rachel Chavkin, Modesto ‘Flako’ Jiménez, Zhailon Levingston, James Harrison Monaco, Maya Sharpe, and Jillian Walker
Scenic Design: Lawrence E. Moten III
Adapted from Original Scenic Design by Nick Vaughan
Lighting Design: Alan C. Edwards
Sound Design: Mikhail Fiksel
Video & Projections Design: Katherine Freer
Costume & Quilt Design: Marla (Brenda Abbandandolo, Marika Kent, and Kristen Sieh)
Props Design: Patricia Marjorie
Former Process Director: Jillian Walker
Process Chaplain: Milta Vega-Cardona
Production Manager: Brian Freeland
Production Stage Manager: Jo Fernandez
Associate Director: Josiah Davis
Associate Choreography: Nile Harris
Partner Organizations & Audiences
Our longtime organizational partners include Round House Theatre, The Broad Stage, Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, ArtsEmerson, The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Audience development and creative development are inextricably linked in the making of RECONSTRUCTING. With our partner orgs, we are working to thoughtfully and steadily cultivate a racially-diverse, locally-representative audience, with a particular focus on meaningful representation of Black-identifying audience members at every performance. We are in the process of nurturing durational relationships between our artists and our partner orgs’ audiences so that our work and their engagement with it is hyper-local. Our intention is to share RECONSTRUCTING in New York and across the country—and make it as “useful” to audiences as the process has been to us as a collective.
Development & Funding Support
Reconstructing was commissioned by Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland (Ryan Rilette, Artistic Director, Ed Zakreski, Managing Director), and has received substantial development support from, and in-progress performances were presented by LUMBERYARD Center for Film and Performing Arts. Reconstructing has also been developed with support from Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, through their Southern Futures Project, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Additional partner organizations include BroadStage and ArtsEmerson.
Reconstructing has received support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and MAP Fund. Production design support provided by the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York). Additional major support has come from Neil Mazzella at Hudson Scenic, Dalio Philanthropies, JMJ Fund, John Kimmelman, the TEAM’s Board of Directors, Daniel Hawkins & Sara Rosenbaum, Diana DiMenna, and David Chavkin. Subsidized studio space has been provided by the A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Process documentation support has been provided by Mighty Lucky Studios, and residency space has been provided by Groundworks.
Special thanks to Alexandra Lalonde, Laura Elliott, Genevieve Ortiz, Nia Witherspoon, Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Melanie George, Kalonji Gilchrist, Christopher Darbassie, Mr. Freeman, Mercury Store, Target Margin Theater, Kristen & Frank Leonard (Groundworks), Laurie Watson, David Rosenberg, Khalil Abdullah, Jake Heinrichs, Dave Polato, Beau and Rachel Alluli, Jessica Almasy, Theater Mitu, West Music, David Dower, Johanna Evans, Dr. Frances Forrest and the American Museum of Natural History, Deborah King, LUMBERYARD’s “Fresh Start” Program, Culture Mill, The Hancher at U of Iowa, Neil Mazzella and Hudson Scenic, Rhiannon Giddens, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, Liz Heinrichs, Jane Humphreys, Nina Rubin, Ed Bridges, Sojourner Harrison, and Gregory Harrison.
Photos by Julieta Cervantes