Current Projects
A WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL
Sofa King Queer
A vibrant pop-punk musical about fu*king, family, and queer resistance.
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Kevin Sparrow
Directed by JD Caudill
Music Directed by Ron Attreau
Synopsis:
Chicago, September 2008: A group of LGBTQIA+ folks collide in one 24-hour period in this vibrant pop-punk musical about fu*king, family, and queer resistance. Through infectious tunes and heartfelt storytelling, these six people navigate desire, family bonds, and societal pressures amidst the backdrop of a rapidly changing world.
Music booker Topher is hosting the secret show of sometime lover Brody, lead singer of an about-to-be-famous band. Brody’s band is unknowingly headlining the venue’s first queer dance night, created by Topher’s current lover, Granger. Nao, the partner of Topher’s cousin Sil, sweeps in looking for guidance on how to deal with crises of love and social justice. Topher’s teen sister, Patty, stops by to pass time and gossip, learning more than she ever expected. As Topher’s apartment becomes crowded with guests expected and unexpected, Sofa King Queer raises the question: which secrets are worth revealing, and which ones should we keep to ourselves?
Now available! Stream the cast album on YouTube, Spotify, and more!
About my work.
I create, develop, and produce theatrical experiences rooted in the necessity of community. Often building from original, adapted, or collectively-devised narratives, my artistic work offers symbolic, imaginative landscapes that move between desire and reality, belief and action, cynicism and faith.
I’ve been an actor, director, facilitator, scenic designer, and producer. Additionally, I leverage performance as a form of knowledge-building through applied, community-engaged, and research-based processes. My theatre training is grounded in principles of narrative realism and Meisner Technique, which I often blend with other modes of performance. I’m currently interested in hybrid approaches that fuse theatre, dance, film, and authentic forms of participation.
Past projects.
Gray Area
Held.
Alone/Together
Tell Me What You Remember
Always Greener
Melancholy Play
Always Greener
Always Greener is a radically different musical that shatters the barriers between the disabled and non-disabled worlds. Five individual artists, in collaboration with Tellin' Tales Theatre, are creating Always Greener, an original musical that foregrounds the world of people with disabilities, using adaptive and inclusive casting, design, and direction.
Always Greener aims to validate experiences of disability and illuminate better understanding in those without by:
Advocating for the talent and professionalism of people with disabilities onstage.
Busting myths spread through stereotyped representation.
Placing people with disabilities back in the driver's seats of their own stories.
Reframing public understanding of disability as socially-constructed.
Expanding thinking about disability relationships, work, and sexuality.
Visit www.alwaysgreenermusical.org to learn more.
Book by Tekki Lomnicki & Erin Austin
Music & Lyrics by Noa/h Fields
Based on a concept developed with Thrisa Hodits, Jacob Watson, and Tellin’ Tales Theatre
Alone/Together, or Time Passes, or Isn’t it Interesting this Boredom?
a filmic-theatrical quarantine experiment, after V. Woolf.
Adapted and directed by Jacob Watson
Text: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Music: Under an Ending Sun by krackatoa and Escaping the Past by stacxk From the Free Music Archive
Narration by Alyssa Sorresso
Filmed + performed in isolation by Christopher Acevedo, Vanessa Chung, Rose Connelly, Jordan Koffman, Conrad Kuzmick, JeeYeun Lee, Joe Pinto, Alyssa Vera Ramos, Deanalís Resto, Kelby Siddons, Laura Stratford, and Abby Zan.
Gray Area: a new participatory play on consent
Many of us "get" consent: yes means yes, no means no. But what if the reality is more complicated than that? When our culture lacks a shared vocabulary for active consent, we are left lost in the space between definitions spelled out in black-and-white. Gray Area asks the difficult questions about where our ideas about consent come from, how they get enacted in our lives, and what happens when our reality doesn’t live up to our ideals. How do we navigate these murky waters, and -- when something goes wrong -- how do we, and our communities, heal?
Conceived by Jacob Watson, Micah Bernstein, and Vince Pagan
Written by Micah Bernstein and Elon Sloan
Produced by the FYI Performance Company
Envision Unlimited, May 2017
Directed by Jacob Watson
Lighting Design by Tony Santiago
Space Design by Brandi Lee
Costume Design by Nik Zaleski
Projections Design by Nic Park
Held.
a dance-music-theatre collaboration
Created by Ava Untermyer, Agasthya Shenoy, and Jacob Watson
for HybridSalonHGSE
Performed at the Bok Center for Teaching + Learning at Harvard University, April 2018.
Tell Me What You Remember
adapted by Gedalya Chinn, Nikki Zaleski, & Brighid O'Shaughnessy
Erasing the Distance at Filament Theatre
November 2015
Tell Me What You Remember is a world premiere production that tells the true story of one family’s life-altering battle with depression, using their distinct journey to illustrate the universal truth of how deeply depression can impact both those who suffer, and those who love them.
Directed by Nikki Zaleski
Scenic design by Jacob Watson
Lighting design by Diane Fairchild
Costume design by Liviu Pasare
Photos: Gretchen Kelley
"Finely acted and evocatively staged by Erasing the Distance, this one-hour play asks some of the hard questions we encounter in the course of growing up and growing old." - Chicago Reader
Melancholy Play: a chamber musical
by Sarah Ruhl
Piven Theatre Workshop
May 2015
Directed by Polly Noonan
Scenic design by Jacob Watson
Lighting design by Rachel Levy
Costume design by Stephanie Cluggish
Photos: Chris Zoubris
"Jacob Watson’s scenic design emphasizes otherworldly beauty: the portal behind the onstage musicians is covered in white curtains, and dim chandeliers dangle over the actors. This is consistent with Ruhl’s original stage directions, which avoid realism, making the space the interior of someone’s mind and a manifestation of Tilly’s liking for simplicity." - Chicago Critic
