Onstage is a two-story house. From one angle, it’s mucked out after a flood. From another, it’s a new development wrapped in Tyvek. And from another, it’s “Tara” from Gone with the Wind being transformed into an Airbnb. The piano can’t be tuned. Someone is quilting in the corner. Come in.

Co-written by 21 Black-, POC-, and white-identifying artists ranging in age from 29 to 99, RECONSTRUCTING is a new work by internationally-renowned theater collective The TEAM that wrestles with how, in the aftermath of slavery, we might move through history together. Propelled by a quilt-like score, this “complex and combustible project” (Sarah Holdren, Vulture) slips between fact and fiction and performance and ritual to tell a story of historical figures and fictional characters seeking and fleeing intimacy—and us as makers doing the same.

Note: This performance includes the use of strobes and fog machine.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Founded in 2004, The TEAM is a Brooklyn-based experimental theater collective, spirited by some of the wildest and deepest artists working today. Once described by The Guardian as “theatrical excavators of American culture, American dreams, and the American psyche,” The TEAM collaboratively creates new works about the experience of living in the United States today to generate dialogue about our nation’s past, present, and future through production and touring. We believe how we make is as important as what we make, and our producing practices strive to embody our values of collective liberation. To date, The TEAM has created and toured 12 works, including Mission Drift, RoosevElvis, and Primer for a Failed Superpower. Our work has been seen locally, nationally, and internationally at venues including the Public Theater, PS122, Roulette, The Bushwick Starr, A.R.T., Walker Art Center, London’s National Theater and Almeida Theatre, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, the Salzburg Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and more.

Rachel Chavkin (Co-Director, Co-Author) received the 2019 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Director of a Musical for Hadestown. She is a director, writer, and dramaturg, as well as the founding Artistic Director of Brooklyn-based ensemble The TEAM, whose work has been seen all over New York (including the Public Theater and PS122), nationally, the UK (including the National Theatre in London and multiple collaborations with the National Theatre of Scotland), and festivals across Europe, Australia, and Asia. The TEAM’s consensus-driven collaborative creation process was the subject of a feature-length documentary by Emmy winner Paulette Douglas. Selected work: Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 (Ars Nova, ART, Broadway), Matt Gould and Carson Kreitzer’s Lempicka (Williamstown, La Jolla, Broadway), Caryl Churchill’s Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (New York Theatre Workshop), Marco Ramirez’s The Royale (Old Globe, Lincoln Center), Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds (Ars Nova, Off-Broadway, national tour), Sarah Gancher’s I’ll Get You Back Again (Round House), and multiple collaborations with Taylor Mac, including The Lily’s Revenge, Act 2 (HERE). Her upcoming projects include directing the feature film Shrew’s Nest and the new musical Gatsby. She is a proud Usual Suspect of the New York Theater Workshop, and a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

Zhailon Levingston (Co-Director, Co-Author) is a Louisiana-raised storyteller and director. He is a board member for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which received an honorary Tony Award in 2021. Zhailon is also the Artistic Director of Inheritance Theatre Project. Selected credits include: Tina (Resident Director), Hadestown (Korea), The Wiz (Cincinnati Children’s Theatre), Chicken and Biscuits (Broadway), Patience (Second Stage), Little Miss Perfect (Goodspeed), and Cats: The Jellicle Ball (Perelman Performing Arts Center).

CREDITS

FUNDING + SUPPORT

Presented by The TEAM (Rachel Chavkin, Artistic Director; Emma Orme, Producing Director) and The Tow Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College (Marcus Richardson, Executive Director; Eveline Chang-Fritsch, Director) for Under The Radar 2026.

RECONSTRUCTING was commissioned by Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland (Ryan Rilette, Artistic Director, Ed Zakreski, Managing Director), and has received substantial development support from, and in-progress performances were presented by LUMBERYARD Center for Film and Performing Arts. RECONSTRUCTING has also been developed with support from Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, through their Southern Futures Project, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Additional partner organizations include BroadStage and ArtsEmerson.

RECONSTRUCTING has received support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and MAP Fund. Production design support provided by the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York). Additional major support has come from Neil Mazzella at Hudson Scenic, Dalio Philanthropies, JMJ Fund, John Kimmelman, The TEAM’s Board of Directors, Daniel Hawkins & Sara Rosenbaum, Diana DiMenna, and David Chavkin. Subsidized studio space has been provided by the A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Process documentation support has been provided by Mighty Lucky Studios, and residency space has been provided by Groundworks.

Special thanks to Alexandra Lalonde, Laura Elliott, Genevieve Ortiz, Nia Witherspoon, Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Melanie George, Kalonji Gilchrist, Christopher Darbassie, Mr. Freeman, Mercury Store, Target Margin Theater, Kristen & Frank Leonard (Groundworks), Laurie Watson, David Rosenberg, Khalil Abdullah, Jake Heinrichs, Dave Polato, Beau and Rachel Alluli, Jessica Almasy, Theater Mitu, West Music, David Dower, Johanna Evans, Dr. Frances Forrest and the American Museum of Natural History, Deborah King, LUMBERYARD’s “Fresh Start” Program, Culture Mill, The Hancher at U of Iowa, Neil Mazzella and Hudson Scenic, Rhiannon Giddens, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, Liz Heinrichs, Jane Humphreys, Nina Rubin, Ed Bridges, Sojourner Harrison, and Gregory Harrison.

SOCIALS