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. Past Petri Projects have gone on to full production at Ars Nova, BAM, the Bushwick Starr, and more.
Our 2025/26 Petris
The TEAM is overjoyed to announce our brilliant 2025/26 Petri cohort: Ato Blankson-Wood, nicHi douglas, Maya Sharpe, Simón Gómez-Villegas, Amber Gray, James Harrison Monaco and Hilarie Spangler.
Our artists will spend the year stewarding incredible new works: a song cycle based on Appalachian faerie folklore, a “superhero musical” chronicling Black and brown people’s survival in the face of ecological collapse, an homage to the legendary Eartha Kitt, and more. Read more about our Petri artists below.
Ato Blankson-Wood is a Tony nominated multidisciplinary performance artist and theater maker whose work has been seen in Film/TV, regionally, on and off-Broadway. Ato is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Yale School of Drama.
THE UNTITLED DIONYSUS PROJECT reimagines The Bacchae as a ritual of Black liberation, using Dionysus as a symbol of divine retribution against white supremacist systems. Developed in response to the racial reckoning of 2020, it explores how oppression afflicts the mind, soul, and body, and seeks to exorcise these forces through theory, spiritual ritual, and performance. The artists aim to process rage and envision healing through immersive, transformative theatrical experiences.
nicHi douglas is an OBIE Award winning Brooklyn-based experimental theater & dance maker who is interested in leading community care centered creative processes. you can refer to her/them/him/us using any pronouns said with Respect. nicHi is currently a resident artist at HERE Arts Center in NYC. her work has been developed and/or produced at MacDowell, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, The Public Theater, The Shed, and The National Black Theater, among others. they are an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU/Tisch where they teach dance & movement methodologies. Additional awards include: Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Director and Best Musical, the Callaway Award for Choreography, an AUDELCO Award for Choreography, and a Princess Grace Award for Theater. Upcoming theater: SPUNK at Yale Rep. www.mynameisnichi.com
ONLY I is a “tantrum” [that] mines my personal history as the only Black student in my class in a small, wealthy, conservative, predominately white, private Catholic school in suburban New Jersey. i am wrestling with questions of belonging, self-hate, prestige, social customs and wealth culture. i have been wondering how an “integrated” school system served me if only i was the one integrating. i have been meditating on how much learning i gained through school curricula vs. how much learning i gained through social engagement (slumber parties at peers’ mansions, summer trips to elaborate beach properties, etc.). and i’ve been thinking a lot about how i was exposed to an entire world of whiteness that i now understand fluently but still ultimately have no real access to. and for now, all of this ruminating amounts to a tantrum. this piece will likely be 35-55 mins of continuous dance…this piece is as timely as it has ever been, especially as the current administration insists on dragging our country back in time; and the conversation about federal school segregation finds new life.”
Simón Gómez Villegas (they/all) is a captivating performer and composer hailing from Bogotá, Colombia. Blending musical theatre, indie pop, and Americana Shakespeare, Simón creates music that is as expansive as it is intimate. As a multi-talented actor/musician, Simón has performed everywhere from Alaskan dinner theaters to early childhood enrichment programs. Past credits include LIFE FORCE (Mercury Store, The Team) THIRD SEX (ANT Fest 24’) and REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (American Repertory Theatre, Observer). Lyricist at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writing Workshop.
THE FACE OF GOD—At the turn of the century, Galveston, TX was a booming metropolis, well known as the “New York of the South”. But on September 8th, 1900, a category 4 hurricane made landfall in Galveston and became the deadliest natural disaster in United States history to date, claiming up to 12,000 lives in one night. The American government knew a storm was brewing, but refused to heed Cuban weather forecasts and failed to warn Galveston of the imminent threat. But despite their despair, the survivors in Galveston somehow managed to rebuild their city. I’m traveling to Galveston to learn how a community fought through despair and grief to rebuild—and to write a story that might teach us the same when another storm is coming.
Hilarie Spangler is an Appalachian artist, art therapist in training, and musician whose work bridges folklore, music, and healing. Rooted in communal storytelling, she reimagines traditional narratives through a trauma-informed lens, addressing classism, generational poverty, and the rural-urban divide. Her practice centers accessibility, challenging barriers within cultural spaces often marked by elitism, while cultivating artistic experiences that invite belonging and resilience. Through song cycles, collaborative artmaking, and community engagement, she seeks to transform inherited stories of loss and survival into spaces of dialogue and possibility, weaving together art, therapy, and music as tools for reclamation and connection
BORROWED GROUND reinterprets faerie folklore as a living cultural undercurrent still relevant in modern Appalachia. This work blends traditional Appalachian instrumentation with modal elements from Irish ballads and contemporary composition. Fed up with Appalachian stories that revolve solely around the experiences of men, or demonize addiction, this song cycle explores the current dialogue of Modern Appalachia, offering a modern myth that resonates with the real dislocation felt by young Appalachians today: pulled between their roots and a glittering world that promises escape but often demands erasure, in a world where dreams live at the crossing between material world glimmers and generational trauma from poverty.
Maya Sharpe is a multi-passionate maker, thinker and writer. Maya’s passion lies in exploring the simplicity in humanity through composition to demonstrate that there is more of a connection and love between everything than the politically derived disconnect and hatred. Maya has been seen on stage in such things as; HAIR (Broadway, West End & The Public Theatre) Anything That Gives Off Light (The TEAM),The Beautiful Lady(La MaMa), 1969: The Second Man. (NEXT DOOR @nytw), Animal Wisdom (Bushwick Starr, Woolly Mammoth Theatre), Hound Dog (Ars Nova) Terce (HERE ARTS CENTER) and many others.
UNTITLED TREE HERO tackles the correlation between capitalism and environmental sacrifices—some of those sacrifices being Black and brown peoples that end up in the detritus of the aftermath. The TREES have seen a prophecy—the destruction of living things by the hands of the HUMAN lifestyle. The clean water is drying up and time is running out for the living. The HUMAN KIND must be stopped. But how? The TREES have chosen a pair of human TWINS to speak to their kind on behalf of the TREES. Will the HUMAN KIND meet the demands of the TREES and bring symbiosis back to NATURE? Or will the HUMANS accept the TREES call to arms?
James Harrison Monaco tells stories with music. He considers this one of the oldest art forms in the world, and he’s always looking for new ways to do it. He’s obsessed with stories of travel, immigration, translation, quiet violence, quiet grace, global loneliness, and time. He’s also a translator (Spanish and Italian), a music composer, and he writes fiction & non-fiction. His work has been presented at Ars Nova, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Under The Radar Festival, MASS MoCA, The Bushwick Starr, The Momentary, and many others. www.jamesharrisonmonaco.com
TRANSLATED CITY is an ever-changing evening of semi-improvised stories about people sharing a large, rent-stabilized apartment building in NYC, performed by virtuoso downtown storyteller luminaries and a killer ambient-electro-jazz band. James has been writing these interconnected fictional tales over the last year. In rehearsal, he tells each one to a different storyteller he admires, who asks James questions, argues with him about the story, internalizes it, then reimagines it as their own. Then the new storyteller improvises on this tale alongside and supported by a live band, until each one becomes like a “jazz standard” that the ensemble knows so well they can do it differently every night. In performance, TRANSLATED CITY is thus always evolving: a living ecology of musical stories about a living ecology of neighbors.
Amber Gray has originated roles in numerous productions, including: Mrs. Whatsit in A Wrinkle in Time; Carina in the rewritten revival of Eureka Day; Ajax in Eisa Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Warriors; Claudia in Here We Are, Sondheim’s final musical; Persephone in Hadestown; Hélène in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812; Laurey in Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!; Zoe in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon; Minerva in the upcoming Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; and Leroy in the upcoming Black Swan. Gray is a longtime company member of The TEAM and radical performance community Reverend Billy and The Stop Shopping Choir. Come see her in Tartuffe this fall.
KITT CONJURE—“As a bi-racial kid, under pressure to “choose a side,” I was introduced to Eartha Kitt as a gift, a guide, a lesson in resilience, and a lesson in transcending the boxes the world wants to put you in. As a professional performer, people often mention her to me. Something in my spirit reminds them of Eartha’s spirit, and I am honored. Kitt Conjure is my homage and love letter to Eartha and her legacy.”
2025 Petri Potluck
In June 2025, our incredible 24-25 Petri artists—Ato Blankson-Wood, Amyra Léon, Leo Lion, Libby King, Curtis Holland, and Eric Emauni—showcased their work at our second annual Petri Potluck! The sold-out event at the gorgeous Bushwick Starr featured 10-minute excerpts of each of the artists’ projects, accompanied by tamales and popsicles as we rung in the summer.
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