The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, 2019, School of Drama, The New School, Melissa Crespo (Director), Brittany Vasta (Scenic Design), Emily White (Costume Design),
Christina Watanabe (Lighting Design), Margaret Montagna (Sound Design), Clarie Kostova (Associate Lighting Design), Photo by: Nathaniel Johnston Photography
LAByrinth Theater Company presents
Bees and Honey
By Guadalís Del Carmen
Directed by Melissa Crespo
With Sean Carvajal and Maribel Martinez
Produced in Partnership with The Sol Project
Previews: Begin March 27
Performances: Run April 6 - 25
Inspired by the Juan Luis Guerra song “Como Abeja Al Panal,” Bees and Honey by Guadalís Del Carmen is an intimate portrait of a Dominican couple’s love and dreams in New York City. Manuel and Johaira met at a Washington Heights club and it was love at first sight. Now married, the ambitious young couple hopes to achieve their dreams together. Manuel’s entrepreneurial spirit drives to him to expand his mechanic shop, while Johaira lands a career-defining sexual assault case that could help her make partner at her law firm. As the high-profile trial takes its toll on Johaira, she also begins to question whether her husband will ever outgrow his bad boy mentality. Adding in Manuel’s ailing mother and an unforeseen tragedy, the pair is pushed to its limits as their love is tested daily.
Bees and Honey was developed at LAByrinth Theater Company’s Summer LAB Intensive 2019 and subsequently received a reading as part of LAB’s 20th annual Barn Series in January 2020. Guadalís Del Carmen’s play was named to The Kilroys List 2019, one of 33 most recommended un- and underproduced new plays by women, trans, and non-binary authors. It was also selected by the 50 Playwrights Project in 2019 as one of eight top unproduced plays by Latinx playwrights in the country.
Melissa Crespo is CT born with Dominican, Puerto Rican and Chilean roots. She is a New York City based director of theater, opera and film. She most often directs world premieres and is also a producer, dramaturg and playwright.
As a director, Melissa has developed work at LAByrinth Theater Company, New Dramatists, The Lark and more. As a playwright, Melissa co-write the play Egress with Sarah Saltwick which recently had a workshop production at Cleveland Playhouse. It will receive a world premiere production Fall 2020 at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, TX. She is currently adapting Angie Cruz's novel Soledad for the stage. She is also a line producer for 3 Views on Theater, a new online theater journal.
Melissa has served as a 2016-2018 Time Warner Fellow at WP Theater, Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow at Arena Stage, Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage Theatre and is an alum of the Drama League Director's Project. She is a current Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop and received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama.
Promenade is a campy, clever critique of the 1 percent, written by the late, great María Irene Fornés known as the “mother of the avant-garde theatre.” First performed at the Judson Memorial Church in 1965, it won an Obie Award for best musical.
Promenade is presented by special arrangement with
Samuel French, Inc., a Concord Theatricals Company.
World Premiere at
Salt Lake Acting Company
October 16 - November 17, 2019
Navigating adolescence is not for the faint of heart, but Amali’s got this. She is twelve years old, she is wise, and she is fascinated – by A Midsummer Night’s Dream; by her changing body; by the story of the children killed in the woods. With humor, magic, blood, and fire, FORM OF A GIRL UNKNOWN is not your typical coming-of-age story.
Native Gardens
by Karen Zacarías
‘Native Gardens’: Building the
(Botanical) Wall
This spring, Karen Zacarías’s popular play is going up at three different theatres, and raises a prescient dialogue about border disputes and neighborly conduct.
