Henry IV

An radio play conflation of William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One, and Part Two, directed by Emma Rosa Went. Produced as a part of the Scranton Shakespeare Festival’s 2020 season. Featuring Olivia Rose Barresi as Hotspur and Silence.

Visit https://www.scrantonshakes.com/henry-iv to listen to the entire production for free!

England is on the brink of civil war. The crown beckons young Prince Hal to withdraw from a life of drunken revelry, and turn towards an honorable reign - and asks him to face his martial, charismatic Northern counterpart Harry Hotspur in the process. Will Hal answer the call before it’s too late?

An audio preview: Hotspur reads a letter with some distressing news (act 2, scene 3)…

Socially Unacceptable

Online performance of Matt Steinberg’s Zoom-based content moderation play, on Sunday May 31st at 6pm EST. Directed by Ran Xia, and starring Olivia Rose Barresi, Mieko Gavia, Suraj Paratha, Annie Hamilton, and Finn Kilgore.

Visit my VIDEO page, or https://vimeo.com/427756973, to watch the show in its entirety!

Read reviews for the show at HILOBROW!

Socially Unacceptable follows three Facebook content moderators who are hired to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeling lucky to have a job, these new employees spend their days in a virtual world, Zoom conferencing with teammates for full work days. As they screen the site's most violent and offensive posts, these content moderators begin to deal with the dangerous psychological effects of the job - and their lives become increasingly interconnected, on screen and off. Socially Unacceptable explores the growing conflicts between big tech and health, and the cost at which our digital world looks the way it does.

Female Nude Seated

Zoom performance of Carolyn Gage’s play on Saturday, May 16th, at 7:30pm.

Visit my VIDEO page, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh7rdWChzJY, to watch the performance in its entirety!

Read reviews for the show at Gay City News, GoMag, and Bi-Coastal Babble!

Award-winning lesbian-feminist playwright and activist Carolyn Gage teams up with counterclaim (c-c), a Brooklyn-based production company, to host an online reading of her latest work: Female Nude Seated, a one-act play about Irish painters Mainie Jellet and Evie Hone. c-c will host a talkback after the reading during which the audience may submit questions for Carolyn Gage and all other collaborators.

In the wake of World War I, Mainie and Evie meet in art school when Evie interrupts Mainie's attempt to drink a jar of paint thinner. Over a bottle of brandy, the two get to know one another as artists and as women who are struggling to make art in a field dominated by men. A story of female sexuality, trauma, and the demands of artistic ideals, Female Nude Seated shows two young women at a personal crossroads in a time of extraordinary change.

Featuring Morgaine Gooding-Silverwood and Olivia Rose Barresi. Directed by Emma Rosa Went. Assistant director Harrison Densmore, and assistant producer/dramaturg Abbey Joan Burgess.

Thank You

A short film from Good Raven Productions, written and directed by James Mentzinger. Coming in Spring 2020.

Starring Olivia Rose Barresi and Peter Pickering.

A romantic night of camping in the woods for Sarah and her boyfriend Zach turns into a tragic nightmare after he inexplicably disappears. Weeks later, Sarah is left alone to battle with her grief, her sanity - and something more sinister.

Socially Unacceptable

Written by Matt Steinberg, directed by Ran Xia.

Featuring Olivia Rose Barresi, Julia Larsen, Garrett Lyons, Dennis Kozee, Caroline Banks, and Christian Roberson.

Based on the real life reports inside Facebook's troubling working conditions, Socially Unacceptable is a dark comedy that follows three new employees at one of Facebook's global content moderation facilities. Tasked with screening the sites most violent and offensive posts, these eager new workers will try to survive as the psychological effects of the job become increasingly challenging.

At the Tank in NYC, on Saturday 9/21/2019. 3pm.

The Same Shirt Show, Part 2: Beckett Without Beckett

At the Drama League on August 9th at 8pm. Presented as a part of the First Stage Residency program and Festival.

The Same Shirt Show Part 2, Beckett Without Beckett: 'An Exploration of Masculinity and Existentialism Inspired by the Themes and Works of Beckett, but Containing No Actual Beckett, We Swear' is part vaudevillian, part existential cry for help, and part genuine exploration of gender, camaraderie, and loneliness. Sequel to The Same Shirt Show: 'An Exploration of Masculinity in the Western Canon, As Performed by Two Women Wearing the Same Shirt,' Beckett Without Beckett is devised by Emma Rosa Went, Julia Larsen, and Olivia Rose Barresi.

From the Drama League: 10 Directors. 10 Hours. 10 New Work-In-Progress Showings. The First Stage Festival is where new work takes its first steps. 10 directors will have 10 hours to focus, manifest, and present a particular moment or element of a new work for an audience. 10 work-in-progress showings will provide glimpses into the future of the American Theater.

Cabaret

At the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. July 26th through 28th, and August 4th. Appearing as Fraulien Schneider.

Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome!

Experience this titillating, tantalizing musical set in Berlin's Kit Kat Club as a site specific night out in downtown Scranton's speakeasy - Madame Jenny’s at the Bittenbender. Directed by Simone Daniel.

Richard III

At the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. July 19th, 20th, 21st, and August 4th. Appearing as Queen Elizabeth and Richmond.

Shakespeare's harrowing political thriller. Murder, betrayal and treason are all in a day's work when you're heir to the crown. Join Richard on his ambitious and bloodthirsty campaign to sit on England's throne. Directed by Emma Rosa Went ('18 As You Like It).

Troilus and Cressida

At the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. July 12th, 13th, 14th, and August 3rd. Appearing as Andromache.

Shakespeare's epic drama of love and sex during the Trojan War. Be transported to the time of legends, the beauty of Helen of Troy, the strength of Achilles. See the consequences of war crumble around you. Directed by Michael Bradshaw Flynn (Artistic Director).

"Initiative" at the INK'D Festival

As a part of their INK’D Festival of New Plays, the Playwrights Realm presents 2018 writing fellow Else C. Went’s Initiative. This 29-hour reading will culminate in a presentation on Thursday, April 18 2019. This reading will be directed by Emma Rosa Went.

It's the early 2000s; the internet is still young, the millennium still under warranty, and the new Harry Potter book is coming out soon. Fridays after class, high school students Riley, Clara, Em, Tony and Kendall play D&D fantasy games. Em sorta likes Clara, Kendall sorta likes Em, Riley likes Em's brother Lo, and Tony just likes 4chan. A mid-term transfer introduces gender-dysphoric Ty into the group and the game, but a small-town tragedy brings the fantasy world, and the real one, to a standstill.

Courage! To The Field!

A (mostly) new play in verse, by Else C. Went (after Shakespeare), and directed by Emma Rosa Went. At the Tank from April 25-28th, and May 2-4, at 7pm. Buy tickets here!

Courage! To The Field! tells the story of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1 through the eyes of periphery characters, the wives and servants whose voices tend to disappear when the lofty instruments of war begin to sound. Courage! is a wild conversation with Shakespeare himself, which seamlessly weaves original verse and characters with the classic text to show that there is room enough in myth for everyone.

This production of Courage! To The Field! is made possible through a Tim Bond Production Grant from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Courage! was originally written as an entry to the ASC Shakespeare's New Contemporaries 2018, and was named a semi-finalist.

"Boxcar" with Trans Lab

As part of their fellowship with Trans Lab, playwright Else C. Went presents a new version of their play Boxcar. The staged reading will be directed by Emma Went, and will be presented under the auspices of both the WP Theater and the Public Theater alongside Trans Lab. Boxcar will be presented in the WP rehearsal rooms on December 8th.

Featuring Olivia Rose Barresi as Ida, Jackie Abbott as Alexis, Finn Kilgore as Firefly, and Greg Cuellar as Geraldo.

Saving Throw: Part One, Initiative

Playwrights Realm 2018 writing fellow Else C. Went leads a week-long development workshop of their play Saving Throw: Part One, Initiative from November 13th through 17th. With guidance from director Emma Went, and producers and artistic staff from the Playwrights Realm, Initiative will be workshopped featuring a cast of young actors - including Greg Cuellar, Josh Caras, Kita Updike, Olivia Rose Barresi, Spencer Hamp, Andrea Lopez, and Harrison Densmore.

Initiative is the first section in Else C. Went’s two-part ensemble epic on adolescence, set in coastal California at the turn of the millennium and the dawn of the internet age. Initiative will be presented in April 2019 as part of the INK’D New Play Festival.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

With the Judson Theatre Company. Presented at the Hannah Center Theater in Southern Pines, NC, October 18th - 21st.

Featuring Sally Struthers, Kim Coles, Joyce Reehling, Olivia Rose Barresi, and Ashley Brooke. Directed by Daniel Haley, produced by Morgan Sills and the Judson Theatre Company.

A hilarious contemporary comedy from Nora and Delia Ephron, the authors of Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, and You’ve Got Mail. Proving that a great show is always in fashion, Love, Loss, and What I Wore has been an international hit since its NYC premiere in 2009. With its compulsively entertaining subject matter, this intimate collection of stories by Nora and Delia Ephron was based on the best-seller by Ilene Beckerman, as well as the recollections of the Ephron’s friends. The show uses clothing, accessories, and the memories they trigger to tell funny and poignant stories that all women can relate to - creating one of the most universal and enduring theatergoing experiences in recent memory.

As You Like It

At the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. July 13, 14, 15, & 29.

A banished Duke and his followers seek refuge and peace in the Forest of Arden (a mysterious, secluded “golden world”) where two young women on the run from court find freedom in disguise and love in the forest... As You Like It is the universal invitation; Shakespeare's anarchic, musical comedy of love-at-first-sight and the power of nature, where discord finds harmony, where evil is converted, where all identity is possible.

Featuring: Olivia Rose Barresi (Rosalind), Will Ormsby Cary, Daniel Holme, Irina Kaplan, Julia Larsen, Garrett K. Lyons, Conor McGuigan, Joe McGurl, Ben McNamara, Tamara Sevunts, Logan T. Sutton and Camille Upshaw. Directed by Emma Rosa Went.

The Same Shirt Show

An Exploration of Masculinity in the Western Canon, as Performed by Two Women Wearing the Same Shirt, A Theatrical Revue OR: [THE SAME SHIRT SHOW]

ONE NIGHT ONLY: Dixon Place, February 23rd 2017 at 7pm.

Co-Created by and starring Julia Larsen and Olivia Rose Barresi. "Directed" by Emma Rosa Went.

A "post-feminist" comedic exploration of literature, co-dependency, and the importance of costume. Or something.

Julia Larsen and Olivia Rose Barresi tackle some of the most iconic scenes for men in western dramatic literature, from Shakespeare to Mamet… all while occupying a single XXXXL polo shirt. Bound together on a journey, both by serious feminism and by the actual polo shirt, they will attempt to answer the following question: Are two women better than one… man? Featuring sword-fights, hat-gags, possible songs, and the true meaning of (male) friendship.

Is this a vanity project? No one with vanity would do this.

The New Sincerity

Produced by New Wave Theater Collective. At the Nubox Theater at the John Desotelle Studio (NYC). November 17th-19th, 2017.

Let's change the world, but first let me take a selfie... Rose Spencer has just achieved the ultimate young intellectual's dream: becoming a staff writer for a prestigious New York literary criticism journal. She sees a way to participate in what may be the defining activist moment for her generation at the same time, but too quickly she must learn to recognize the difference between sincere action and skillful self-promotion. The New Sincerity is a poignant comedy about fighting for the greater good, whilst tweeting about it.

Featuring Olivia Rose Barresi (Rose Spencer), Michael Patrick Trimm, Jenna Kray, and Al Patrick Jo. Directed by Chris Morrissey, AD Ida Biering. Lighting by Wes Richter, scenic design by Stephanie Cain.

East Haddam

Produced by the Cave Theatre Company, a reading of Adam Syzmcowicz's new play. October 29th 2017, at the Tank Theater in NYC. Directed by James Masciovecchio.

Something odd is happening in East Haddam. The Secret Agents are tracking the Green Swamp Lady. And Michael is back in town. He's probably an angel. And there's a unicorn too. And those clowns. What are they about? But maybe all that matters is if Julie can convince the high school freshmen she teaches that Romeo and Juliet were not in love.

Three Seconds

Residency at Maine's Barn Arts Collective. Workshop October 8th-15th 2017, public performance Saturday October 14th at 7 PM. Featuring work and performances by The Renovationists.

Is loneliness something in the blood? Or is it something in the air? As life at White Rock Lighthouse shifts tidally back and forth across a century, Emory meets the only person who could inspire him to change his fate. Two distinct timelines weave into one family story of loneliness, thwarted hope, and the ocean.

Play by Corbin Went. Directed by Emma Went. Featuring Harrison Densmore, Julia Larsen, Olivia Rose Barresi, Patrick Harvey, Zoe Goslin, and Finn Kilgore.

Under-Song for A Cipher

A evening of readings at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Performed in the Sky Room, August 3rd 2017.

The readings featured were written or selected by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, on the occasion of her exhibition “Under-Song For A Cipher.” A cast of New York–based performers read texts by authors including Charles Baudelaire, James Baldwin, and Yiadom-Boakye herself in this special summer public program.

From the New Musuem's archival page of the event: "Yiadom-Boakye’s creative practice moves between visual art and literature. As both a writer and a painter, she creates quotidian and otherworldly characters who emerge and develop on the page or the canvas, remaining distinct to the medium in which they were rendered. For this program, Olivia Rose Barresi, Carol Carter, Maurice McPherson, and Yvonna Pearson read poetry, short stories, and scripts selected by Yiadom-Boakye, exploring what emerges when these texts become unmoored from their time and place of origin."