Membership Spotlight – April 2026

I am currently working on the premiere of a new show by Symara Sarai called Angelic Architectures. It runs through April 25th. Symara has been in residency at Abrons Arts Center since September of 2024 and this is the culmination of that work. The piece is a dance theater work that is joyful, biting, intimate and hilarious. Symara has spent a year and a half developing this work with us across multiple workshops and most recently shared a developmental run with Highschool Students who responded and provided feedback. I have felt incredibly lucky to be a part the next steps for this work and am so glad to be sharing it with audiences next week. It sold out, so I am also bragging!

Sam Pinkelton’s direction of The Rocky Horror Show that just opened in midtown, is living in my head since I saw it. The production has so much beautiful spectacle and celebration happening on the stage, but the most important moments to me were when the ensemble is standing on an empty hard wood floor stage with a black show curtain behind them. The floor is littered with spike tape, like any Highschool Auditorium stage would be. It feels like an ode to every theater kid who identifies(ed) with the weird, othered characters of Richard O’Brien’s show while they experience terror and euphoria together in new ways. It really spoke to what sparked my first instinct to call myself a theater maker.

In the fall we are going to be presenting Flying Leap’s the Garden – both at Abrons Center and in the neighboring New York City Housing Authority sites. It’s so wonderful that this tri-lingual work will be presented for our youngest learners and audiences and their caregivers. The piece showcases interactive play in local parks and green spaces, and I can’t wait to share the work of this local company with the neighborhood.

TYA lets me be the weird, gross, and strange creator I was as a young person, and want to still be in my work!

I love working with Rebecca Cunningham who created and produces the podcast Girl Tales!. Rebecca and I first worked together when she directed CQ Quintana’s (another amazing collaborator that I will shout out!) play Flor to Somewhere for Peppercorn Theater. I think that was 11 years ago! Since then, she has been making incredible podcasts for kids, including Ghost Tour – which everyone should check out!

This isn’t fair because she mentors us all – but Sara Morgulis just agreed to be an official mentor for me. I am stepping into a new (temporary) executive leadership role this summer, and Sara is the coolest exec I know. Cop out answer? For sure. But genuine? Absolutely.

Come see a show, exhibit, or take a class at Abrons Arts Center! You can email me at hposter@henrystreet.org – or just ask for me at the front desk.

I am currently working on my thesis, which I will begin implementing this summer. The project, titled “Northern Echoes Performing Justice Project”, is a six-week applied theatre residency designed to empower Northern Nigerian youth in Jos, Plateau State, ages 13–15, of all genders, to use performance as a vehicle for justice, healing, and social imagination.

Rooted in the belief that young people are active knowledge-bearers and creative agents, this project will provide a space for participants to explore their experiences and perspectives on justice, injustice, tribalism, gender inequality, and religious tension in Northern Nigeria. Through creative drama, poetry, movement, and spoken word, participants will co-create original performances, culminating in a community showcase and a collaboratively produced digital story.

A piece of art I find inspiring any day, anytime is the dance videos by Masaka Kids Africana. I’m absolutely obsessed!

My dream project is to create a sustainable summer camp for children in my home country, Nigeria, where they can explore African folktales in ways that inspire them to tell their own stories. Through theatre, storytelling, music, movement, and visual art, the camp will encourage children to express themselves in different forms, discover their creativity, and feel empowered by the value of their own voices and experiences.

As a young person, I had very limited exposure to theatre, yet the few forms of theatre I encountered have continued to inspire me in ways that keep giving. The theatre I experienced was free, accessible, and fun, and it was rooted in African folktales. It was free because I did not have to pay to experience it, and once I heard the stories, I felt capable of retelling them myself. It was accessible because the stories were easy to tell and easy to understand for both educated and uneducated audiences. Most of all, it was fun, the jokes, the songs, and the energy still linger with me to this day.

These were simple and entertaining stories, yet they were full of moral lessons, wisdom, and insight. From those experiences, I learned that one story can go a long way in a child’s life. So imagine what two, three, or even more stories can do. This is why Theatre for Young Audiences matters to me. It is not just about performance; it is about access, imagination, learning, and giving children stories that stay with them for a lifetime.

Jasmine Games, we worked on Courageous Cadence in 2024 together.  Courageous Cadence is a Spoken Word Poetry Action Residency, a Performing Justice project that supports youth in creating original spoken-word performances addressing themes of race, gender, and justice. The program culminated in a youth-led showcase where participants hosted the event, presented poems they had written, and published their work with AustinBatCave. Youth also created digital stories, equipping them with both artistic skills and civic confidence.

Megan Alrutz.

My email is araji@utexas.edu or Annase Raji on LinkedIn.

​​My first TYA play, Black River, will be developed with New Plays for Young Audiences (NPYA) this June. I’m really excited to be working on a piece that follows ten-year-old Jonas, who, while grieving his father’s death, is swept into a mythical canoe journey down Wisconsin’s Black River, where imagination and unexpected guides help him navigate love, loss, and healing.

Camille A. Brown’s BLACK GIRL: LINGUISTIC PLAY.

A dream project for me is my Imaginals cycle, a series of stories centered on Black and brown teens and tweens in New York City who possess extraordinary abilities to manifest realities and move between dimensions through their art and imagination.

I’m a parent of five- and six-year-olds, so the way I tell stories has shifted toward what feels exciting and meaningful to them.

Zhailon Levingston. THEA, Mother of Pearl, and Sweetwater: The Gospel of Iman.

Suzan Zeder.

www.nathanyungerberg.com.