Award-winning playwright and human rights activist Catherine Filloux will premiere The Olivia Project with a one-performance staged reading of her new two-woman play OLIVIA
directed by Elena Araoz, featuring Emily Arancio (Motherland) and Nadia Bowers (The Farnsworth Invention, Doubt, Metamorphoses)
“Catherine Filloux’s plays are more than just stories; they’re catalysts; they aim to send you forth from the theater not just satisfied and thinking but to make change in the world.” — Matt Barbot, Immigrant Report
“Opera Against the Patriarchy.” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker (on Orlando, Vienna State Opera)
“The man who invented the word genocide, Raphael Lemkin, turns out to have an unsettled afterlife in the compelling drama by Catherine Filloux… A call to action.” — Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times (on Lemkin’s House)
OLIVIA
Two-Woman Play Explores Fossil Fuels, Generational Conflict, Climate Activism
Written by CATHERINE FILLOUX
with EMILY ARANCIO and NADIA BOWERS
Directed by ELENA ARAOZ
ONE-PERFORMANCE STAGED READING
FOLLOWED BY TARGETED CALL-TO-ACTION CONVERSATION
FEBRUARY 27, 2026, AT THE STUDIO THEATRE
New York, NY; February 11, 2026 — Award-winning playwright and human rights activist Catherine Filloux will premiere The Olivia Project with a one-performance staged reading of her new two-woman play OLIVIA directed by Elena Araoz, featuring Emily Arancio (Motherland) and Nadia Bowers (The Farnsworth Invention, Doubt, Metamorphoses), on Friday, February 27, 2026, at 3 p.m. at The Studio Theatre, 520 Eighth Avenue, 9th Floor, in Manhattan. The FREE event has limited seating and attendance is by RSVP only to: selma65nyc@gmail.com
OLIVIA explores the collision of fossil fuel dependency and generational reckoning through the intimate relationship between a mother and daughter. Olivia Williamson and her mother, Lina, navigate their tenuous bond as Olivia — armed with a Stanford degree — refuses to accept the family myths her mother clings to. Through oil-spilled rainbows and blood-stained family trees, Olivia makes her way to the mountains, determined to challenge the forces that shaped her childhood, disrupting Lina’s worldview along the way. Blood may be thicker than water — but will Olivia discover that oil is thicker than both?
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The reading will feature Arancio as Olivia Williamson and Bowers as Lina Williamson, produced by Xander Jackson and casting by Pat McCorkle, CSA. Katie Rosin and Erin Kramer as Press Representatives; Social Media by Daniel Rosen.
Following the reading, invited guests will participate in a targeted conversation and call to action focused on climate accountability and policy advocacy, including support for the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act.
Filloux, whose father, an oceanographer, was the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a catamaran, has been a passionate advocate against plastic pollution since childhood. Filloux’s partners on The Olivia Project include Climate Rights International, The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, In The Same Boat (Norway), and F Minus.
The event is Friday, February 27, 2026, at 3 p.m. at The Studio Theatre, 520 Eighth Avenue, 9th Floor. Seating is limited for the FREE event, and attendance is by RSVP only to: selma65nyc@gmail.com
Running Time: 80 minutes plus a brief conversation
Website: CatherineFilloux.com
BIOGRAPHIES
CATHERINE FILLOUX (Playwright) is a French-Algerian-American playwright and librettist who has spent over three decades addressing the aftermath of human rights violations. Her work has been produced internationally and includes operas and plays on topics such as the Khmer Rouge genocide (Where Elephants Weep), prison reform (whatdoesfreemean?), and child separation (Compass). Filloux is the librettist for four produced operas: Orlando (composer Olga Neuwirth) is the first opera by a woman composer-librettist team in the history of the Vienna State Opera and is the 2022 Grawemeyer Award winner. Catherine has traveled with her plays to conflict zones, including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, and Sudan and South Sudan, on an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.
ELENA ARAOZ (Director) is a stage director of theater, opera, multi-media performance, and large-scale immersive theatrical events, working internationally, Off-Broadway, and across the country. Elena is attracted to epic stories, and her productions are known for huge dance-like theatrics and acutely naturalistic acting. The New York Times has praised Araoz's productions as “form-busting and gorgeous,” “striking,” “primal,” “wild,” “stirring,” and “refreshingly natural,” The Boston Globe as “riveting,” “dreamy,” and “vivid,” and The New Yorker as “refreshing.
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