Recipes for the (R)Evolution: Food as Ritual, Culture and Performance

Unable to create performance events during the pandemic, the artists known as Radical Evolution Performance Collective imagined what a community cookbook might look like: a collection of food recipes, performance exercises, and other invitations all designed to explore and experiment on how to gather people in a world amidst pandemic and a nation in social transformation. The result is Recipes for the (R)Evolution: A Radical Evolution Community Cookbook. Here, theater makers from Radical Evolution’s community consider cooking as an everyday creative act, alongside other artistic recipes they incorporate into their domestic lives.

Join us in the Demo Kitchen at Ace Hotel Brooklyn for a night of eating, gathering, and imaginative play as theater makers and food justice practitioners consider the relationship to food as ritual, culture, and popular art-making.

About:

Beto O’Byrne (he/him/el) hails from East Texas and is the co-founder of Radical Evolution, a multi-ethnic, multi-disciplinary producing collective based in Brooklyn, NY.  The author of 20 plays, screenplays, and original TV pilots, his works have been produced in San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York City. He was the 2017 playwright-in-residence at the Stella Adler School of Acting, and a 2050 Playwriting Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. He is the writer-in-residence at Radical Evolution where he wrote the scripts for Golden Drum Year, Loving and Loving, The Corrido of the San Patricos, and was the lead writer of Songs about Trains. Among his many projects and works outside of Rad Ev, most recently he is the creator of the World of Kir fantasy series and the founder of the political punk rock outfit “A Revolutionary Chorus.”

When not hustling with creative projects, he can be found in classrooms across the greater NYC area, teaching writing and theatre classes at colleges and universities such as Brooklyn College, Bard College, and Pace University. MFA, Dramatic Writing: University of Southern California.

Meropi Peponides (she/her/hers) is a Brooklyn-based theater maker, dramaturg, podcast producer, writer and co-founder of Radical Evolution where she most recently co-created Songs About Trains, The Corrido of the San Patricios and Borderworks. Her work explores cross-cultural affinity and seeks to disrupt cultural hierarchies by drawing inspiration from and lifting up BIPOC and non-western traditions. She is also one of the three Directors of Soho Rep in New York City, where she has produced the previous eight mainstage seasons, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Through Radical Evolution, her work has received the prestigious MAP Fund award, support from the National Endowment for the Arts and New England Foundation for the Arts, among others. Fellowships include: 20-21 Audio Podcast Fellows at Stony Brook University; the 2019 CreateNYC Leadership Accelerator Cohort; the BRIC Arts/Media podcast fellowship and more. BA, UCLA. MFA, Columbia University (Dean’s fellow). She also organizes with Artists Co-Creating Real Equity (ACRE).

DEMO KITCHEN BY ACE HOTEL BROOKLYN
A well-appointed canvas for culinary and community engagement, Demo Kitchen by Ace Hotel is a locus of epicurean culture — dedicated to cooking, connection and above all, community. A light-filled space with floor to ceiling windows, Demo Kitchen features an induction cooking station from Kaliber Innovations, an array of state-of-the-art audiovisual production equipment, and is furnished with custom oak classroom and dining tables crafted by Finnish furniture design collective Made By Choice. Demo Kitchen has capacity for 96 people and is also available for private rental.