Reconstructing
(Still Working but the Devil
Might be Inside)
What is Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might be Inside)?
Reconstructing (Still Working But The Devil Might Be Inside), a new piece of theater created by the TEAM’s largest writing collective to date, follows an intentional collaboration between 14 artists of Color and 7 white artists as they try to move through American history together in the aftermath of slavery. Brenda Abbandandolo, Denée Benton, Eric Berryman, Vinie Burrows, Eisa Davis, André De Shields, JJJJJerome Ellis, Katherine Freer, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Modesto “Flako” Jimenez, Marika Kent, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, James Harrison Monaco, Jeremy O’Harris, Kristen Sieh, Nick Vaughan, Gogo Yemah (Jillian Walker, Process Director), Jhanaë Bonnick (Production Stage Manager), Milta Vega-Cardona (Process Chaplain), Zhailon Levingston and Artistic Director Rachel Chavkin (Co-Directors).
Get a first look at the show October 24-27 at BAM’s Next Wave/Emerging Visions Festival.
“About” Reconstructing
On the stage 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. Sometimes it looks like it’s on fire. Someone is quilting in the corner. Come in.
Reconstructing (Still Working But The Devil Might Be Inside) is a new work of theater that explores intimacy between Black-, POC- and white-identifying Americans, and wrestles, meta-theatrically, with the question of how we might move through history together in the aftermath of slavery. Helmed by the TEAM’s biggest writing collective yet—21 artists, aged 28-98, 14 of whom are artists of Color and 7 of whom are white-identifying — the piece has a double-helix structure: one strand, the primary scaffolding, is a transcript-based play that tells the story of the creative process; the other strand, weaving in and around the first, is a collage of movement, music, and poetic, character-based scenes.
The piece slips between fact and fiction, performance and ritual, process and product, as the artists, playing themselves, co-exist with historical figures—like William Byrd, considered “founder” of Richmond, VA, an enslaver and astonishing diarist—or fictional characters—like Professor Lowe, a college professor studying the correlations between astrology and Black uprisings. Reconstructing is about characters seeking and fleeing intimacy and about us as makers doing the same.
RECONSTRUCTING Complete Credits for BAM Showing
Created by The TEAM
Written by Brenda Abbandandolo, Denée Benton, Eric Berryman, Vinie Burrows, Rachel Chavkin, Eisa Davis, André De Shields,JJJJJerome Ellis, Katherine Freer, Jill Frutkin, Amber Gray, Jeremy O. Harris,, Modesto Flako Jimenez, Marika Kent, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Kristen Sieh, Nick Vaughan, and Jillian Walker
Directed by Rachel Chavkin and Zhailon Levingston
Composers: James Harrison Monaco and Jillian Walker
Choreographer: nicHi douglas
Co-Scenic Design: Lawrence Moten
Video & Projections Design: Katherine Freer
Lighting Design: Marika Kent
Costume & Object Design: Brenda Abbandandolo, Marika Kent, and Kristen Sieh
Original Scenic Design: Nick Vaughan
Process Director: Jillian Walker
Process Chaplain: Milta Vega-Cardona
Production Manager: Brian Freeland
Production Stage Manager: Jo Fernandez
Associate Director: Josiah Davis
Assistant Stage Managers: Kiara Brown & Ada Zhang
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.
The TEAM and BAM will present five work-in-progress showings of Reconstructing in October, 2024. The performances will take place October 24-27 at BAM Fisher. General admission tickets are $20 and are available to purchase HERE.
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.
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, and Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, through their Southern Futures Project. Additional partner organizations include Broad Stage; Alabama Shakespeare Festival; and ArtsEmerson.
This project is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and MAP Fund and, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This project has received past support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Axe-Houghton Foundation, and film production support has been provided by Mighty Lucky Studios.
Special thanks to Khalil Abdullah, Beau and Rachel Alluli, Jessica Almasy, 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, and Neil Mazzella and Hudson Scenic.
Photos by Alon Koppel Photography, LUMBERYARD Center for Film and the Performing Arts; August 2019