Summer at the Library: Artist-in-Residence: “Making Theatre Together” with Roundabout Theatre Company

Join The New York Public Library and Roundabout Theatre Company's Artist-in-Residence for 8 sessions of artistic workshops!

The workshops will be held in person at Clason's Point Library.

Join us for artistic workshops designed to spark the creative process. Teaching Artists Leah Reddy and Alix Curnow will guide participants in creating their own piece of original theatre by reading stories and sharing memories. By exploring the world of plays along with sound, set, and lighting design, participants will dive into storytelling and ensemble building to begin to create their own original piece of community theatre.

We will be kicking off this exciting program with theatre games centered around Roundabout's production of Home, where participants will recreate scenes from this moving coming-of-age story reflecting on identity, belonging, and the exploration of self. In the following intergenerational workshops, participants will collaborate to create their own plays and designs exploring various playwriting techniques which will culminate in an original theatrical production.

Free tickets to see Roundabout shows will be available, please see Library staff for more information. Supplies are limited.

START DATE: April 17, 2023

END DATE : June 26, 2023

IN-PERSON WORKSHOPS: Wednesdays or Thurdays starting at 4 PM

8 Workshop Sessions

Upcoming Artist-in-Residence dates:

• Wednesday, May 1 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. 
• Thursday, May 9, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 15, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, May 29 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Thursday, June 6, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  - Please REGISTER HERE for June Sessions
• Thursday, June 13, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, June 26 from 4 p.m.–6 p.m. Community Sharing

Space is limited | Registration is recommended but not required.  Register above with your email address. Walkups will be permitted as space accommodates.

Learn more about this year's Roundabout Productions

Doubt A Parable John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award®-winning Best Play has blazed back to Broadway starring Academy Award® and Tony nominee Amy Ryan and Tony winner Liev Schreiber. This “excellent new revival, directed by Scott Ellis, affords the pleasure of watching two supremely good actors going toe to toe” (The Wall Street Journal). “Ryan and Schreiber are electric on Broadway” (Entertainment Weekly). The fireworks begin as the exacting principal of a Bronx Catholic school—feared by students and colleagues alike— suspects improper relations between a charismatic priest and a student. She’s forced to wrestle with what’s fact, what’s fiction, and just how far she’ll go to expose what she sees as the truth. As the New York Post says, “It keeps the audience guessing and second-guessing through the play’s famous final line.

Home In the Tony Award®-nominated play The New York Times calls “an uplifting folk ballad about the pure in heart,” Cephus Miles has the whole world in his callused hands—until his sweetheart Pattie Mae goes off to college and marries another man. Originally staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979 and featured in the first year of Roundabout’s Refocus Project, Samm-Art Williams’ Home is a muscular and melodic coming-of-age story that gives voice to the unbreakable spirit of all Americans who have been searching for a place to belong. Kenny Leon (A Soldier’s Play) directs.

Learn more about our Artist-in-Residence

LEAH REDDY (she/her) Leah Reddy is a New York-based director/dramaturg, writer, and video editor/producer with roots on the westside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Recent directing work includes What of the Night at NYU Tisch/Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Favorite work includes producing Justice for Sergio, a documentary play, and podcast.

Alix Curnow (they/them) is an actor and theatre educator. They graduated with honors from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Alix is passionate about finding theoretical and material freedom through art. Their passions have earned them credits with Clubbed Thumb, Bushwick Starr, Brooklyn Comedy Collective, The Tank, the Detroit Fringe Festival, Davis Shakespeare Festival and more. Recent TV Credits include American Horror Story (FX), Mean Girl Murders (Investigation Discovery) and ABC EYEWITNESS NEWS (ABC).

Roundabout Theatre Company celebrates the power of theatre by spotlighting classics from the past, cultivating new works of the present, and educating minds for the future. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills that mission by producing familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals; discovering and supporting talented playwrights; reducing the barriers that can inhibit theatergoing; collaborating with a diverse team of artists; building educational experiences; and archiving over five decades of production history. Learn more about  Roundabout Theatre Company.