EVERYTHING IS HERE
is In Collaboration with New Georges!
by Peggy Stafford
directed by Meghan Finn
choreography by Lisa Fagan
with Jan Leslie Harding, Mia Katigbak, Susannah Millonzi, Petronia Paley & Pete Simpson
In a retirement community, three women reflect on their pasts, reenact scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire, and confront the absurdities of aging.
Quirky and unsentimental, Everything is Here examines how strange and perilous life can be in this lighthearted reflection on impermanence, language, and the fragile stories that shape us.
Everything is Here is presented In Collaboration with New Georges, an artist service program and active partnership with artists in which New Georges helps steward artist-driven independent productions of new works we love, with support from Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
With additional support from Clubbed Thumb, also provided by Venturous Theater Fund.
Peggy Stafford is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Her plays include Everything Is Here (The Tank at 59E59, Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizon Winterworks, Vineyard Reading Series), 16 Words or Less (Clubbed Thumb Summerworks, The Kilroy’s), Ambulette: A Non-Emergency Vehicle (Riverarts, Mercury Store), Behind the Attic Wall (Powerhouse, Mercury Store), Motel Cherry (Clubbed Thumb/New Georges), Jewel Casket (New Georges/Dixon Place Puppet BloK), and Three Miracles and a Giant (Annex Theatre, Page 73/HERE). Her work has also been performed and developed at theatres including Soho Rep, Women’s Project, Two River, Bottom’s Dream, Circle X, On The Boards, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Tank, and The Playhouse in Northern Ireland.
Her short film 16 Words or Less (adapted from her play )has garnered awards both nationally and internationally including Best First Short Film Award at the Boden International Film Festival in Sweden, First Time Filmmaker Award at LA Indies, Best Short Film Award at the Durgapur International Film Festival in West Bengal, and Finalist for Best Short at the Austin Indie Film Festival. The film was an Official Selection at festivals including Berlin Short Film Festival, Port Townsend Film Festival, Montreal Independent Film Festival, Vancouver Independent Film Festival, Stockholm Short Festival, NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival, Near Nazareth Festival in Israel, Cotswold International Film Festival, and Waterford International Film Festival.
Her work has been supported by The MacDowell Colony, Clubbed Thumb Writers’ Group, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Women’s Project Lab, The Vineyard, MACHIQQ, Playwrights Horizon SuperLab, Page 73, Pataphysics/Texas, and a New Georges Audrey Residency. She is a proud affiliated artist at Clubbed Thumb and New Georges.
Peggy is Chair of the Playwriting Program and Assistant Professor of Playwriting at SUNY Purchase. She created and launched a new Study Abroad Program: The Role of the Artist in Peacebuilding in Belfast, Northern Ireland in Summer 2023. She has taught playwriting at the University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program, Juniata College’s Gravity Project, and Marymount Manhattan College.
Meghan Finn is a director of theater and film. As the Artistic Director of The Tank, a New York City-based nonprofit theater, she supports the work of over 3,000 performing artists annually. In 2020, she accepted an OBIE Award for The Tank’s excellence in service to artists.
As an artist herself, Meghan’s focus is contemporary playwriting and hybrid collaborations with visual artists and experimental writers. She has directed over 50 fully-staged theatrical productions since 2003.
Meghan’s work is critically-acclaimed and frequently featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vulture, The Wall Street Journal and others. TimeOut NY recently called her “the tiger in The Tank.”
As a changemaker, Meghan is a member of Immigrant Families Together and co-founded Each Step Home, an organization that assists refugee children who have been separated at the US border, reuniting them with their families. Together, the organizations have helped reunite over 1,000 children since 2018. Her work was featured in the Netflix documentary Split at the Root.
In 2024, Meghan founded RE/VENUE NYC, a project inspired by The Tank’s legacy of making space for artists. RE/VENUE NYC works alongside The Tank to help theaters bounce back after the pandemic while serving more artists and building new audiences for culture throughout New York City.
Meghan is a 2024 recipient of The David Prize for extraordinary New Yorkers.
photo: Sammy Tunis Photography
Lisa Fagan is a choreographer, dancer, and director based in NYC whose work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics. She is currently the director/choreographer and a practicing member of the experimental performance collective CHILD, a company of 14 multidisciplinary artists. RECENT: No President by Nature Theater of Oklahoma (dancer), at The Skirball Center NYC, Dec 2024, HILMA (choreographer), at Tony-award-winning theater The Wilma (June 2024), Open Throat (choreographer) at Little Island NYC, based on the novel by Henry Hoke, July 2024, Deepe Darknesse (creator/performer) in New York Live Arts’ Live Artery 2024. Fagan’s work has been presented in NYC by: Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC Open Artist in Residence, Fall 2023), Prelude Festival, Immediate Medium, Mercury Store, Radiohole, LifeWorld, Target Margin (2019/20 Artist in Residence with composer Catherine Brookman), HERE Arts Center, Bard College (Choreographer: Promenade, Dir. Morgan Green), The Exponential Festival (2019/20 Exponential Fellow), Mabou Mines (Resident Artist Program), Ars Nova (ANT FEST), New York Live Arts (2017/18 Fresh Tracks Artist), Movement Research, Gibney, Roulette, The 92nd Street Y, and others. She collaborates with many artists across disciplines supporting their shows choreographically and as movement director. On-screen choreography credits include the TV pilot THESE DAYS, premiering at Sundance 2021, and various music videos. She’s taught choreography, dance and physical performance practice at Barnard College, The Celebration Barn, and Gibney.
Photo: Maria Baranova