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Exiled by her family and rejected by a girlfriend, 17-year-old Spazz has no one to lean on for support. But when Spazz falls in love again and summons up the courage to become Cole, a strong-willed trans-man, his candid humor and steadfast, all-inclusive Christian beliefs counter the bigotry he experiences daily. An intimate study of young outsiders in an insular Christian community, Deep Run explores the intersection of modern identity and faith in America’s deeply conservative Bible Belt.
Kutsher's Country Club was the last surviving Jewish resort in the Catskills. One of the legendary Borscht Belt hotels during its heyday, Kutsher's was family-owned and operated for over 100 years.
Once a year, prom mania grips the entire population of Racine, Wisconsin. The city’s extravagant celebration begins with a rowdy parade where students compete for the most outrageous form of transportation, driving fire engines, 18-wheelers, even riding elephant-back through the city streets. Prom-goers from seven city high schools converge on one citywide prom to make red carpet entrances bombarded by the flash of cameras and screams from bleachers filled to capacity. Meanwhile, in sports bars and living rooms across the city, residents keep their eyes glued to the live television coverage of the spectacular event. As featured on This American Life, The World’s Best Prom brings to life an American rite of passage taken to the extreme. With five decades of archival footage, and interviews with diverse prom-goers of all ages, the film glories in the excess of an otherwise simple Midwestern city’s quirky, Dionysian side.
Thanksgiving weekend, Las Vegas: a camera journeys through Sin City's all-you-can-eat buffets and finds a kaleidoscope of characters behind the food - from tireless chefs preparing gargantuan bowls of ambrosia, to servers who bus endless plates, to hungry diners in search of a culinary jackpot and a portion of the American dream.
Director Ian Rosenberg filmed the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets from 7AM to 7PM to document the changing face of his Lower East Side neighborhood in New York City. The result is Grand Street, an experimental non-narrative documentary in which the 12 hours of footage are transformed into an epic six-minute movie.
In this mockumentary short film, a struggling director tries (and fails) to get a diverse collection of thirtysomething New Yorkers to answer one question -- what does your life cost? The unsuccessful results are strange, dark and hilarious.
A Play By: Ruben Carbajal
Directed By: Mike Shapiro
Produced By: OVO
Set in a Wisconsin high school in 1985, the play centers on four maligned sophomores, refugees from a defunct program for gifted and talented students and the last remaining members of the Dungeons & Dragons club. When one of them is revealed as the infamous radio call-in Lothario who has courted the school's most popular girl, their simple pursuit of an education becomes a fight for survival.
An outstanding ensemble cast and inventive direction propelled word of mouth and critical attentions, leading to sold-out audiences and publication in Dramatists Play Service. In 2005, The Gifted Program was anthologized in The Best Men's Stage Monologues of 2005, published by Smith & Kraus.
You saw The Breakfast Club and Heathers. So why see Ruben Carbajal’s revisitation of the war between high-school burnouts, popular people, and dorks? Because Mike Shapiro’s direction crackles, Joey (Brenton Popolizio) is one sexy nerd, and the outrage of Lester Suh (Aron Yoo) at his dungeonmaster’s misuse of elves will convulse anybody who has ever known a D. & D. obsessive. Carbajal’s humor alternates between lacerating and indulgent, and never slackens.
A Play with Songs, Book and Lyrics By: Chris Talbott
Directed By: Chris Talbott and Ian Rosenberg
Produced By OVO
Starring: Ari Vena, Mary Wigmore, Gioia Marchese and Sanjit Da Silva
Music By: Phil Van Scotter
Rubberville is a hard-knock Midwestern neighborhood circa 1982, the unlikely site of the ominous birth of a girl prophet. As burnout teens, lonely drunks, a ragged Vietnam vet and a raging single mother battle ghosts real and imagined, does this mysterious newcomer offer salvation, or is she the pied piper of the apocalypse? OVO's first full-length production was a raucous theatrical feast of dance, heavy metal, projections and puppetry.
A Folk Operetta, Book and Lyrics By: Chris Talbott
Music Composed and Performed By: Rowland Stebbins
Directed By: Laramie Dennis
Produced By Theater for the New City in Association with OVO
Starring: Jesse James LoCorriere
An exiled backwater spiritual leader makes his final stand in the lonely cabin where he was born, his bloodthirsty former followers at his heels. As the final moments of his life tick away, he recounts his life in rousing songs and rhyming couplets that resound with wit, defiance, and sex.
One actor and one musician propel this tour-de-force of language and song that probes the boundaries of the sensual and spiritual. Showcasing a fierce and powerful performance by LoCorriere and toe-tapping brilliance by Stebbins, this two-man show proved to be a watermark OVO production crackling with an energy more often found at rock venues.
The Gospel of Cyrus According to Cyrus was co-produced with Theater for the New City and supported with a grant from the Jerome Foundation.
Two Short Plays By: Ruben Carbajal
Directed By: Ian Rosenberg and Chris Talbott
Produced By OVO
Starring: Will McCormack, Chris Talbott, Ari Vena, Mary Wigmore
With Special Musical Guest: John Gold
"HOLD" Directed by Ian Rosenberg
A desperate man seeking aid from a mental health hotline is instead sent into a surreal automated phone system purgatory. This suspenseful comedy with laser-sharp performances and fast, fluid staging left audiences eager for more OVO.
"The Man Who Pulled A Gun Out of His Ass" Directed by Chris Talbott
Squirting blood, fake noses, wigs, and gunshots fly in this wild and unsettling story that introduced audiences to OVO's brand of no-holds-barred theatricals.
Bridging the two short plays, musical guest John Gold's understated but shimmering rock brilliance held audiences in sway for the entirety of his tight and brooding set, icing on the cake of OVO's inaugural production.
A Play with Songs, Book and Lyrics By: Chris Talbott
Music By: Tim Robert
Directed By: Caroline Laskow
Produced By: Theater for The New City in Association with OVO
Starring: James Engel and Ari Vena
JJ is an asthmatic temp waging an underground fight against the corporate powers that assault his mind and body.
Tim Robert's driving power-pop, the electrifying energy and chemistry of James Engel and Ari Vena, and Caroline Laskow's razor-sharp direction of this funny exploration of corporate culture and radical chic kept audiences rocking in their seats.
The Asthma Conspiracy was co-produced with Theater for the New City and supported with a grant from the Jerome Foundation.
A Play By: Ruben Carbajal
Directed By: Ian Rosenberg
Produced By OVO
Starring: Will McCormack, Mary Wigmore and Ari Vena
Ed, a young man adrift in life, moves in with Li, his ex-lover, in a small apartment in Portland, Oregon. Ed's strange encounters as a hotel room-service waiter punctuate the ambiguous intimacy with Li, as their murky past and true feelings become clear. A spare, tender meditation on the indivisibility of love and loss, Portland is sad and funny in equal measures.
Ian Rosenberg's evocative direction and graceful performances by Will McCormack and Mary Wigmore made this an OVO event to be remembered.
OVO's production of Portland earned OVO a grant from the Frankel Foundation.
Conducted and Performed By: Karen Sorensen
Directed By: Ian Rosenberg
Produced By: OVO
Using New York City as her laboratory and its inhabitants as her subjects, Karen Sorensen (the woman Time Out New York dubbed the "Love Research Lady") creates a growing, kaleidoscopic record of the most mysterious and fascinating human emotion. Setting up a mobile "Love Research Station" around the Big Apple, Sorensen invites total strangers to answer intimate questions about love in exchange for a flower. The candid, insightful and surprising answers are recorded on digital audiotape, archived and presented in a wide array of venues, including art galleries and theaters, and in her book, "Love (luv) n." available now on Amazon.
Remarkable, revealing...