An improvised bluegrass musical featuring old-timey bluegrass tunes and a rotating cast on traditional instruments like banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, washboard, and jug …
Playing monthly in NYC Schedule here.
NURSE!
Written and performed by Ayun Halliday
Love! Death! Aging! Teenagers!
Juliet’s Nurse hits the road, to deploy her eyewitness observations in an increasingly frenzied attempt to correct the record regarding “the greatest love story ever told“.
Inspired by actress / Brooklyn Theater fire survivor Kate Claxton's historic lecture tour.
Click here for Dramatis Personae, Timeline, and TRIGGER WARNINGS!
NURSE has played at
The Tank (NYC) / The Facility Theater (Chicago) The Phoenix Festival (Nyack NY) / The Players Ring (Portsmouth NH) / The Episcopal Actor’s Guild (NYC) / The Bechdel Project (NYC) / The New York Society Library (NYC) / Quimby’s Bookstore (NYC)
NURSE is available to tour internationally. No venue too undistinguished. Inquire about bringing this solo show to your theater or festival!
BIG NEWS: NURSE is morphing into a graphic novel.
Subscribe for extremely infrequent updates (this one’s gonna take years…)
My God. Who is this glamorous lady? SOMEBODY CAST HER, even though she uses a passport photo taken by a random employee at the UPS Store as her professional headshot! Current dream roles: The Nurse, Mother Courage, Pippin’s grandma & any Chekhov you’d care to throw her way…
I’m not just some starlet sipping soda at Schrafft’s, waiting for you to discover me, though…
I AM THE QUEEN OF THE APES!!!
Theater of the Apes
Human See. Human Do.
Theater of the Apes was formed pre-pandemic as an ongoing theatrical concern of Kotis, Kotis, Kotis & Halliday. While we continue regrouping, enjoy a peek at some of the shows I’ve cooked up under its auspices!
In which an aged book is pulled from the vortex and resurrected as a one-night-only New York City variety show.
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Shayna Strype with Yael Nachajon
Necromancers of the Public Domain: The Spinner Family
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Rubin & Rubinstein
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Bryce Edwards
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Dejen Tesfagiorgis
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Katie Kay Chelena
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Pearl Rhein
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Ellia Bisker, Heather Cole, and Jeff Morris
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Trav S. D.
Necromancers of the Public Domain: Ayun Halliday
A raucous mid-life meditation on the comedy of existence, the hell of long term relationships, and the play where “nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes…”.
Chris Lindsay-Abaire awaiting Marjorie Duffield’s return from LA during rehearsals in Brooklyn
Zamboni Godot: Marjorie Duffield, Chris Lindsay-Abaire and the Zamboner Chorus awaiting the New Year’s Eve ball drop
Zamboni Godot: Chris Lindsay-Abaire (Didi) awaiting arrival on Ellis Island
Zamboni Godot: Sandye Renz, Laura Hart, Joanna Cox, Kate Ryan, Tiina Dohrmann and Angie Pflanz at the Louvre
Zamboni Godot: Marjorie Duffield (Gogo) awaiting triage with Tiina Dohrmann and Joanna Cox
Zamboni Godot: Marjorie Duffield and Chris Lindsay-Abaire working the polls
Zamboni Godot: Zamboni Godot: A rainy line for the Ellis Island ferry
Zamboni Godot: Marjorie Duffield (Gogo) on a country road. A tree. Evening
Zamboni Godot: Chris Lindsay-Abaire and Marjorie Duffield await rescue on a desert island
Zamboni Godot: Chris Lindsay-Abaire awaiting death
Other Shows
Some of Ayun’s theatrical oddities from beyond the realm of Theater of the Apes…
Three middle-aged women & three teenage boys attempt to survive in a post-digital, pre-apocalyptic agrarian landscape, with dialogue culled from social media. Like. Like. Heart emoticon. Like.
Fawnbook: The Boys dream of a Fawngirl (Mayim Richman)
Fawnbook: Ayun Halliday eulogizes her dear friend, goddess-sister, and colleague of the Priestessly Way (Chris Wells)
Fawnbook: Chris Lindsay-Abaire, Benny Rendell and an apron full of baby mice
Fawnbook: Marjorie Duffield intercepting transmissions on the tomato can phone
Fawnbook: Ayun Halliday and Max Piersol tend to Nick Balaban as the Burn Survivor
Fawnbook: Chris Lindsay-Abaire and John Albert
Fawnbook: Benny Rendell in the dirt pile
Fawnbook: Sarah Kotis and India Kotis as the Fantasy Fawngirls
Fawnbook: The Nuclear Survivor (Nick Balaban) brings horrible news
Fawnbook: Lottie Probst as the Little Fawngirl
A teenaged deep-dive expedition through “The Little Mermaid,” eschewing Disney’s happy ending for the explicit trauma of Hans Christian Andersen’s original.
The Mermaid’s Legs: Valentina Giovannini with the Prince’s Ship
The Mermaid’s Legs: Emily Mondrus pours sweet nothings into Dan Allen’s ear
The Mermaid’s Legs: The crones (Max Hamilton and Kaiulani Ellington) lose control of a mermaid (Milo Kotis)
The Mermaid’s Legs: Mermaid Emily Mondrus loses her tongue
The Mermaid’s Legs: Quintin Harris, Milo Kotis and Artemisia LeFay are all eyes
The Mermaid’s Legs: Mermaid Quintin Harris, untroubled by a tempest
The Mermaid’s Legs: Three little girls re-tell the Disney version
The Mermaid’s Legs: The entrance to the Sea Witch’s lair
The Mermaid’s Legs: Mermaid Leo Lion loses his tongue
The Mermaid’s Legs: Mermaid Milo Kotis takes no comfort from a conch
An autobiographical root-vegetable-based NICU puppet show.
NeoNatalSweetPotato: Yeah, my dream was shattered but my baby is alive.
NeoNatalSweetPotato: The play that led to the article that led to a piece in an anthology that led to my first book…
NeoNatalSweetPotato: Salad bin
NeoNatalSweetPotato: Liza and son
NeoNatalSweetPotato: Putting on a brave face
The Neo-Futurists
I also logged a decade with the Neo-Futurists, writing and performing in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes and a handful of other Neo-Futurist productions in both Chicago and New York. Speaking of babies… look at me! Look at Greg!
Bagel: Postcard
Bagel: Ayun Halliday
Farang: Postcard
Farang: Ayun Halliday
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: Ensemble
Wind Up Variations by Rob Neill: Eevin Hartsough, Ayun Halliday, Daniel Mirsky, T Thompson
Make a Donation to the Apes!
Thanks to the fiscal sponsorship of Fractured Atlas, Theater of the Apes has the ability to accept your tax-deductible donations. We use these little windfalls to pay casts and crews and save up to take it on the road, and believe the Queen of the Apes when she says we will thank you in the program.
Fractured Atlas is a 501(c)(3) public charity. Contributions for the purposes of Theater of the Apes are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.