PRESS:

Water-logged in Red Hook with Polybe + Seats, by Hillary Miller for The Brooklyn Rail (April 2010)
A more modern tale of nautical woe will emerge from the foamy waters of Red Hook this Spring, with A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things-the first full theatrical production to take place at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge, docked at Pier 44. [MORE]

Twenty-First Century Fish Tale, by Risa Shoup for The Huffington Post (April 2010)
Polybe and Seats' A Thousand, Thousand Slimy Things is a play that raises awareness about marine conservation wrapped in fantasia. The play is not an allegory, and it feels neither didactic nor cloyingly topical. It is at once an engaging fiction and a harrowing tale of the dangers of pollution. [MORE]

Stage Notes: A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things: An Aquatic Spectacular of Conservation and Change, by Tom Murrin for Papermag.com (April 2010)
Producer Polybe + Seats brings us a timely, site-specific piece at the Showboat Barge in Red Hook, which opened the day after Earth Day. [MORE]

Jessica Brater, A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things, by Zoe Schlanger for Gothamist (April 2010)
Ah, the mermaids of Weeki Wachi, that curious Florida roadside attraction so exhaustively documented on YouTube. Jessica Brater, Artistic Director of the Brooklyn-based experimental theater company Polybe + Seats, found inspiration in the attraction's struggle to stay open for her newest production. [MORE]

Polybe + Seats: Promises Made + Kept, A THOUSAND THOUSAND SLIMY THINGS reviewed for Theatre Kinghts (& Daze) (April 2010)
A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things, the latest production by Polybe + Seats, playing thru May 9th at the Red Hook Waterfront Museum & Show Barge, promises a lot of things. [MORE]

A THOUSAND THOUSAND SLIMY THINGS reviewed for NYTheatre.com by Daniel John Kelley (April 2010)
The performance of A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things takes place on a rickety old wooden boat in Red Hook harbor. The play is about mermaids, sailors, oceanic explorers, and the sea itself, which makes this location a wonderful choice. Boarding the boat - the sun in your eyes, the ocean in your nose - you get a real sense of this world of the sea. [MORE]

The Life Aquatic, A THOUSAND THOUSAND SLIMY THINGS reviewed for Off Off Online by Nicole Watson (April 2010)
Polybe + Seats' latest installation, A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things: An Aquatic Spectacular of Conservation and Change, is an ambitious attempt to investigate our relationship to the sea. It is a theatrical convergence of our romanticism of the ocean and our actual daily destruction of it as land loving consumers. [MORE]

GRANADA reviewed for TheaterOnline.com, by Jennifer Rathbone (November 2009)
Inspired by Gertrude Stein and the contemporary aesthetics of her 20th Century Paris Salon, Polybe + Seats is establishing itself in experimental theater. Their recent collaboration, Granada, written by Avi Glickstein and directed by Jessica Brater, is a culmination of artistic composition, creative writing, and sensationalized expression of language and movement. Arousing visceral connections to historical events and cultures, Polybe + Seats adeptly ventures into explorations of identity. Ladino culture provides an intriguing medium for a company developing their voice through storytelling, ritual, and fantasy. [MORE]

Granada (and I'm not talking about pomegranates), by Pataphysical Science (November 9, 2009)
Truth be told, I had reservations about Granada, written by Avi Glickstein, when I read it involved such characters as a bear vomiting coins and a princess hatched from a grapefruit. Though I try to be open-minded and support all theater, I prefer linear and realistic story-telling. Luckily, the play proved to be a chance to learn more about Sephardic tradition, a history that I should probably know more about (I'm Ashkenazi), with its use of Ladino (the Sephardic language) music and Sephardic folklore. [MORE]

Finding a Way Back to the Land of Granada, by Gwen Orel (The Jewish Daily Forward, December 2, 2009 )
The Prince of Spain (Ari Vigoda) welcomes a representative Jewess, the Young Woman From Egypt. Egypt? It's where philosopher Moses Maimonides, author of "The Guide for the Perplexed," hailed from - no coincidence. In the first scene, the woman informs the prince that she is the resurrection of Maimonides. Not the reincarnation, but the resurrection - she imbibed his soul while visiting his tomb. As the woman, Sarah Sakaan displays compelling passion and strength when she announces her identity, and the play feels exciting. [MORE]

The Power of an Apology, by Ted Merwin (The New York Jewish Week, November 17, 2009 )
How much does an apology matter? When, in 1992, the King of Spain symbolically welcomed Jews back into Spain exactly five centuries after they were banished, he neglected to do one thing: apologize. This glaring omission inspired "Granada," a new surrealistic play by Avi Glickstein at the Polybe + Seats Theater Company that imagines how the historical rupture caused by half a millennium of exile might be healed - or, at least, brought to closure. [MORE]

The 365 Days/365 Plays Festival takes up shop in Brooklyn, by Jerry Portwood (New York Press, January 2007)
Stand amongst the Le Creuset or cop a squat near the rolling pins and KitchenAid appliances and get read to take in a bit of theater. No really. Polybe + Seats, the 5-year-old experimental theater company, is starting out the year by staging seven short plays in unconventional settings--like the Brooklyn Kitchen, a new kitchenware shop in Williamsburg. [MORE]

THE CHARLOTTE SALOMON PROJECT, reviewed for nytheatre.com by Komail Aijazuddin, November 3, 2006
"Have you been to the gallery?" Charlotte Salomon asks.
Salomon, a German Jew, was killed at Auschwitz in 1944. Standing before me, in a charming space in Brooklyn, is her personification. The daring company Polybe + Seats is the one responsible for her resurrection in the play The Charlotte Salomon Project, based on her life and art (she had made over 1,300 paintings before she died). It's strange, to say the least, when the protagonist is asking you a question. Get used to it. [MORE]

The Abstract Pact by Charles McNulty (The Village Voice, August 13, 2003)
Gertrude Stein never fails to attract emerging artists to the salon of her pathbreaking imagination. Yet what Stein's devotees need to scrupulously ask themselves is whether their enjoyment stems from the experience of her work or the ideas behind it...[MORE]

Barnard, Columbia Alumni Collaborate to Bring Gertrude Stein's Works to the Stage
As undergraduate theatre students at Barnard, Jessica Brater (BC'00) and Stacey McMath (BC'01, SOA'04), along with their classmates, received hands-on training as producers, directors, designers and stage managers...[ MORE]   

Barnard Alumnae's Theater Company Polybe + Seats Performs at Beckman Theatre
Polybe + Seats, a small theater company inspired by Gertrude Stein's ideas and work for the theater, which features recent graduates of Barnard College, will present Careful of Eights ... [MORE]

WRITINGS:   

PLAY A JOURNAL OF PLAYS eds. Sally Oswald and Jordan Harrison
PLAY A JOURNAL OF PLAYS is devoted to reinventing the life of plays on the page. [MORE]