IN THE LAB
REFUGE is a wordless play exploring displacement and migration drawn from personal stories of our 8-person performance collective with original sound design. It is performed in Larval Masks (see below).
REFUGE weaves together three threads:
1. A linear, dramatic thread following a Girl protagonist who flees her homeland with her Father to a new country
2. A darkly comic thread following Everyperson as they encounter the ridiculous and labyrinthine bureaucracy of applications, forms, lotteries, approvals, waitlists, and tests
3. A poetic, imagistic thread using metaphor to embody the greater forces behind migration/displacement like climate disaster, politics and economics.
During their residency, the Collective will complete work on the play that was started at NACL last summer and will offer a preview of the full performance on July 19th.
Sources of REFUGE
At the end of 2021, 89.3 million people worldwide were displaced because of persecution, conflict, human rights violations or climate change. Each collective member comes to this project with a personal connection to migration or displacement. All of us feel the urgency NOW to humanize the face of the displaced/migrant experience to bring attention and compassion to the growing number of displaced people. We draw on stories from collective members originally from Argentina, Ghana, Greece, South Africa, and the USA.
What are Larval Masks?
Larval Masks are human characters in the “state of becoming.” They have a simple way of moving through the world and represent us at our most curious and vulnerable. Their otherworldly quality plunges the audience into the unsettling experience of being in an alien land. The masks evoke the intimacy of individual experience without settling on a specific person, time or place, allowing the story to transcend nationality and culture. The silent performance style transcends language, reaching audiences across linguistic borders.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
IRINI AMPOUMOGLI (she/her) (dramaturg and performer) is the daughter of a Palestinian immigrant to Greece. She is an actress and MA stage director (Drama Department, School of Fine Arts, University of Thessaloniki, Greece). She is also a graduate of Lassâad Ecole Internationale de Théâtre, where she studied the Lecoq pedagogy. She has attended workshops at famous European theatres like Odin Teatret, Denmark, the Grotowski Institute, Poland, and Family Floez, Germany and has studied Meyerhold’s biomechanics with Gennadi Bogdanov in Perugia, Italy. As an actress, stage director and assistant director she has collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Onassis Foundation et.al and has taught mask, pantomime, and acting in drama schools in Thessaloniki and Crete. Apart from theatre, she is also engaged in research regarding social inequalities and is currently obtaining her MSc in Sociology at the University of Crete, where she is an active member of the Laboratory for the Study of Gender and the Gender Equality Committee of the University.
MEGAN CAMPISI (she/her) (writer) is a playwright, novelist, and teacher. Her plays have performed in China, France, and the United States. From 2005 to 2015 she co-directed and performed with Gold No Trade, a company that devised physical theater. In 2019 she received a Fulbright Specialist award to give master classes in Lecoq at Tatbikat Theatre in Ankara, Turkey. Her last play, Malus domestica, was long-listed for the Synecdoche Prize. Her first novel, Sin Eater, received the Debut Crown award from the Historical Writers’ Association in 2021. She attended Yale University (BA) and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (MFA) and trained at RADA (Shakespeare) and with Antonio Fava (Commedia dell'Arte). She is current faculty in Physical Theater at the Neighborhood Playhouse conservatory in NYC and has taught at Yale University and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Megan lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.
megancampisi.com
JULIA CAVAGNA (performer) is an Argentinean born, Brooklyn based actress, director and dramaturge. She studied Sociology and Classical and Physical Theater. She has a BA in Drama from EMAD, Buenos Aires and has trained with different mentors (Belisario and Movement Theater Studio). Her work is in the frontier of movement, site-specific, classical and contemporary theater and film. She is an active member of the NY theater scene. She was selected to be part of Patrice Chéreau’s Elektra (2016) and Simon Mcburney’s Die Zauberflote (2023) both at the Metropolitan Opera. As a director, she released: O.Y.A., Sentimiento González is da Bomb! (Undiscovered Countries, Boog City), MALALA (selected at NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival ‘21) and Prácticas Materiales (Undiscovered Countries Incubator ’20; recipient of JACK Artist Residency at Governors Island ’21; recipient of the City Artist Corps Grants ’21). She is a proud performer and collaborator in Solitary (Habermann-Cooper) presented at the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh (2019). She is a new member of Broken Box Theater Company. Internationally appearances include: Argentina, Puerto Rico, Brasil, Thailand, Japan, Scotland, South Australia and Spain. She has co-founded: Lampazo Group, Las Pibas Theater Company, and THEATER TO THE PEOPLE (awarded with the 2019 and 2021 BAC Grant and 2020 Town Stages Fellowship)
juliacavagna.online
JAY DUNN (performer) is an actor, director and choreographer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has worked as an actor Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally with companies including the LA Philharmonic & Simon McBurney, Pig Iron Theatre Company, rainpan43, Geoff Sobelle & Charlotte Ford, PTP/NYC & Project Y, U.S. theaters including Atlantic Stage 2, Arena Stage, Folger Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, MCA Theatre and international venues such as The Barbican, Edinburgh Fringe, and Paris’s Maison des Metallos. As a director/choreographer, selected credits include Music at the Close at Carnegie Hall, the world premiere of Spoolie Girl Off-Broadway, Village of Vale at Lincoln Center Education, and a developmental libretto reading of Rev 23 with White Snake Projects/Beth Morrison Projects. Jay’s on-screen work can be seen in feature films The Harbinger, We Go On, Ex-Girlfriends (all Middlebury alum-driven writers/directors), and as a motion capture performer in Red Dead Redemption 2. Jay is a graduate of L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq and currently teaches acting, movement, commedia and physical comedy in NYC at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and SUNY Purchase BFA. jaydunn.co
BLAKE HABERMANN (performer) is a performer, director, and educator working in NYC. Recent projects include performing as Pierrot in Ariadne Auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera and composing, writing, and producing as part of the indie music duo Arga Reath. Blake attended NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing and completed L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq.
SAMANTHA HERRERA (she/her) (performer) is a Filipina actor, director, and filmmaker from Queens, NY. She last directed a one-woman show, Woman/Mujer at The Brick Aux and El Nogalar by Tanya Saracho at The Broom Tree Theater. Her last performance was a successful run of Native Gardens by Mexican playwright Karen Zacarias at The Hampton Theater Company. While attending Hunter College, she helped spearhead the MFA playwriting festival with playwrights-in-residence, Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Currently, she is on the faculty of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater as a Stage Combat Assistant and Admissions Representative. She is also yoga certified and presently teaches to the joyful elders in her hometown in NYC.
BRENDAN McMAHON (performer) is a theatre artist, actor, director, and teacher. He is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Performance, specializing in Movement and Theatre Devising at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. As a performer he has worked at theaters such as the Lincoln Center, The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC, The Kennedy Center, The Public Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Asolo Rep, and with companies such as Mabou Mines, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Basil Twist’s Dream Music Puppetry, and many others. As a director, movement director, mask director, and fight choreographer, he has worked on Off-Broadway, academic, touring, and film productions, and at New York City theatres including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Culture Project, and Theatre Row. Most recently he directed The Servant of Two Masters at the Oregon Center for the Arts. Upcoming projects include Movement Directing for New York Classical Theatre’s upcoming production of Richard III, and directing Patrick Barlow’s A Christmas Carol at Collaborative Theatre Project in Medford, OR.
brendanmcmahon.org
MALCOLM OPOKU (performer) is a 2016 graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre (NY), was born and raised in Accra, Ghana, and holds a BA from Queens University of Charlotte in International Studies and African Politics. Malcolm is passionate about work that challenges biases, illuminates identity, confronts power structures and holds a mirror up to nature. Recent credits include: Marat/Sade (The Theatre at Shapiro), As You Like It (Lenfest Center for The Arts), Black Hollow (Alchemical Studios), A Stitch Here Or There (The Playwright’s Loft), Ruined (Heights Players), and Solitary (Edinburgh Fringe Festival).
Photo by Samantha Herrera