FRIDAY NIGHT RAT CATCHERS

Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein, in association with Immediate Medium

World Premiere

March 27-29, 2025
Mar 28 Stay Late Discussion moderated by Alex Tatarsky
Running Time: 70 mins

Choreographed & directed by: Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein

Performed by: Lena Engelstein, Lisa Fagan, Marianne Rendón

Production Stage Management by: Daniel Nelson

Sound Design by: Tei Blow

Lighting Design by: Masha Tsimring

Scenic Design by: Jian Jung

Costume Design by: Normandy Sherwood

Creative Producinged by: Emma Orme

Production Management by: Karl Allen 

Dramaturgy by: Iris McCloughan

Props Design by: Hannah Bird

Associate Scenic Design by: Josh Oberlander

Associate Sound Design by: Lola Basiliere

Assistant Lighting Design by: Maxley

Bios

Lisa Fagan & Lena Engelstein are NYC-based experimental dance makers and performers whose work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics. Since 2017, they’ve functioned as a cogenerative, circulatory idea machine, whose unconventional performative frameworks are rooted in dance-adjacent physicality but reimagine what choreography can be used to accomplish theatrically. Recent work includes Deepe Darknesse (Jan, 2024 in New York Live Arts’ Live Artery, received full-page review in The New York Times by theater critic Brian Seibert, and June, 2023 at The Collapsable Hole), 1-800-3592-113592 (March, 2024 at MITU580 with performance collective CHILD, of which Fagan/Engelstein are founding members), Catches No Flies (Jan 2020, Exponential Festival, recipients of inaugural Exponential Fellowship), Red Carrots (Jan 2019, Exponential), and many more short works and experimentations. Their work has been supported by Baryshnikov Arts Center (2023 BAC Open), NYSCA Individual artists grant, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mercury Store, and others.

Lisa Fagan (Creator/performer) is a choreographer, performer, and theater maker based in NYC whose work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics. She is the director/choreographer and a practicing member of the experimental performance company CHILD. Recent: HILMA (choreographer) at Tony award winning theater The Wilma. 2023 Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist in Residence with company CHILD. Deepe Darknesse at New York Live Arts’ Live Artery 2023 with collaborator Lena Engelstein. Fagan’s work has been presented in NYC by: New Georges, Prelude, Immediate Medium, Mercury Store, Radiohole, LifeWorld, Target Margin, HERE Arts, Bard College (Choreographer: Promenade, Dir. Morgan Green), The Exponential Festival (2019/20 Exponential Fellow), Ars Nova, 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.

Lena Engelstein is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. She is part of the interdisciplinary performance collective CHILD, headed by Lisa Fagan. Her work, lauded as “subtly campy and hilariously queer” by the Brooklyn Rail, has been presented in NYC dance and theater festivals such as Prelude, Exponential Festival, and Fresh Tracks. Since 2020, Engelstein has collaborated with Jo Warren, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Magda San Millan on new works. Other recent performance credits include: Alexa West, Barnett Cohen, Brendan Drake, Falcon Dance (company member, 2018-present), and Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell (company member, 2019-2020). She choreographs for and performs with the band Lou Tides. She has taught dance and choreography at SUNY Brockport, Colorado Mesa University, Bard College, and The Field Center.

Marianne Rendón is an actor, performer, and musician.   Film: Charlie Says (Venice Biennale), Summer Solstice (IFC), Mapplethorpe (Tribeca), One Day As A Lion. TV: Imposters, In The Dark (Netflix), producer & lead of These Days (Sundance).  Theater: Plot Points in Our Sexual Development (Lincoln Center), Who Left This Fork Here (Baryshnikov Arts Center, dir. Daniel Fish). Upcoming: The Life List (Netflix). John Houseman Prize Recipient. Bard College, Juilliard MFA. @mariannerendon

Iris McCloughan is a director, performance maker, and writer in New York. Their original performance works have been presented in New York (PAGEANT, The Poetry Project, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Ars Nova), Philadelphia (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Contemporary, FringeArts), and elsewhere. Recent direction includes Sam Bell’s Il bunkerini (Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks), Alex Tatarsky’s Sad Boys in Harpy Land (Playwrights Horizons), and Joan Jonas & Eiko Otake’s Drawing in Circles    WHY? (Castelli Gallery/Danspace Project). 

Iris is a past winner of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review. Their writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, Prelude, Tupelo Quarterly, juked, jubilat, Gertrude, Denver Quarterly, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse, among many others. They are the author of three poetry chapbooks, including triptych (greying ghost, 2022).

Iris has collaborated with many other artists and writers, including Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Alex Tatarsky, Juliana May, Beth Gill, Mike Lala, and Alex Lin. Their work has been supported with residencies and fellowships from Clubbed Thumb, Soho Rep, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Mercury Store, JACK, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

DANIEL ALLEN NELSON is a writer, performer, & producer. Original works include: Microcosmitor, Give Back My Beast, Spoleum, Don’t Peek, Hearts & Tongues, & The Vanishing Play. He has performed at venues including: HERE, PS122, Public Theater, LaMama, Target Margin, Ontological-Hysteric, Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, The Kitchen, Mabou Mines, The Tank, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Invisible Dog, Roulette, Issue Project Room; and in many projects by Object Collection, John Jesurun, Richard Foreman, Jeff McMahon, and Normandy Sherwood. Regional Theater/Touring: Berkeley Rep, Guthrie Theater, LaJolla Playhouse, Center Stage, Ensemble Theater, Theatre Jeune Lune, Jungle Theater, Red Eye, Ko Festival, Cafe Oto (London), Birmingham Rep (UK), Echochance Festival (Amsterdam) & Borealis Festival (Norway). BFA: UCSB; MFA: Towson University.

Emma Orme is the Producing Director of The TEAM and an independent creative producer. She was a Fellow of WP Theater’s 2022-24 Lab and producer of the Obie Award-winning Off-Broadway premiere of CIRCLE JERK (Fake Friends). She has produced, performed in, and developed work at BAM, NYTW, The Public, Williamstown, LaMama, The Flea, Atlantic Theater, EST, Drama League, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Carolina Performing Arts, Invisible Dog, Colt Coeur, WP Theater, Mitu580, and Mercury Store, in close partnership with artists like nicHi douglas, CHILD, Zhailon Levingston, Miranda Gohh, Tara Elliott, Starr Busby, Jerry Lieblich, Arpita Mukherjee, Danny Pudi, Agnes Borinsky, Gus Heagerty, Ruby Rae Spiegel, and more. Before she started with The TEAM, she worked as Producing Director at Hypokrit Productions, curator for VoxFest at Dartmouth College, BOLD Associate Producer at Northern Stage, Grants Manager at Williamstown Theatre Festival, a video producer for The New York Times, and an associate producer on the documentary The Kleptocrats. BA: Dartmouth College.

Karl Allen is a Production Manager, Project Manager, and Designer. He has been the Director of Production for PS122, The Flea Theater, Mercury Store, New42nd St Studios, and a touring production manager for Andrew Schneider (YOURARENOWHERE, N O W I S W H E N W E A R E) and Mabou Mines (Lucia’s Chapters), among others. He is currently a technical theater consultant for Media Arts Exchange and a project manager for DBI Projects. He has been a theater consultant for Charcoalblue, and an exhibit designer for The American Museum of Natural History, The Montclair Art Museum, and The Wagner Free Institute of Science. He has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from The University of the Arts.

Masha Tsimring Off Broadway: Rheology, A Woman Among Women (Bushwick Starr); Six Characters (LCT3); Staff Meal (Playwrights Horizons); Grief Hotel (Clubbed Thumb); Sad Boys in Harpy Land (Playwrights Horizons/Abrons Art Center); Montag (Soho Rep). Regional: The Inspector (Yale Rep); Primary Trust (La Jolla Playhouse); Eternal Life, Part 1 (The Wilma); The Appointment (Lightning Rod Special); Dance/Opera: Plenum/Anima (LADP); Terce (Prototype); Me. You. We. They. (LA Dance Project/Paris Philarmonie); morning/mourning (Prototype/HERE); Deepe Darknesse (Lisa Fagan/Lena Engelstein/NYLA); Unstill Life (LA Dance Project); Rodelinda (Hudson Hall/Santa Fe Opera); Der Freischütz (Wolf Trap Opera). She is a proud member of USA829. MFA Yale School of Drama. More info at www.mashald.com. 

Jian Jung is a New York based set designer from Korea. Selected theater credits include STAFF MEAL at Playwrights Horizons, THE FOLLOWING EVENING at PAC-NYC, THE NOSEBLEED at LCT3 and Woolly Mammoth Theater (DC), KISS at Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), OCEAN FILIBUSTER at A.R.T. (Boston), THE DAY YOU BEGIN at Kennedy Center (DC), SUICIDE FOREST at Bushwick Starr, and LUDIC PROXY at Soho Rep and Japan Society. Her theater work also has been in Classic Stage Company, HERE, The Kitchen, The Flea, Theater Row, Target Margin, Wild Project, and Mabou Mines. She has been working with Latino theater community in NYC closely for a long time, and designed Spanish and bi-lingual productions in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Venezuela. Her opera and musical work have been in Wolf Trap Opera (VA), Fisher Center in Bard, Huntington Theater (Boston), Juilliard, and Long Beach Opera (CA). Jung won an Obie Award, a Barrymore Award and an Edith Lutyens & Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Award, and was nominated for Henry Hewes Design Awards. Her design in Venezuela was presented in Prague Quadrennial 2015. Jung received an MFA in Theater Design from New York University, and an MFA in Environmental Design from Ewha Women’s University in Korea, where she was born and grew up. She teaches at NYU Tisch Design and Sarah Lawrence College. 

Normandy Sherwood is a writer, a director, and a scenographer/costumer.  Recent work includes her curtain spectacular PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE (2024 OBIE Award)  and Beast Visit as a part of HERE Arts Center’s  HARP residency, Scenographer/co-creator of Theater in Quarantine’s Nosferatu, a 3-D Symphony of Horror at Skirball in 2023. Her theater company is The Drunkard’s Wife, and from 2001-2017 she was a co-artistic director of The National Theater of the United States of America (R.I.P.).  She has designed costumes for Faye Driscoll, Tina Satter/ Half Straddle, Young Jean Lee, Rachel Chavkin/Anne Washburn,  Kristin Marting. She has been an artist in residence at HERE, MacDowell, Yaddo. She’s a Clinical Associate Professor in Expository Writing at NYU and has an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College. Shows in the works: scenic, prop, costume design for Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods, running at HERE Arts  3/28-4/26 (Rattlestick/New Georges), The Mushroom (a pageant of the forest floor), with Nikki Calonge, developing as a part of the New Georges Audrey Residency; All trees are hardest to feel terrible (an opera) composed by Craig Flanagin; and a new play called Sob Story.  

Tei Blow is a media designer and performance maker. Tei’s work has been seen at Hartford Stage, PS122, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, BAM, The Public Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, The Broad Stage, MCA Chicago, MFA Boston, Kate Werble Gallery, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Roundabout, The Wadsworth Atheneum, and at theaters around the world. He is a recipient of a 2023 Obie Award, 2023 Henry Hewes Award, NYSCA Composer’s Grant, the 2016 Bessie Award, 2024 FCA Grants to Artists Award, and 2015 Creative Capital Award.

Hannah Bird (she/they, Props Designer) is a designer, director and artisan based out of Brooklyn. Her work has been seen onstage at The New School Theatre and Opera, WP Theater, The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, The Brick, The Tank, The Chain, Greenside at Edinburgh Fringe, 3 Dollar Bill, The Knockdown Center, Herbert Von King Park Amphitheater, Exponential Festival, and University of Evansville Theatre (of where she is an alumna, BS Theatre Studies 2020). Hannah’s favorite projects tend to live in the world of trash, camp, queer, political, gaudy, and basking in contradiction and interconnectedness. You can find her theatre work on instagram @birdbydesign_, and her experimental photography and writing at @caesarsaladdersny.

Josh Oberlander is a set/costume designer, visual artist, and writer working in theater, opera and dance. His work as a designer and has ranged from drag shows, art installations, music videos, new works, and reimagined classics. He’s designed work off broadway at venues such as BAM, Theater Row, and The Flea, and has supported work at The Metropolitan Opera, The Alliance Theater, Disney Theatrical, and Mabou Mines. @ecstatic_process

Lola Basiliere is a sound designer for live performance based in New York City. Recent work: Radio Downtown (Associate, 59E59), Stop Kiss (The Chain), Pippin (Calhoun), Where Women Go (Here Arts), Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom (NYU), Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California (Associate, The Tank), Weasel Festival (The Brick). BFA: NYU

Funding

Friday Night Rat Catchers was commissioned by New York Live Arts and produced and created in association with Immediate Medium. Friday Night Rat Catchers was developed with support from a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants to Artists Award (2025) and received research and development support from Fisher Center LAB, the residency and commissioning program at Bard’s Fisher Center, and Mercury Store. This project was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Special Thanks

To the brilliant, insightful, visionary friends who came into the rehearsal room and helped us make this show:

Morgan Green

Alex Tatarsky

Max Dana

Ruth Lichtman

Sarah Blush

Johnny Gasper

Eric Dean Wilson

Adam Gauzza

Amanda Horowitz

Jerry Lieblich

Miles Toth

Jessica Crawford

Aaron Mattocks

Maria Simpson

Jean Churchill 

Liz Smith

Carter Edwards

Kate Scelsa

Alex Batkin

Andrew Gardner

Will Arbery

Yiyi Huang

Bofang Zhou

Chandler Smith

Loach

And to Will Niedmann, Sofia Franklin, and Sara Winnick for the invaluable support outside the rehearsal room that allowed us to just keep rehearsing. Special thanks to Jillian Sweeny and the Jillibarn visits that saved us. To Caroline Gart and Justin Nestor, Max Abelson and Liza Batkin, your early support allowed us to open our imagination at a time when it began to close in on itself. Thank you to our co-producer and fiscal sponsor Immediate Medium. Thank you Kara Feely and Object Collection for the TV we didn’t end up using and Tavish Miller/The Wooster group for lending gear. A particularly loud thanks to Bob Rendón and PRG for making many technical dreams come true.

New York Live Arts Contributors

New York Live Arts is deeply grateful to all the individuals listed below for their vital gifts to New York Live Arts over the last year:

$500,000 and higher
Anonymous
Slobodan Randjelović & Jon Stryker

$100,000-$499,999
Marc and Lynne Benioff
Eleanor Friedman
Ruth & Stephen Hendel
Alex Katz Foundation

$50,000 – $99,999
Anonymous
Linda Genereux & Timur Galen
Helen & Peter Haje
Suzanne Karpas
Colleen Keegan
Barbara & Alan D. Marks
Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel | Semel Charitable Foundation
Wade Turnbull & David Hamed

$25,000 – $49,999

Tory Burch Foundation
Claire Danes & Hugh Dancy
Zoe Eskin
Emma Friedman-Cohen
Richard H. Levy & Lorraine Gallard
Stephanie & Tim Ingrassia
Darnell L. Moore & Yashua Simmons
Amy D. Newman & Bud Shulman
Luger Charitable Trust
Randy Polumbo / Plant Construction
Matthew Putman
In Memory of Linda Grass Shapiro

$10,000 – $24,999

Jody & John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation
Alexis Bittar
Patricia Blanchet / Ed Bradley Family Foundation
Amanda Burden
Pippa Cohen
Anne Delaney
Terence Dougherty & Pierre Duleyrie
Adam Flatto
Nicole Fleetwood
Karen & Edward Friedman
In Memory of Agnes Gund
Alexes Hazen
Herb Ritts, Jr. Foundation
AJ Hikes
Julie Orlando
Mark Pollack
John Robinson
Victoria Rogers
Jordan & Laura Rogove
Andrea Rosen
Joe Versace
Diana Wege
Stephanie & Tim Ingrassia

$5,000 – $9,999

David Bassett
Jeannie Colbert
Paula Cooper
Dan DeAlmeida
Claire Dewar
William Floyd
Theaster Gates
Hearst Magazines
Deborah Hellman & Derek Brown
Jeanine & Hervey Heriveaux
Jenny Holzer
Robert Longo
Michael Malafronte & Julia Haley
Wangechi Mutu
Thomas Rom
Clifford Ross
Erin Rossitto
Melissa Schiff Soros
Catharine R. Stimpson
Nina & Gabriel Stricker
Tito’s Handmade Vodka
Lynne & Vincent Toye
James A. Turrell & Kyung-Lim Lee
Van Cleef & Arpels
George Wells

$1,000 – $4,999

Derrick Adams & Michael Chuapoco
Michael Botbol
Nikole Cerniglia
Joyelle Chandler
Kim Cullen
Joan Davidson
Elizabeth Diller
John Eley
Michael Malafronte & Julia Haley
Mimi Garrard
Darren Glatt
Margey Goldman
Risa Goluboff
Thomas & Barbara Gottschalk
Sarah Harrelson
Ryan Hastings
Jason Hastings
Miety Heiden
Tom Hennes
Noelle Heriveaux
Barbara Hoffman
Tracy Hyter-Suffern
Cynthia Jones
Raja Feather Kelly
Chid Liberty
Glenn Ligon
Jeffrey B. & Wendy Liszt
Bernard Lumpkin & Carmine Boccuzzi
Nancy Meyer & Marc Weiss
Bella Meyer
Helen Mills & Gary Tannenbaum
Meridee Moore & Kevin King
Alessandra Nicifero
Helen Obermeyer
Michael Price
Kyle Ridaught
Salman Rushdie
Alanna Rutherford
Cicilia Sanchez
John Sansone
Marsha Seeman
Jeffrey Seller
Cindy Sherman
Barbara Shuster
Dee Dee Sides
Mark & Jessica Tallman
Gary Taylor
Hank Willis Thomas
Kris Togias
Billie Tsien
Marcie Weiss
Michael Wiggins
Megumi & Bruce Williams
Zack Winokur

$500 – $999

David Archuletta
Arthur Aviles
Lauren Cascio
Staceyann Chin
Julia Crodick
Linda Eichengreen & Douglas Beattie
Novella Ford
Nancy & Stephen Gabriel
Carlos Hatch
Erin Hawker
Sarah Jones
Robert Kaner
Christine Kim
Rachel Maceiras
Beverly McIver
Lynette Nylander
Colette Parsons
Chris Senkowski
Elizabeth Takeda
Carrie Mae Weems
Carol Yorke & Gerard Conn

Support for New York Live Arts is provided by the Albertine Foundation, Alice Lawrence Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Dance/NYC, Ed Bradley Family Foundation, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Lambent Foundation, Marta Heflin Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Muriel Pollia Foundation, National Performance Network, The Poss Family Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Semel Charitable Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Simons Foundation, Studio Institute, and Wolf Foundation.

Corporate support for New York Live Arts is provided by Tito’s Handmade Vodka.

New York Live Arts is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, with special thanks to Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and City Councilmember Carl Wilson. New York Live Arts’ programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Staff

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