MULTISTAGES and REPROFREEDOM ARTS
​Present the World Premiere of
​REPRO ECO: TOMORROW IS NOW

Directed by LORCA PERESS

FOUR-WEEK LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
​SEPTEMBER 9 – OCTOBER 4, 2026 AT THEATRE AT THE 14TH ST Y

OPENING IS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 AT 2 P.M.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

REPRO FREEDOM ARTS and MULTISTAGES are pleased to announce the world premiere production of REPRO ECO: TOMORROW IS NOW, directed by Lorca Peress. The show features six short plays by women exploring the intersection of reproductive health and environmental justice, using humor, mythology, Afro-futurism, drama, and dance, these multicultural narratives examine the impact of toxins, plastics, and ecological hurdles on our physiology, communities, and collective future. The production will play a four-week limited engagement at the Theatre at The 14th St Y (344 E. 14th St, NYC). FEMME COLLECTIVE, a producing consortium for REPRO ECO: TOMORROW IS NOW includes six additional selections: new works in development, solo shows, clown work and dance theatre (*list included below). Performances begin Wednesday, September 9 and continue through Sunday, October 4. Opening is Wednesday, September 16 (2 p.m.). ​ Tickets are $30- $ 75 and available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/36649/production/1286595?performanceId=11855375.

The project originated when ReproFreedomArts, a 24-year old theatre company dedicated to addressing reproductive health, rights, freedom, and justice, commissioned six playwrights, Diane Breeser, Cindy Cooper, Alinca Hamilton, Mildred Inez Lewis, Cassandra Medley, and Laura Shamas, to participate in several months of online discussions with specialists in environmental justice and reproductive rights throughout 2024. Drawing from these exchanges, the six writers developed the collection of new works titled Repro Eco. MultiStages subsequently partnered with ReproFreedomArts to co-produce a developmental reading series in 2024 and 2025. Lorca Peress, Artistic Director of MultiStages, a 29-year-old theatre company dedicated to multicultural and multidisciplinary new works that are socially challenging and provocative, is collaborating with her team of designers and a choreographer to craft a multidisciplinary stage interpretation of the pieces.

THE DANCES:

Four modern dances created and choreographed by Jennifer Chin bring the elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air to life.

THE PLAYS:

"Always Never Really Here" by Alinca Hamilton
​A mother and daughter face the harsh realities of living without clean running water in the verifiably real town of Sand Branch, Texas.

"Through Water Into Blood" by Mildred Inez Lewis
​After a devastating miscarriage, a West Virginia woman confronts her birth doula, and they both realize the role toxic chemicals may have played.

"Until the Change Comes" by Cindy Cooper
​A branding team begins to question their work after a visit from Theo Colborn, a woman scientist from years gone by who first identified toxic harms to health.

"Figments" by Diane Breeser
​A woman, discovering she is pregnant, has a comical nightmare about microplastics and small steps she can take to protect against environmental harm.

"We Are Our Ancestors' Reasons for Living" by Cassandra Medley
​In an Afro-futurism style, intergenerational women experience an altered world in which nature is so degraded that the outdoors must be delivered and enjoyed virtually.

"Priorities" by Laura Shamas
​In a dystopian future, two gynecologists and a midwife meet in secret to prioritize the needs of their pregnant patients, so they can escape to a better environment.

"Tomorrow Is Now" - Eleanor Roosevelt. "It is today that we must create the world of the future."

“REPRO ECO: TOMORROW IS NOW is an extraordinary experience with dance, film and text that highlights the relationships between our bodies, our world and our future,” says director Lorca Peress. ​ “It’s my pleasure to bring together our award-winning theatre company and designers with Broadway and Off-Broadway talent at Off-Off Broadway prices."

"We are addressing hot-button topics of reproductive health and environmental justice to build hope and inspiration to carry us to a better future,” states creator Cindy Cooper. "This is revolutionary storytelling that addresses topics that are percolating in the news. Extraordinary women writers are bringing these provocative stories to life."

A versatile acting ensemble of 8 actors play 18 roles, they are: James Alton (Judge Rinder, Citizen James), Gena Bardwell (Off-Bway: Our Place in Time), Jean Brookner* (Repro Eco, Side Man, The Waverly Gallery), Darlenis Duran (Dark Asset, Arthur The King, Ladylike), Joyce Griffen* (Prodigal Sister, Cotillion, Selma), Pernell Walker* (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, City on A Hill), Brielle Webb (Short Film Body Count), and Becca Worthington (Who’s Holiday, Everything To Me). ​

JenniferChinDance: Adele Carlson, Jennifer Chin, Maya Lam and Fiona Oba

The production features scenic/property design by Jennifer Varbalow, costume design by Lisa Renee Jordan, lighting design by Kia Rogers, projection design by Jan Hartley, and sound design by Sun Hee Kil. The modern dances are choreographed by Jennifer Chin. Mel Ashby-Hunt is the stage manager, Matthew White is the associate stage manager, and Hadley Todoran is the Production Stage Manager. Allison Astor-Vargas is the Assistant Director; historical dramaturgy by A.J. Muhammad and project consulting by Margie Kelly (environmental communication expert). Publicity by Katie Rosin/Kampfire PR.

Website: https://multistages.org/ ​ or ReproFreedomArts.org/Repro Eco

https://www.instagram.com/Repro Ecoplays
​https://www.instagram.com/multistages_/ ​
​https://www.instagram.com/ReproFreedomArts/ ​
​https://www.instagram.com/femmecollective_theatre https://www.facebook.com/MultiStagestheatre/ ​
​https://www.facebook.com/p/Repro-Freedom-Arts-100063743040521/

Media Kit with Photos

Members of the following organizations: ART/NY, LPTW, SDC, SAG-AFTRA, AEA, Dramatists Guild, National Theatre Conference, Honor Roll Playwrights, Native Voices, HOLA, LMCC Creative Engagement, ​ ​ Healing Arts Week New York, and Climate Week NY.

Recipient of LMCC Creative Engagement, NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund, N.W. Dible Foundation, and Distracted Globe Foundation..

This project is made possible in part with funds from a regrant program(s) supported by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council and The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by LMCC.

Repro Eco is part of the UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) Healing Arts Week NYC: September 19-26, 2026 (in conjunction w/ the Jameel Arts and Health Lab at NYU in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).

REPRO ECO: TOMORROW IS NOW ​ is part of Femme Collective. Femme Collective was established by three women-run theatre companies in 2024 to share resources, performance venue, staffing, and to run their shows in repertory. This year, four theatre companies and two solo artists present work.

FEMME COLLECTIVE:

Tues., 9/15 at 7PM
​“Ripening: Sisters of the Moon” (working title) ​
​Vanessa Walters in a dance/theatre piece with live music. This is a workshop in development. Presented by Neo-Political Cowgirls.

Fri., 9/18 at 7PM
​A Circus-Themed Variety Show. Hosted by Emory Kemph and Madison Meyer. Presented by Neo-Political Cowgirls.

Thurs., 9/24 at 7PM ​
​A Two-Headed Clown Show. Created by Emory Kemph and Madison Mayer. Presented by Neo-Political Cowgirls.

Sat. 9/26 matinee at 2PM
​Ingrid Griffith performs in her one-woman play, “Shirley Chisholm: Unbossed & Unbowed.” The play brings to life the remarkable and often overlooked story of Shirley Chisholm, the Brooklyn-born daughter of immigrant parents who became the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress and the first African American to seek a major party’s presidential nomination. An immersive, interactive solo show in which actress and playwright Ingrid Griffith portrays Shirley Chisholm and 15 other characters.

Tues, 9/29 at 7PM
​“LET. HER. RIP.” by Maggie Lou Rader, with Kelly McAndrew, ​ Sarah Street, Nimene Sierra Wureh and Kim Yancy. Christa Scott Reed, Director.
​In a darkly comic thriller. Three matchwomen are busting their lady balls to change London's East End for the better when Jack the Ripper starts killing people in the streets. It's 1888, and the patriarchy is getting bloody. A staged reading. Produced by Brian Letchworth and Occasional Drawl.

Wed., 9/30 at 7PM
​Joyce Griffen performs in her one-woman play “Formerly Known as Sarah” about Madame C.J. Walker (1867-1919), creator of specialized Black hair care products for African American women, and the first female self-made millionaire in the US.

REPRO ECO BIOGRAPHIES

DIANE BREESER (Playwright) has spent most of her life involved in theatre. Years of research culminated in her one-act play, Goddess on the Mountaintop, about primatologist Dian Fossey. In 2017, Diane co-founded an award-winning theatre group, the “Alternative Truth” Project, which performed free monthly play readings on cultural issues such as reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, guns, and book banning. In the Spring of 2025, she produced all six Repro Eco plays in her hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin. A former teacher and librarian, Diane lives near the Mississippi River with her husband Randy and various critters.

CINDY COOPER (Playwright) is also a journalist and author. Her plays have been produced in the US, Canada and Europe. In New York, her work has been at Primary Stages, The Women’s Project (How She Played the Game), Wings (Strange Light; Slow Burn), Vaclav Havel Library Foundation (Stones of Tiananmen), Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio, MultiStages, EST, Town Hall (The World at Your Fingertips), Anne Frank Center USA (Silence Not, A Love Story), Sheen Center, Center for Jewish History, WOW Café, Chain Theatre, elsewhere, and in Chicago, Minneapolis, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, LA, Maryland, Texas, Florida, Montreal, Budapest, Helsinki, elsewhere. A two-time Jerome Fellow, her plays are in 17 volumes and have won awards from Pen & Brush, Samuel French, Malibu Int’l Festival, Quixote Foundation, Equity Library Theater, others. She is the founder of ReproFreedomArts.org. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she lives in New York.

ALINCA HAMILTON (Playwright) is a holistic creator working across stage and screen. Select acting credits include: January (MultiStages), Clyde’s (Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Arkansas Rep); Mud Row (Premiere Stages); Gong Lum’s Legacy (New Federal); Julius Cesar (Classic Stage), Growing Up (Disney+). Her writing has been recognized as a semi-finalist for the NYSCA/NYSFA Artist Fellowship and the Fresh Voices Competition. She is a founding member of Squeaky Wheelz Productions, whose work has appeared at The Tank, Ars Nova, Edinburgh Fringe, Twin Cities Film Festival, International Black Theater Festival, and Berlin Indie Film Festival (Award – Best Artist Short). A New Yorker to her core (please don’t ask her to drive). M.F.A. – Acting, Columbia University. alincahamilton.com

MILDRED INEZ LEWIS (Playwright) writes and directs for theater, screen and audio. A Dramatists Guild member, she writes with the Colony Theater, EST-LA, PlayGround-Los Angeles, Rogue Artists Ensemble and Towne Street Theatres. She’s been commissioned by A Different Myth (Asheville, NC), Lifeline Theater (Chicago), the Lucille Lortel Foundation/Harlem9/National Black Theatre (NYC), Ohlone College and SCI@SPARC (Livermore, CA). Honors include the AGE Legacy Award, L.B. Williams Festival (New Circle Theatre Company), and Humanitas’ PLAY LA. Her plays are published by Applause Books, Broadway Play Publishing, NextStage, and Smith & Kraus. Educated at Oberlin College and UCLA. Mildred teaches writing at Chapman University.

CASSANDRA MEDLEY (Playwright) is a playwright and teacher whose works have been produced across the U.S., including Fannie Lou Hamer Opera (libretto), A Walk in YaYa’s Garden, Motherless Child, March 13, 2020, Martha’s Vineyard Theater, Celebrating Our Community, Gatekeepers Collective, 2020, Mrs. Palmer’s Honey, Bread and Roses Theater. Cell, Playing On Air 2018, Take My Advice, 2017, Survive, 2017, Cell, the full-length, Molelo Theater-2015, American Slavery Project, 2012-13, NYC, Cell, the one act, Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2011, Daughter, Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2009, Noon Day Sun, August, 2008, Diverse City Theatre Company, Relativity, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2004. She has won many awards, including the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, the August Wilson Prize, the Ensemble Studio Theatre Life Achievement Award, Theatrefest Regional Playwriting Award for Best Play, National Endowment for the Arts Playwright Award, and a New York Foundation for Arts Fellowship. https://www.cassandramedleyplaywright.com/

LAURA SHAMAS (Playwright) was born in Oklahoma. She is a 2023 Los Angeles New Play Project Playwriting Award winner ($20,000) for Four Women in Red, which was produced at the Victory Theatre in Burbank in early 2025. This play was published in June 2025 by Broadway Play Publishing. It was performed in the 2022 Festival of New Plays at Native Voices at the Autry. Shamas’ plays include: Circular, Picnic at Hanging Rock (adaptation), Portrait of a Nude, Lady-Like, Chasing Honey, Talking Leaves (Winner – Garrard Best Play Award – Five Civilized Tribes Museum), and Amelia Lives. Her short play Seeds won the Von Marie Atchley Award for Excellence in Playwriting from Native Voices in 2017. Her work on Repro Eco was mentioned in a feature about her in the Chickasaw Nation Times. She is a Chickasaw Nation citizen. http://www.laurashamas.com

LORCA PERESS (Director), is a freelance theatre, opera and musical theatre director, and the Founder and Artistic Director of MultiStages in NYC, a multicultural multidisciplinary NYC theatre company. She is an advocate for women in theatre and an equity diversity activist. Peress is a Union member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and SDC; a member of the National Theatre Conference, Women in Arts and Media Coalition, NYWA (New York Women Agenda), and the League of Professional Theatre Women (past co-president 2011-14). She identifies as a multicultural woman with a Puerto Rican, Sephardic Iraqi and Polish background. Peress has directed new works at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, The Acorn at Theatre Row, HERE, International NY Fringe Festival at the Soho Playhouse, The Tank, Hudson Guild Theatre, Theatre for the New City, NJ Repertory, La MaMa, Repertorio Español, Urban Stages, and others. She directed a special music event for the Lincoln Bicentennial at Riverside Church with Ruby Dee and Sam Waterston, and a concert of the Aids Quilt Song Book at Cooper Union. She has directed university theatre for NYU Tisch, Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and operas at Queens College for the Aaron Copland School of Music and Drama/Dance Depts. She has also directed three 24-hour plays for her alma mater, Bennington College for the Spencer Cox Memorial Fund and Nicolas Martin Scholarship Fund at the Signature Theatre, Lucille Lortel, and the Public Theatre. She is the co-producer of Repro Eco: Tomorrow Is Now. https://www.lorcaperessdirector.com/

JENNIFER CHIN (Modern Dance Choreographer) is a dance artist who has performed and taught throughout the US and abroad. Her choreography has been presented in New York City, Mexico, Croatia, Scotland, Italy, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Her company, JENNIFERCHINdance, has an ongoing collaboration with WADE, operating at the intersection of performing arts, activism, and social change. In addition, she choreographs for theater and opera and is a longstanding collaborator with MultiStages. Jennifer is an instructor in the Humphrey-Limón technique, yoga, pilates and embodied anatomy. She has taught in Arizona, Italy, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Finland. She has been on faculty at The José Limón Institute, The Martha Graham School, Montclair State University, Peridance, Brooklyn College, and Université du Québec á Montréal. Jennifer received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and BA from Queens College. LUMINOUSbody, transformative health and fitness is her small business offering lessons in yoga and pilates.

MULTISTAGES is a multicultural multidisciplinary company founded by Lorca Peress in 1997 to develop multicultural and multidisciplinary new works through collaborations between playwrights and artists (within and outside the theatre arena) that celebrate a fusion of art forms and cultures. By supporting cross-collaborations, new works are created that enrich, explore, and examine our world. MultiStages produces new works Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, in Festivals, Script Development Series, and through New Works Contests blind submissions. MultiStages has presented and developed over 100 theatre collaborations between playwrights and filmmakers, composers, choreographers, musicians, visual artists, theatre artists and designers on gun control, gender equality/identity, climate change, mental illness, Black Lives Matter, Latinx and indigenous subjugation/displacement, domestic violence, and gentrification. 700+ playwrights have submitted to the New Works Contests and hundreds have had their work presented. By supporting cross-collaborations, new works are created that enrich, explore, and examine our world. MultiStages produces new works Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway.MultiStages Awards/Grants: 2026 Creative Engagement Award (LMCC and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs), 2026 Creative Opportunity Fund, 2025 Puffin Foundation through ReproFreedomArts.org, 2023-2024 Creative Engagement Grants (LMCC and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs), Cherry Lane Alternative Gift, N.W. Dible Foundation, A.R.T./New York Relief Fund for NYC Small Theatres, the Cultural Arts Solidarity Fund administered by the Indie Theatre Fund, and Leon Levy Foundation COVID Relief Fund, administered by A.R.T./New York, 2019 Creative Engagement Grant (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs), 2022 and 2019 Indie Theater Fund Grant, 2017 NYMF Next Link Project, 2015 NY Innovative Theatre Nominations (six nominations), 2012 HOLA Awards (four awards including Outstanding Production), 2015 Taino Areito Award in Drama, four Manhattan Community Arts Fund Awards (LMCC and the DCA), Dramatists Guild Fund Award, Jewish Communal Fund grants and many others. https://multistages.org/

REPRO FREEDOM ARTS is a New York City theater company devoted to opening conversations about reproductive freedom, rights, health and justice. In its 23 years, Words of Choice has created theatrical works dedicated to reproductive freedom and composed of selections by an array of writers. These signature pieces, Reproductive Freedom Is What We Want and Words of Choice, have traveled to 20 states and appeared before audiences at 100 venues with dozens of local partners, performed on radio, in a full-length video (now available on DVD ), been included in a book anthology, published its own anthology, and performed in two Live Streaming shows in the Wired Arts Festival, reaching 35,000 viewers in 20 nations. Other creative works have extended to audio, video, workshops, festivals, and the first Reproductive Freedom Walking Tour. It has been honored with awards from Repro Freedom for All (f/k/a NARAL Pro-Choice America), the Quixote Foundation, the Abortion Conversations Project, and others.

Repro Freedom Arts uses dynamic theater, arts and creativity to open new conversations in support of reproductive freedom and human rights. Its mission includes addressing many intersectional issues, including support for bodily autonomy, economic sustainability, equality, gender identity, LGBTQI rights, full access to health care, abortion access, contraception, maternity care, sex education, parenting support, environmental sustainability, immigration rights and voting access, and a world free of violence, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and gender oppression.

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