"A promising young company bravely taking on the impossible Stein challenge."
--Charles McNulty, The Village Voice

"Born out of a love of Gertrude Stein, Polybe + Seats is the coolest new ensemble company in town. The group's taste for language, its understanding of how to turn language into action, and its generosity of spirit all make this company's work a pleasure."
--Shawn-Marie Garrett, Contributing Editor, Theater Magazine

Polybe + Seats was born in Jessica Brater's head during a production of "Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It" that she directed at the Minor Latham Playhouse.   She read about Stein's dog's name and liked it.   For a while, we were just Polybe and under that guise we performed Desmond or Abraham and Frances in the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival.   Then, in 2002, we became Polybe + Seats, which is also from Turkey and Bones ...   That spring and summer we produced Two Spent Swimmers , first at the Brown University New Plays Festival, in Providence, Rhode Island, and then at the Abingdon Theater in New York City.

In the fall of 2002, we decided that we liked each other enough to continue making plays together. So that winter we did a workshop production of Jordan Harrison's The Museum Play in the leaky and cold Present Company Theatorium in New York City. Jessica Brater then decided she had been away from Stein for too long, and in the warmer months we did three productions of a set of short plays that Stein wrote in the 30s and 40s. We had some music and that was lovely. You can read the review of that play, called Careful of Eights , on the READINGS AND WRITINGS page.

Polybe + Seats produces plays and projects that experiment with language and structure toward the development ofa new poetics for the theater. We challenge the artists in our company to create new ways of speaking and acting, and we invite our audiences to find new, complex ways of listening and interpreting. Our name is taken from one of Gertrude Stein's plays and our work is inspired by her writing for and about the theater.

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