Reconstructing
A NEW WORK BY THE TEAM
Following a sold-out five-night run for Under the Radar Festival® at the Tow Center in January 2026, RECONSTRUCTING begins touring, with stops 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.
Co-written by 22 artists ages 29 to 99, RECONSTRUCTING is a new work by internationally-renowned theater collective The TEAM (@theteamplays). With a propulsive musical score, RECONSTRUCTING melts time. As a house becomes a plantation becomes a college campus mainstay, the show’s tour-de-force cast shepherds us through these legacies, real and imagined, to ask how, in the aftermath of slavery, we might move through history together.
About RECONSTRUCTING
For touring inquiries & a detailed tech rider, contact Producing Director Emma Orme at
RECONSTRUCTING Credits (as of February 2026)
Created by The TEAM
Written by Brenda Abbandandolo, Denée Benton, Eric Berryman, Vinie Burrows, Rachel Chavkin, Eisa Davis, Josiah Davis, André De Shields, nicHi douglas, JJJJJerome Ellis, Kate Freer, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Jeremy O. Harris, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Nick Vaughan, and Jillian Walker
Developed with Matt Hubbs, Marika Kent, Libby King, and Kristen Sieh
Directed by Rachel Chavkin and Zhailon Levingston
Composers: James Harrison Monaco, Jillian Walker, and Maya Sharpe with Eric Berryman
Choreographer: nicHi douglas
Resident Director: Josiah Davis
Featuring: Eric Berryman*, Rachel Chavkin, Modesto ‘Flako’ Jiménez, James Harrison Monaco, Maya Sharpe*, Ato Blankson-Wood* 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: Norman Anthony Small*
Music Supervisor: Cody Owen Stine
Associate Choreography: Nile Assata Harris
Associate Video & Projections Designer: Deja Collins
Associate Lighting Designer: Alexander Freer
Associate Sound Designer/Sub A1: Bailey Trierweiler
Assistant Stage Manager: Kiara Brown
Substitute Production Manager: Calvin Anderson
A1: Manuel Martinez
TEAM Producing Director: Emma Orme
TEAM Development & Communication Producer: Diana Khong
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association
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