Westminster
by Brenda Withers
When Pia is gifted a surprise rescue dog by an old friend, Krys, the women and their partners face-off over issues of class, accountability, and good breeding. The winner of Urbanite Theatre’s 2023 Modern Works Festival, WESTMINSTER is part morality play/part screwball romp, digging into “acceptable” social prejudices—and the consequences of leaving those biases unchecked.
Urbanite Theatre - 2024
World Premier
Directed by Summer Wallace
Scenic Design: Jeffrey Weber
Lighting Design: Ethan Vail
Photo Credit: Sorcha Augustine
Judith
by Katie Bender
"Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say." -Virginia Woolf.
Dressed in drag, Judith heads to London to save her brother’s reputation. In a patriarchal, politically-charged, and deeply divided nation, she pursues work as a poet and discovers the pleasures and pitfalls of passing as the bard himself. Gallivanting in and out of character, JUDITH is a solo show that questions identity, ambition, and self-worth.
Urbanite Theatre - 2024
Presented in partnership with The Hanover Theatre
Directed by Brendon Fox
Scenic Design: Jeffrey Weber
Lighting Design: Michael Pasquini
Photo Credit: Sorcha Augustine
Birds of North America
by Anna Ouyang Moench
As birders, John and his daughter Caitlyn adore spending tender autumn days attempting to catch glimpses of elusive birds. But as seasons, the climate, and global politics change, the two find their connection as rare as a red-headed Woodpecker.
Urbanite Theatre - 2023
Directed by Summer Wallace
Scenic Design: Frank Chavez
Lighting Design: Alex Pinchin
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
The Burdens
by Matt Schatz
Siblings Mordy and Jane have a problem. Their dreadful, centenarian grandfather is an emotional and financial tax on the family, and he just won’t die. Scheming almost entirely via sarcastic and misspelled text messages, the siblings hatch an outrageous plan to relieve their family of their grandfather’s burden.
Urbanite Theatre - 2022
Directed by Brendan Ragan
Scenic Design: Tom Hansen
Lighting Design: Ethan Vail
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Athena
by Gracie Gardner
Mary Wallace and Athena are brave young fencers training for Nationals. They practice together, they compete against each other, they spend their lives together. They just wish they were friends.
Urbanite Theatre - 2022
Directed by Summer Wallace
Scenic Design: Alyssa Mohn
Lighting Design: Alex Pinchin
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Safe House
by Brendan Ragan
In collaboration with Triforce Pictures
After leaving his cybersecurity job at a powerful corporation, Fletcher and his wife Ava have gone into hiding, along with their damning company secrets. When Ava mysteriously disappears, Fletcher turns to a stranger to help find her: you. In this fully immersive and interactive experience, step inside Fletcher’s secretive safehouse and navigate his cryptic digital clues to uncover the truth.
Please note: Safe House is an interactive, walk-through experience. This production does not feature traditional theater seating and there are no live performers. Audiences will be limited to four patrons per viewing. Run-time is roughly 40 minutes, but will vary with each group’s experience. Masks and temperature checks are required for all patrons.
Urbanite Theatre - 2021
Directed by: Brendan Ragan
In collaboration with Triforce Pictures
Production Design: Ryan Finzelber
Photo Credit:
In A Word
by Lauren Yee
Two years after the mysterious disappearance of her son, Fiona still hasn’t given up her search. Grief and comedy collide as she delves back into her memories of that fateful day to try to uncover a crucial missing piece. In this imaginative and tender look at the past, Fiona finds that ordinary turns of phrase have taken on perilous new meanings.
Urbanite Theatre - 2019
Directed by Erin Kraft
Scenic Design: Jeff Weber
Lighting Design: Chris Baldwin
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Dike
by Hannah Benitez
After two years of separation, a pair of sisters from a religious family reunite to navigate the murky waters of identity. The reunion sends four millennial women into a struggle for clarity with their most significant relationships; those with God, those with lovers, those with family. An awkwardly hilarious and wrenching exploration of love, sexuality, and sisterhood, Dike questions the walls religion and social conditioning build in us.
Urbanite Theatre - 2018
Directed by Tatiana Pandiani
Scenic Design: Jeffrey Weber
Lighting Design: Joseph P. Oshry
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Incognito
by Nick Payne
Are we born with an inherent personality, or are we merely an assemblage of our thoughts and recollections? In this cerebral journey through neuroscience, amnesia, and the theft of Albert Einstein’s brain, playwright Nick Payne investigates the nature of identity in a series of mysterious and touching interwoven tales.
Urbanite Theatre - 2018
Directed by Daniel Kelly
Scenic & Lighting Design: Ryan Finzelber
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Northside Hollow
by Jonathan Fielding and Brenda Withers
Trapped underground after a deadly collapse, a coal miner finds his salvation in the arrival of a young and inexperienced first responder. While they wait for additional rescue assistance, they discover they have a curious amount in common. As the men confront mortality, their connection may unearth a deeper revelation about acceptance and spiritual refuge.
Urbanite Theatre - 2018
Directed by: Summer Dawn Wallace
Scenic Design: Rick Cannon
Lighting Design: Ryan Finzelber
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Echoes
by Henry Naylor
Tillie and Samira were born 175 years apart, but their parallel stories eerily mirror one another across generations. Tillie is a Victorian pioneer woman sent to Afghanistan to fulfill wifely duties for an officer of the British Raj, while Samira is a Muslim schoolgirl who runs away to Syria to become the jihadi bride of an ISIS fighter. Both are confronted with tragedy in war-torn lands as they face the oppressive realities of their male-dominated landscapes.
Urbanite Theatre - 2017
Directed by: Brendan Ragan
Scenic & Lighting Design: Ryan Finzelber
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
Pilgrims
by Claire Kiechel
On a ship to colonize a newly discovered planet, a soldier and a teenage girl find themselves quarantined in one of the ship’s cabins with only an outdated robot and each other for company. When they’re no longer able to create fantasies to escape their past lives, the two cabin-mates are forced to explore their own traumatic histories in order to connect and survive.
Urbanite Theatre - 2017
Directed by: Carl Forsman
Scenic Design: Jerid Fox
Lighting Design: Ryan Finzelber
Photo Credit: Dylan Jon Wade Cox
The Theater Barn 2016
(New Lebanon, NY)
Photos Credit Sarah Kozma Photography
Dance 2016
Costumes designed for the piece father. salt. movement. sound. choreographed by Trent D. Williams. The piece was inspired by salt and the dangers of consuming too much of it. By looking at salt crystals up close, I reached the designs inspired by the geometric, repeating patterns of the crystals. In order to recreate this type of pattern on the costumes, fabric was dyed utilizing shibori resist techniques. I oversaw the wrapping and dying of the fabric before it was constructed into garments.
University of Florida, 2016
Choreographer: Trent D. Williams
Scenic Design: Tim Castell
Lighting Design: Duncan Singleton
The Golden Dragon
by Roland Schimmelpfennig
The Golden Dragon centers around a Pan-Asian fast food restaurant and the people living around it. Actors each portray multiple characters from the intertwining story lines and were cast disregarding their gender, race, and age. For this reason, costume pieces had to be selected in order to make transitions between those character as seamless as possible, as actors changed between character without leaving the stage, sometimes even within a scene. I designed the costumes to read as uniforms with costume pieces essentially serving as props to help distinguish the different characters each actor portrayed.
University of Florida, 2015
Directed by: Ralf Remshardt
Scenic Design: Nicole Bianco
Lighting Design: Tiana Alderson
A class assignment to explore the possibilities of photoshop use in costume renderings. First, bodies and clothing are drawn and rendered using watercolor. Then work continued on the renderings in photoshop to fix irregularities; add props, backgrounds, and textures; and to create color variations.
By Lorca
Blood Wedding takes place in a world that is a fairytale at a glance, but filled with the burdens of death and destruction in reality. The characters of the play seem hopeful towards their individual situations, however, as the play progresses, it is clear they have no real control: they are puppets of their own passions. It is for this reason that I chose to draw influences from puppets, specifically shadow puppetry. This inspiration together with traditional Spanish Flamenco elements stemming from the culture behind the script lead to these designs for Lorca's Blood Wedding.
By Sam Shepard
In Buried Child, many of the characters are out of touch with reality. So their fashions sense would probably not be up to date. I plan to keep the setting in the late 1970's, but to dress certain characters (Dodge, Bradely, Tilden) to look more outdated, certain characters (Hallie and Father Davis) like they are trying to keep up with the times, and others (Shelley and Vince) as closer to 1970 fashion.
by Aristophanes
To support the general themes of Lysistrata in a comedic sense that is more relevant to society today, the costumes will be inspired by fruit. Fruits are essentially the uteri of plants. They house the seeds after reproduction has occurred and are often a means of attraction to help further reproduction. Many fruits are also phallic in nature. These points relate fruit back to the sexual themes of the play, but will make the costumes more appropriate for the modern audience.
A ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky
Listening to the composition of Stravinski inspired images of forest animals in my mind, however, I wanted to draw on the Russian culture behind the ballet in some way. So, I drew major inspirations from Russian architecture, specifically St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow Russia. I wanted to ensure that dancers portraying characters like the Firebird and the Kaschei would stand out without matching each other. So, each lead dancer would be dressed in a specific color palette while the remaining dancers would be dressed in multiple colors, much like St. Basil's Cathedral is, making sure that the more solid colored costumes would really pop in front of a sea of colors.
Clown designs, each with a heavy emphasis on certain elements of design: Shape, Pattern, Texture, Color, or Line.
A kimono design with a traditional motif, but a not so traditional placement. I then took the waves motif and, using gutta resist, created a silk painting of the waves design.
Hat built using a VOGUE pattern for the University of Florida's production of By the Way Meet Vera Stark, designed by Lisa Eash. (2014)
A doublet constructed for Comedy of Errors. Designed by Alexis Howard.
Papier-mâché bunny mask designed drawing inspiration from masquerade masks and makeup design.
Flat patterned skirt based on a the vintage dress pictured.
Flat patterned gown based on the Elie Saab gown pictured.
Fitting photos for a draping project and the vintage gold dress it was based on.
