photo credit: Maria Baranova, Roger Cremers
You are a milkman. You have a job to do. Deliver the milk. But the townspeople are insatiably milk-hungry, the mayor’s eyes are brimming with milk-lust, and lurking in the milk-dark shadows, the Milk Monster stalks your every move. Still, you want to do a good job. Maybe even a great job.
MILKMAN ZERO is a darkly funny work of psychological horror built inside a text adventure, the oldest kind of computer game. No graphics, no images, just a world conjured with text, and a blinking cursor waiting for the next typed command: “open door”, “talk to woman”, “deliver milk”.
Artist Matt Romein plays the game live from a keyboard as the story spells itself out letter by letter on a video wall behind him, every character landing with the clack of a typewriter. Directed by Jerry Lieblich, the performance is accompanied by an immersive soundscape that builds a milk-mad town out of nothing but words and sound. Like a ghost story around a campfire, the horror takes shape in the audience’s collective imagination, one milk delivery at a time.
Part solo performance, part live playthrough: over the course of an evening, the world of MILKMAN ZERO continues to exist only as long as the player keeps typing. Deliver the milk. Ignore everything else.
“(Matt Romein’s work is) funny and unnerving, even strangely melancholy.” – Vulture
CREDITS
Creator, Producer, Performer: Matt Romein
Director: Jerry Lieblich
Light and Scenic Designer: Kate McGee
Sound Designer: Ryan Gamblin
Associate Producer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Key Art and Illustration: Yuan Peng
Dramaturgical Consultant: James La Bella
Coding Consultant: Oren Shoham
Presenter and co-producer: Mitu
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Matt Romein (he/him) is an artist, coder, and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. His work spans live performance, virtual puppetry, generative computer art and video game theater. He writes and codes theater performances that run on video game logic, telling stories, often funny, often unnerving, about characters caught between their physical and digital lives. His shows include Bag of Worms with Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey (Under the Radar, 2024), God Mode with James La Bella (The Brick, 2025), and the upcoming Castle Door with Walker Caplan (La MaMa, 2027). Additionally he has worked as a video designer for artists such as Peter Mills Weiss & Julia Mounsey, James Allister Sprang, Neal Medlyn, and Piehole. He has received grants and residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, Franklin Furnace, NYFA/NYSCA, Mercury Store, and Pioneer Works, among others. He is a studio member at Onassis ONX. Sad Soft Caves is Romein’s Brooklyn-based producing company, founded in 2026 to produce theatrical performance work employing video games, technology and live bodies. MILKMAN ZERO is its inaugural production.
Jerry Lieblich (they/them) writes and plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Prior work includes The Barbarians (La Mama, Obie Award-winner for Outstanding Direction), without mirrors (The Brick, Drama Desk Nomination), Mahinerator (The Tank), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Clubbed Thumb, NY Times Critic’s Pick), Ghost Stories (TimeOut NY Critic’s Pick) and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Jerry has held residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. They are the founder and artistic director of Third Ear Theater Co.
Kate McGee (she/her) is an Obie award winning lighting designer. Past collaborators include Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey, Taylor Mac and Matt Rey, On the Rocks Theater Company, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Target Margin Theater, Mabou Mines, Diana Oh, Knud Adams, Jerry Lieblich, The New York City Players, Object Collection, Nazareth Hassan, and The Wooster Group. As a Project Number One Artist in Residence at Soho Rep she developed, wrote, and designed the solo VR experience Girl Mode, since seen at the Fabric Arts Workshop and ASU’s MIX Center. She has toured extensively with Esperanza Spalding, and Tanya Tagaq. Other Awards include Barrymore, Drama Desk, and Multiple Henry Hewes Award Nominations.
Ryan Gamblin (they/them) is a composer, sound designer, and performance-maker whose practice blends found media, original composition, and the use of systems as instruments. They have worked with artists including Nazareth Hassan, Faye Driscoll, 600 Highwaymen, Andrew Schneider, Leslie Cuyjet, Big Dance Theater, Michael Herwitz, Maia Chao, The Civilians, and many others.
Leah Plante-Wiener (she/her) is a playwright/performer/producer and curator originally from Montreal. She is one half of noise theatre duo laialeah, co-director of DIY performance venue box machine, director of promotion and documentation for the CATCH Performance Series, associate producer for Honigman and Sons, and a writer for Staff Picks. She has an MFA in playwriting from Columbia. There are many places you may have seen her.
FUNDING + SUPPORT
MILKMAN ZERO was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace FUND 2025-26, supported by Jerome Foundation and the members and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
MILKMAN ZERO is developed, in part, with support from Mitu’s Artists-At-Home Program and presented here as part of Mitu’s Expansion Works Program.
Technical equipment and support provided by Onassis ONX.
MILKMAN ZERO was developed during residencies at MacDowell (Peterborough), Yaddo (Saratoga Springs), the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha), with work-in-progress showings at CATCH at The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, 2025) and IDFA DocLab (Amsterdam, 2025).
VENUE NOTES + ACCESSIBILITY
Mitu580
580 Sackett Street
Brooklyn, NY
By Subway: R at Union Street, F/G at Carroll Street, 2/3/4 at Bergen Street.
Access
Mitu, though not yet fully ADA compliant, is committed to accessibility and maximizing our community’s ease of use at our home in Gowanus. Our building has no stairs, a ramp at our front entrance and into our performance space, and dedicated floor seating for patrons who cannot climb our risers.We continue to make improvements and welcome conversations about accessibility. If you have specific questions around accommodations, please reach out to us at boxoffice@theatermitu.org
Appropriate Age Range
Recommended for Audiences Aged 13 and older
Content Warnings
MILKMAN ZERO incorporates flashing nights and sudden loud noises.
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, January 20 at 7:30pm
Thursday, January 21 at 7:30pm
Friday, January 22 at 7:30pm
Saturday, January 23 at 2:00pm
Saturday, January 23 at 7:30pm
Sunday, January 24 at 2:00pm
VENUE
Mitu580
580 Sackett Street
Brooklyn, NY
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