Chrysalis Theatre Company Presents
Written and Performed By:
Sora Baek
Cindy Keiter
Gabriela Kohen
Adina Taubman
Susan Ward
Directed By:
Hope Salas
Sora Baek
Cindy Keiter
Gabriela Kohen
Adina Taubman
Susan Ward
Directed By:
Hope Salas
A note from the artistic director:
After the isolation of the pandemic, working on my solo show, and making audition self-tapes in my apartment for several years, I found myself longing for community, a place to create theater with other like-minded artists, and I felt a particularly strong need to do this with a group of women.
This past fall, in early October, I began meeting once a week with an incredible group of women who act and as well as write, all of whom have created and performed their own solo shows, to devise an ensemble play about the challenges we face as women “of a certain age.”
Each week, we brought in writing to share with the group. We listened. We held space for each other. We gave constructive feedback and encouragement. And we built trust and connection. It’s been a total joy and an honor to work with them. They shared their experiences, their challenges, and their triumphs bravely and without hesitation. I’m so grateful to each of them. Their talent and generosity has inspired me.
After six months of working together, we are ready to share our labor of love with you.
The addition of Hope Salas, our brilliant and visionary director, has made our rehearsal process a thrilling one. She joined us in late February to help craft the script that we are performing tonight, and she has brought so much fun, fearless, and fierce creativity to us. I’m so happy and grateful that we’re finally working together.
This piece is a work in progress, a workshop production. It's an hour-long teaser, an "amuse-bouche", if you will, of what will develop into a full production next year.
We will have a brief talkback after the show.
Thank you for coming and for your support. It means the world to us.
After the isolation of the pandemic, working on my solo show, and making audition self-tapes in my apartment for several years, I found myself longing for community, a place to create theater with other like-minded artists, and I felt a particularly strong need to do this with a group of women.
This past fall, in early October, I began meeting once a week with an incredible group of women who act and as well as write, all of whom have created and performed their own solo shows, to devise an ensemble play about the challenges we face as women “of a certain age.”
Each week, we brought in writing to share with the group. We listened. We held space for each other. We gave constructive feedback and encouragement. And we built trust and connection. It’s been a total joy and an honor to work with them. They shared their experiences, their challenges, and their triumphs bravely and without hesitation. I’m so grateful to each of them. Their talent and generosity has inspired me.
After six months of working together, we are ready to share our labor of love with you.
The addition of Hope Salas, our brilliant and visionary director, has made our rehearsal process a thrilling one. She joined us in late February to help craft the script that we are performing tonight, and she has brought so much fun, fearless, and fierce creativity to us. I’m so happy and grateful that we’re finally working together.
This piece is a work in progress, a workshop production. It's an hour-long teaser, an "amuse-bouche", if you will, of what will develop into a full production next year.
We will have a brief talkback after the show.
Thank you for coming and for your support. It means the world to us.
~ Adina Taubman, Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre Company
About Us
SORA BAEK (Writer/Performer) is an actor and playwright from South Korea. She has been featured on News the Korea Times, News 12 NJ and Voice of America. Select acting theater credits include: SELL ME; I am from North Korea (the US Capitol Center), The Storm, A Christmas Carol, and Sworn Virgin (NYC and International Tour) with Blessed Unrest. Sora is excited to bring her solo show SELL ME: I am from North Korea to Edinburgh Fringe 2024. sorabaek.com, IG @iamsorabaek, FB@sorabaek13
CINDY KEITER (Writer/Performer) is so pleased to be on stage with other actors again! Previous solo work includes, "Whatever Happened to Cat Stevens?", "Haole" and "Recreating Keiter". Recent film, "Born Again Reject" on the film festival circuit just won "Best Horror Short" in the Coney Island Film Festival. Cindy plays the meanest character ever! NYU Tisch School of the Arts, grew up in Hawaii, other TV credits include - Law and Order, MTV, FX Channel, NYC stage favorites, "A Lie of the Mind", "The Cherry Orchard", "12 Angry Women". Los Angeles roles, "Domestic Violence", "A World of Mirth" winner of Dramalogue Awards etc. Cindykeiter.com Thanks Adina!
GABRIELA KOHEN (Writer/Performer) received her MFA from The American Conservatory Theater. She has toured her critically acclaimed, autobiographical one-woman-show, “Decoding the Tablecloth,” nationally, and won the award for “Outstanding Solo Show” at the NY International Fringe Festival. She most recently played the role of Karina in the series GROUP, on PBS Arts. Gaby is a psychoanalyst in private practice, and faculty at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. She specializes in working with artists of all kinds. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and is working on her dissertation about the healing power of autobiographical performance. gabrielakohen.com, FB @gabykohen
HOPE SALAS (Director) is an actress, writer, producer, and teaching artist. She is now adding DIRECTOR to her credentials as she debuts her work with the Chrysalis Theater Company in SHE TAKES FLIGHT. She is honored to be working with this talented group of women. HopeSalas.com, IG and FB @hopesalas
ADINA TAUBMAN (Writer/Performer) is an actor, playwright, and the artistic director of Chrysalis Theatre Company. With Chrysalis: Barking Girl by Susan Bernfield, The Stop Gun Violence NOW Theater Festival, Beauty in My Brokenness, The Road Back: One Woman’s Journey From Depression To Recovery. This spring, Adina performed The Road Back, at The United Solo Festival. She’s taken the show to Rochester, NY (Reel Mind Festival, Nazareth College, and Rochester General Hospital) and to Fairfiend, CT (Greenfield Hill Congregational Church), world premiere at The Chain Theatre (2022). Adina has performed, A Line in the Sand, her solo docudrama about the Columbine High School massacre, in
nine theater festivals and in high schools around the country. chrysalistheatrecompany.com, IG and FB @adinataubman
SUSAN WARD (Writer/Performer) received her BFA in Musical Theater from Florida State University. She was an Apprentice with the Miami Opera Company and The Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater. In NYC and Westchester County she has worked in Equity Showcases, Sketch Comedy and Musical Tours as well as appearing in local commercials and industrials. Her Solo Show “Wasbian,” Directed by Austin Pendleton, won “Best Autobiographical One Woman Show” in the United Solo Festival. Today she teaches Scene Study, Directs, Writes and joyfully Acts in projects that make her heart sing. Big thanks to Adina for inviting me to share this amazing experience with such talented women. susanwardactress.com, IG @susan.k.ward, FG @susanward
MIKAELA BLANCHARD (Stage Manager) Mikaela started professionally stage managing for national dance competitions in 2013. In 2017, she worked on her first NYC theater production with the Bronx’s Red Monkey Theater Group, and has worked on nine productions with them since. In 2022, she managed a staged reading of Domnica Radulescu’s Exile is My Home, produced by the Romanian Cultural Institute. Following that, she worked on new shows at the Theater for the New City and the American Theater for Actors. Starting this Fall, Mikaela will start working towards her MA in Arts Administration at Baruch College. You can follow her on Instagram @mikaela_amelia.
Special Thanks: To Kirk and Christina and the entire staff at The Chain Theatre for giving us a home, to Molly Pearson for her guidance and endless encouragement, and to Gloria Steinem and women everywhere, who are creating circles of community and strength to lift each other up.
CINDY KEITER (Writer/Performer) is so pleased to be on stage with other actors again! Previous solo work includes, "Whatever Happened to Cat Stevens?", "Haole" and "Recreating Keiter". Recent film, "Born Again Reject" on the film festival circuit just won "Best Horror Short" in the Coney Island Film Festival. Cindy plays the meanest character ever! NYU Tisch School of the Arts, grew up in Hawaii, other TV credits include - Law and Order, MTV, FX Channel, NYC stage favorites, "A Lie of the Mind", "The Cherry Orchard", "12 Angry Women". Los Angeles roles, "Domestic Violence", "A World of Mirth" winner of Dramalogue Awards etc. Cindykeiter.com Thanks Adina!
GABRIELA KOHEN (Writer/Performer) received her MFA from The American Conservatory Theater. She has toured her critically acclaimed, autobiographical one-woman-show, “Decoding the Tablecloth,” nationally, and won the award for “Outstanding Solo Show” at the NY International Fringe Festival. She most recently played the role of Karina in the series GROUP, on PBS Arts. Gaby is a psychoanalyst in private practice, and faculty at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. She specializes in working with artists of all kinds. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and is working on her dissertation about the healing power of autobiographical performance. gabrielakohen.com, FB @gabykohen
HOPE SALAS (Director) is an actress, writer, producer, and teaching artist. She is now adding DIRECTOR to her credentials as she debuts her work with the Chrysalis Theater Company in SHE TAKES FLIGHT. She is honored to be working with this talented group of women. HopeSalas.com, IG and FB @hopesalas
ADINA TAUBMAN (Writer/Performer) is an actor, playwright, and the artistic director of Chrysalis Theatre Company. With Chrysalis: Barking Girl by Susan Bernfield, The Stop Gun Violence NOW Theater Festival, Beauty in My Brokenness, The Road Back: One Woman’s Journey From Depression To Recovery. This spring, Adina performed The Road Back, at The United Solo Festival. She’s taken the show to Rochester, NY (Reel Mind Festival, Nazareth College, and Rochester General Hospital) and to Fairfiend, CT (Greenfield Hill Congregational Church), world premiere at The Chain Theatre (2022). Adina has performed, A Line in the Sand, her solo docudrama about the Columbine High School massacre, in
nine theater festivals and in high schools around the country. chrysalistheatrecompany.com, IG and FB @adinataubman
SUSAN WARD (Writer/Performer) received her BFA in Musical Theater from Florida State University. She was an Apprentice with the Miami Opera Company and The Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater. In NYC and Westchester County she has worked in Equity Showcases, Sketch Comedy and Musical Tours as well as appearing in local commercials and industrials. Her Solo Show “Wasbian,” Directed by Austin Pendleton, won “Best Autobiographical One Woman Show” in the United Solo Festival. Today she teaches Scene Study, Directs, Writes and joyfully Acts in projects that make her heart sing. Big thanks to Adina for inviting me to share this amazing experience with such talented women. susanwardactress.com, IG @susan.k.ward, FG @susanward
MIKAELA BLANCHARD (Stage Manager) Mikaela started professionally stage managing for national dance competitions in 2013. In 2017, she worked on her first NYC theater production with the Bronx’s Red Monkey Theater Group, and has worked on nine productions with them since. In 2022, she managed a staged reading of Domnica Radulescu’s Exile is My Home, produced by the Romanian Cultural Institute. Following that, she worked on new shows at the Theater for the New City and the American Theater for Actors. Starting this Fall, Mikaela will start working towards her MA in Arts Administration at Baruch College. You can follow her on Instagram @mikaela_amelia.
Special Thanks: To Kirk and Christina and the entire staff at The Chain Theatre for giving us a home, to Molly Pearson for her guidance and endless encouragement, and to Gloria Steinem and women everywhere, who are creating circles of community and strength to lift each other up.