NACL Productions

NACL performances are very physical, and often incorporate complex group singing, unusual audience seating, and a surprising use of sets and objects by the highly skilled actors, who transform space to capture the imagination of the spectator. The term “devised” is sometimes used to describe NACL Theatre’s method and style. The company has toured across the United States and Canada, and has played in England, Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania. In the New York area, NACL has performed at HERE Arts Center, La MaMa, The Ohio Theatre, Washington Square Church, Access Theatre, The Brecht Forum, PS 122, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art.

COURAGE

Courage is an immersive walking journey inside an imagined refugee camp occupied by stilt-patrolling soldiers, and populated by a host of characters that engage the audience along the way. Courage is based on Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 anti-war classic Mother Courage and Her Children, written in response to the devastating rise of fascism in Europe. This NACL musical spectacular tells the story of a mother searching for her lost son, as she advocates for empathy and compassion in an era of fear, displacement, and crisis.

THE WEATHER PROJECT

Beginning in the summer of 2013, NACL lead a team of artists, scientists, local leaders, and laypeople in creating The Weather Project, a community-wide theatre, art, and science project about the weather, ourlives, our local history, our environment, and our current climate. The first phase of the project culminated in a spectacular outdoor pageant in August 2014, and was followed by a second touring phase which concluded in August 2015. (Photo by Brian Caiazza)

SHAKESPEARE'S WILL

Tannis Kowalchuk performs the role of Anne Hathaway in this lively song-filled solo performance about the life of the wife of William Shakespeare. Basing the narrative upon the little information known about the Bard’s wife, playwright Vern Thiessen has written a sensitive and humorous text in verse, taking great delight in imagining and inventing the robust, earthy, and intelligent character of Anne Hathaway.

STRUCK

STRUCK is an exploration of neuroscience and brain trauma. It is a poetic dance on the razor's edge of mortality, as the brain and body look for meaning, struggle to communicate, recover and re-discover the sense of "self" following a stroke. (Photo by Steve Wagner)