SERIALS is a late-night episodic play competition series. Each weekend of performances, five original, never-before-seen 10 minute works are rehearsed, teched, and premiered fully staged live in front of our audience. The audience then votes on their favorites, which come back the next week with a brand-new episode, creating long-term overarching storylines and inventive, outside-of-the-box new plays.
SERIALS has a long history, originally created by members of The Flea Theater’s former resident artist company, The Bats. It was then the core production of the Fled Collective for two theatrical seasons, from 2021-2023, before spinning off independently to better focus on the program not only as a popular performance series but a new play incubator.
Serials has been featured in Broadway World and Playbill, among others, as well as on podcasts such as Stage Whisper and Evil Thespian!
SERIALS is both a playground for theatermakers to explore, take risks, and create as a team, as well as an ambitious reworking of the new play development process. The SERIALS creation process, which not only facilitates but necessitates collaboration between writers, directors, actors, and audience, allows playwrights to work directly with these other components of what makes theater theater through each step of their storytelling, rather than moving through the writing-reading-dramaturgy-workshop process we’re so used to.
At SERIALS, we believe that audience is a cardinal point orientating the performance event, and therefore a crucial part of the creation process; by putting up fully-polished, fully-produced, in-process work, we are able to engage with the meaningful aspects of live theater throughout every step of the development process. Additionally, theatermakers so rarely have a chance to collaborate on fully-produced work in the city, and it’s even more rare to have not only the freedom but the explicit support and encouragement to explore, swing big, take risks, and create theater that pushes the envelope and stretches past the safe decisions we see onstage so often. It is this practice of collaboration, risk-taking, and innovation that has made our program what it is today.
Looking towards the future, we hope to expand the resources we provide our artists. This includes bumping up artist pay, expanding accessibility via the reach of our livestream, incorporating resident dramaturgs to support playwrights in their process, and creating pathways to extend the life of our finished series. As a fully independent company, SERIALS hopes to not only continue creating the exciting, high-caliber work our audiences keep coming back for, but to offer a true alternative to new play creation.
How it Works
History
SERIALS is a late night serialized theater thrill ride drenched in fake blood, painted with rainbow glitter, and filled with the boldest choices seen on any stage in New York City. We are a bimonthly program consisting of five 10-minute plays, pitted against each other, with audiences voting for the three shows they want to see continued in a new episode the next month.
The tradition of SERIALS spans over a decade, having been molded by countless alumni actors, writers, and directors who used SERIALS as their playground and artistic chemistry lab. Notable alumni of SERIALS include Jessica Darrow (Disney’s Encanto), Asia Kate Dillon (Billions, Orange is the New Black), Catya McMullen (Y: The Last Man, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay), Jenelle Chu (The Prodigal, Instinct, New Amsterdam), Abby Rosebrock (Blue Ridge, Lowcountry) and Tedra Millan (The Wolves, Leopoldstadt).
2011-2020: #SERIALS@THE FLEA
SERIALS was originally conceived as a program for The Bats company at The Flea Theater and created by Dominic Spillane and Stephen Stout (with help from Jim Simpson). Steve and Dom produced the first five long cycles, with the show running three, four, or even eight weeks per cycle. These first superrounds were brutal on the company with double-show late-nights on Fridays and Saturdays (a midnight performance following the 9:30pm show). Even still, the show was a hit from early on with packed audiences in the basement of the Flea.
Alex Grubbs replaced Dom as coproducer in May 2012 and Steve and Alex would helm a more consistent series in three week bursts for the next 20 cycles of the show. Tickets were still cash only and folks would start lining up a couple hours early for the sold-out now 9:30pm only, one show per night performances. As Tribeca would turn into a ghost town after Happy Hour, the Flea theater would come alive with #SERIALS (it was 2012– everyone was obsessed with hashtags) and its very special brand of new writing for performance. During this era, SERIALS produced popular works like Women by Chiara Atik, Ka-pow-i Gogo Gooo! by Matt Cox, Sealand by Nathan Leigh, The Haus of Von Macramé by Joshua Conkel, Moonbase by Willie Orbison, Starwatch: Watch the Stars by Olivia Dufault and True Bible Tales by Robert Askins.
A major changing of the guard came in early 2015 (Cycle 25) as Crystal Arnette and Cleo Gray took over producing responsibilities for the show. These magnificent ladies brought different priorities to the fore with an even more eclectic range of writers and directors building SERIALS@theflea (the changing nom de guerre was both a source of amusement and consternation). Crystal and Cleo also became famous for their unbelievable outfits hosting the show– a stark shift from the casual, sometimes bookish duds of the previous regime. Tastes were changing too and the new pair had to redouble their marketing efforts (on zero budget) to keep the audience packed in. Long running SERIALS from this period included Wait Wait Don’t Kill Me by Alan Schmuckler and Dave Holstein, St. Baldred’s School for Girls by Kim Davies, Intelligent People Do Dumb Shit Daily by Paul Cameron Hardy and Dance School: School of Dance by Brett Epstein.
The Bats company was also changing, and Serials was constantly reinventing itself as a project both for and by that community of a new generation of theatermakers. 2017 saw the opening of the Flea’s new permanent space at 20 Thomas St, with a beautiful basement space, dubbed “The Siggy” after Bats supporter Sigourney Weaver, designed in the Elizabethan Tiring House style with the Bats and Serials specifically in mind.
The transition was plagued with delays and Flea programming, including SERIALS, went on a couple of extended hiatuses. When the dust settled, much of the company had changed and two new producers, Matt Stango and Maddie Mahoney, took over guiding SERIALS into the new era. They brought with them an affable style and “the sixth show,” loosely structured sketches starring the hosts and cast throughlining the material around the SERIALS episodes themselves. Even as the tone of the show’s bridging material became more approachable, the Serials themselves went through a period of taking bigger risks, contributing to topical cultural and political conversation, and exploring themes of gender and racial identity.
Catya McMullen rewrote her popular musical serial Locked Up B*tches as a full-length show and The Flea programmed it for an extended run downstairs in the new place as part of their inaugural season. Long-running serials had frequently been reworked for more traditional performance runs around NYC and beyond but this was the first and only time the Bats got to do it at home. Future SERIALS producer Cody Hom stage-managed Locked Up through its initial run and extensions, begining his long-running tenure as a SERIALS Tech Maven.
Seeing the opportunity to create a pipeline to full-length production through SERIALS’ development process, The Flea formed the Serials Writers’ Room, a fellowship program for writers selected to work with the company specifically to make Serials. Michael Raine, a Flea Resident Director and long-time Serials director, took over Artistic Producing Directorship of the program in collaboration with a raft of new producers: Emma Orme, Annie Perales, Peter McNally, and Joe Dalfonso. Popular serials from this SERIALS @ The Flea era include Noir Town and Cast Party (both by Matt Minnicino) as well as Lily Houghton’s Next.
The formalization of the writer-performer relationship produced mixed results. The commitment to longterm collaboration promised artistic growth and opportunity for all artists involved. Still, the constant input from producers trying to cultivate mainstream “Bats Shows” from the raw material of Serials collaboration proved restrictive, stifling creative discovery and experimentation. And while the newly grafted together programs iterated their relationship to try to find a comfortable path forward, something far more stifling to theater-making was waiting in the wings: Covid.
2020-2023: SERIALS by The Fled
Early 2020. A new class of Bats had just been onboarded at The Flea amid the Covid lockdown. SERIALS, under the helm of Michael Raine, with producers Joe Dalfonso, Annie Perales, and associate producers Michael Ortiz and Elizabeth Spindler, took to Zoom for a virtual iteration of the show.
On the verge of its second virtual cycle, things halted yet again. After the murder of George Floyd that summer, a group of brave Black and Brown resident artists, starting with Bryn Carter, began to speak publicly about their experiences with racist and exploitative mistreatment at the hands of Flea staff and administration. The Bats, Writers’ Room and Resident Directors of The Flea joined together in solidarity to boycott the theater. This led to a series of negotiations over the course of six months that ultimately fell short when the theater eliminated their resident artist program without notice. From there, the former Bats decided to take matters into their own hands to make the change they wanted to see, and thus The Fled Collective was born.
Under The Fled moniker, Michael Ortiz, Elizabeth Spindler, and Flea Resident Director Kristan Seemel joined forces to continue the SERIALS tradition. Over the course of the two years that SERIALS was with the Fled, it thrived– getting bigger and gayer than ever. This era led to the creation of SERIALS classics like Missionary Woman by Meg Rosensweet, Role for Initiative by Sam Hamashima, MTV’s Spookz by Josiah Thomas Turner, Madame Couché’s Hot Tarts End The French Revolution by Chloé Hayat, and C. Lingus, Independent Journalist by Paige Esterly. However, operating in the same space led to the same issues, even with The Flea administration taking a backseat. We were under increased pressure to hit goal posts that were ever changing, and the Fled found itself split when attempting to identify its central mission. After two years, the collective dissolved.
That couldn’t stop the spirit of SERIALS from continuing. Our team, now with the additions of producers Cody Hom and Emani Brielle Simpson, decided to take the show and its community of supporters to a new space full of new horizons. SERIALS, meet The Tank.
2024-Present: New Theatre, New Beginnings
Searching for a new home, SERIALS stumbled back into The Tank, a theater where so many former SERIALS’ artists had taken their work. With a mission of inclusivity, accessibility, experimentation and removing the economic barriers from the creation of new work, The Tank has been around only a little longer than SERIALS and serving much of the same community of artists. Between the midtown location, a bigger house, and the desire to start anew, it was an easy decision to plant our roots and throw in with The Tank.
This move away from the Flea encouraged previous SERIALS artistic legends to rejoin the community. With these returning artists and a wave of new community members, SERIALS is stronger than ever and just keeps on expanding!
Currently, SERIALS operates under the producorial leadership of Michael Ortiz, Kristan Seemel, Emani Brielle Simpson, Cody Hom, and Nick Turturro, with special help by organizational queen, Paige Esterly.
Our social media presence has also been relaunched with a complete rebrand that has helped in highlighting the impact the SERIALS community has in the independent theater scene. Bringing together hot new playwrights, directors, actors, designers and even special musical guests!
Follow us on all social media platforms (@serialsnyc) to participate in our continuing evolution in real-time! See you next cycle at the Tank!