RJ THEATRE COMPANY and TAL Media are pleased to announce the third annual CIRCLE THEATER FESTIVAL in a three-week limited engagement at AMT THEATRE (354 W 45th St). Performances begin Monday, October 26 and continue through Sunday, November 15. Circle Festival reaffirms its commitment to raw, immediate storytelling without commercial dilution. Tickets are $15-$53 and are available at https://linktr.ee/circlefestival.
Founded by RJTheatre and TAL Media \u05f4Circle Festival has quickly built a reputation for bold, intimate storytelling. It operates on a simple principle: a room, an audience, and the courage to make something real.”
At Circle Festival, we believe professional theatre should be accessible—both to the artists who create it and the audiences who experience it. Our mission is to remove the financial barriers that often keep bold, original work off professional stages by offering a model that allows artists to produce raw, industry-level Off-Broadway work for a fraction of the traditional cost.
This is not a typical festival; it is a bridge between development and the professional world, providing real infrastructure, real audiences, and real opportunity. By streamlining production while maintaining professional standards, we make it possible for artists to invest in their work without taking on overwhelming financial risk. At the same time, we remain deeply committed to affordable ticket prices, because we believe theatre should be as accessible to the public as it is to the people making it. Our goal is simple: affordable to create, affordable to attend, and powerful enough to move the art form forward.
HAMLET SPLIT APART
\u200b10/30, 11/1, 11/4, 11/8, 11/11, 11/15
\u200bAdapted & directed by Emma Tadmor.
Hamlet is not one person. He never was. In this 60-minute production, Hamlet is divided across three performers — the youngest of whom is nine years old. Together they externalize what Shakespeare always knew was true: that love, rage, and survival cannot share a body without tearing it apart. Drawn from Freud's structural model of the psyche and contemporary research on dissociation as survival, they are three complete people who happen to share one body, held together not by integration but by its failure.
WUNDRLND
\u200b10/28, 10/31, 11/2, 11/8, 11/9, 11/15
\u200bWritten by Gabriel Arriaga, directed by Michael Segal.
Margaret wakes up in a world where everything is not as it seems. Curiouser and curiouser, she ventures deep into the rabbit hole and learns there is indeed a price to pay for the sins of her past. WUNDRLND is a dark, fractured reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, where childhood fantasy has curdled into a brutal game of survival. In a world ruled by abandoned children, shifting identities, and distorted rituals, familiar characters become dangerous guides through a landscape where wonder and violence coexist.
EGG, AND HOW I LEARNED TO SAVE MYSELF and INSIDE MY HEAD
\u200b10/27, 10/30, 11/5, 11/6, 11/12, 11/15
\u200bAn evening featuring two shows: EGG, AND HOW I LEARNED TO SAVE MYSELF and INSIDE MY HEAD.
Egg, And How I Learned To Save Myself
\u200bCo-Created & Performed by Nicole Burgio Wong and Jo Kramer Bailey.
A woman in an EMDR therapy session falls into an eerie internal dreamscape. There she must reckon with her past self, stuck in a vicious loop. A story told with no spoken text, this hauntingly beautiful, ‘weird but not boring’ duet presents a fresh take on physical theater, dance, and dynamic original movement.
Inside My Head
\u200bWritten & Performed by Zak Sandler, directed by Ariella Carmell.
A one-man musical about Zak’s journey with bipolar disorder- from diagnosis in college, followed by 9 years of denial, to 2nd manic episode, to acceptance, even coming to view his condition as a superpower. In the show, Zak accompanies himself on the piano while playing his parents, doctors, and himself, while the pre-recorded voices of his Depression and Mania (recorded by him) speak and sing to him during his psychotic episodes.
HOLD and GOOD GRIEVERS
\u200b10/26, 11/1, 11/3, 11/8, 11/9, 11/15
\u200bAn evening featuring two shows, HOLD and GOOD GRIEVERS
Hold
\u200bWritten & Performed by Bryce Gerson.
After a crisis hotline volunteer receives a call from a stranger who knows his darkest secret, he’s forced to relive the night he ignored a desperate knock at his dorm room door, and confront whether opening the door now can redeem what he refused to do then.
Good Greivers
\u200bWritten by Ashlyn Hughes, directed by Mark Blane.
As part of a government-mandated program, a new patient must work with a guide to heal their grief in 24 hours or face termination.
NUDE PORTRAIT
\u200b10/29, 11/1, 11/5, 11/7, 11/12, 11/14
\u200bWritten by Sadie Bones, directed by Ed Bianchi (The Wire, Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire, Yellowstone, The Get Down).
Nude Portrait stars acclaimed Amadeus actress Elizabeth Berridge, alongside Suzanne Di Donna, Dylan Pitanza, and Chloe Margot. After a 20-year absence from the stage, Berridge returns to the theater in this new play written by her daughter, Sadie Bones. A Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio, Suzanne Di Donna joins the cast in a story that brings together an ex-wife, a new girlfriend, and a neighboring young couple, forcing them to confront the realities of being an artist, loving an artist, and what we owe to ourselves and to each other.
THE DAY INTUITION DIED
\u200b10/27, 10/28, 11/4, 11/8, 11/11, 11/14
\u200bWritten and directed by Talya Dayan.
Ella arrives at a Brooklyn studio to have Nicole, her former teacher and lover, paint her portrait. They haven’t seen each other since Ella left years ago.
As Nicole paints, the years between them begin to fall away. Old affection gives way to questions neither has been willing to answer: why Ella left, what it cost Nicole, and whether either woman still recognizes the person sitting across from her. The portrait takes shape live onstage as their shared past comes into view.
THE PROSPECTORS and MINE AND YOURS AND YOURS AND MINE
\u200b10/27, 10/31, 11/2, 11/6, 11/10, 11/13
\u200bAn evening featuring two shows, THE PROSPECTORS and MINE AND YOURS AND YOURS AND MINE.
The Prospectors
\u200bDevised by The Second Sex, directed by Liadin Stewart.
The Prospectors tells the story of two sex workers in 1920s America desperate for cash. Little do they know the men they plan on stealing from are dead. dead. dead. dead. Dead.
Mine And Yours And Yours And Mine
\u200bWritten by Jenn Ficarra, directed by Margot Leach.
The night before her husband's memorial service, a woman must reconcile with the secrets they kept and decide if the price of keeping them is worth the cost.
UNREACHED THINGS and DELETE ME
\u200b10/28, 11/1, 11/2, 11/8, 11/9, 11/15
\u200bAn evening featuring two shows, UNREACHED THINGS and DELETE ME
Unreached Things
\u200bWritten & directed by Chris Mathis.
When Quinn hosts dinner for Kai's mother, what begins as preparation for a familiar family gathering slowly unravels into an intimate examination of love, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to keep living.
Delete Me
\u200bWritten by Maria Koronellou, Directed by Valentina Piombi.
A quiet night turns unsettling when Elliot discovers photographs of a life he doesn't remember, and the closer he gets to the truth, the more fragile everything around him feels.
MOKEB
\u200b10/26, 10/31, 11/4, 11/7, 11/10/ 11/14
\u200bWritten by Hannah Dehradunwala (Pakistani-American, playwriting debut), Directed by Darine Hotait (named to Disney's Directors on the Rise; her latest film, It's Complicated, was executive produced by Zoe Saldaña); Cast: six women from Pakistani, Iranian, Afro-Caribbean, and other diasporas.
On the Arbaeen walk— an 86 km walk from the city of Najaf to the city of Karbala in Iraq— Ayan, a late-20s freelancer from NYC tries to reconnect with the spirituality that she feels she’s lost, and is desperately trying to regain, as she struggles with making a life-altering decision.
ACROSS A WICKED WEED
\u200b10/28, 11/1, 11/3, 11/7, 11/11, 11/15
\u200bWritten by Adir Lev Mann, directed by Maya Mills.
On what may be the final night of a five-year relationship, two young people confront love, memory, and the cost of growing up. Set over one winter night in Asheville, North Carolina, Across a Wicked Weed follows two young people confronting the possible end of their five-year relationship. A raw, funny, and heartbreaking exploration of first love, growing up, and learning how to let go.
IVY DAY
\u200b10/29, 11/1, 11/3, 11/8, 11/10, 11/13
\u200bWritten and directed by Arianna Muñoz.
As they await the release of admissions decisions, six high school seniors grapple with the pressures and prejudices driving their desire to get into America’s elite universities. Nominated for Best New Play at the 2025 Standing Ovation Awards (\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 ½, London Pub Theatres Magazine), Ivy Day is a razor-sharp, darkly funny interrogation of the college admissions system.
OFF ISLAND PT 1 - 10/29, 11/5, 11/12
\u200bOFF ISLAND PT 2 - 10/31, 11/7, 11/14
\u200bWritten by Rebecca Davidson Packer, directed by William Balzac.
OFF ISLAND is a tragic-comic cycle of 5 autobiographical plays, chronicling Tandy’s life as she navigates her experiences both on & off the islands of Nantucket & Manhattan while struggling with sexual abuse, grief, breast cancer, an absent father, a mad globe-trotting mother & even murder.
The story unfolds across two nights. OFF ISLAND Part 1, featuring Plays 1–3. OFF ISLAND Part 2, featuring Plays 4 & 5.
LOUD & WITH FEELING
\u200b10/30, 10/31, 11/6, 11/7, 11/13, 11/14
\u200bWritten by Spencer J. Vigil, Directed by Jules Dameron.
Created by DeafBlind theater maker Spencer J. Vigil, Loud & With Feeling is a musical based on a true-to-life experience about a group of Queer students in the first 24 hours of their sit-in protest. Throughout the night, the group uncovers much of their personal histories as they search for belonging, connection, and a collective future. With a pop-synth score and resemblances to shows like Rent, Fun Home, and Elizabeth Swado’s Runaways. Loud & With Feeling showcases the Joy, Triumph, and Community everyone longs to be part of.
BECOMING VEGAN
\u200b10/27, 10/31, 11/3, 11/7, 11/10, 11/14
\u200bWritten by Sarah Clemency, directed by Dana Lee Capanna.
Two women fall in love; one is a vegan, and one is a lying carnivore. In Becoming Vegan, the ensemble creates fantastical humor to tell this delicious story of dating, deceit, and decision-making. Sink your teeth into this juicy, ridiculously fun musical comedy that leaves you feeling empowered to find the truth within yourself. Becoming Vegan is full of original songs that will have your cheeks hurting from laughter and make you question if one little lie only makes you hungry for more.
IVY AND THE POISON
\u200b10/26, 11/1, 11/4, 11/8, 11/11, 11/15
\u200bWritten and performed by Netta Toledano, directed by Kelsey Bray.
When her soulmate becomes her ex, Ivy does the reasonable thing: writes a twelve-song emo-punk musical about their relationship and performs it for him and his new girlfriend. They were twin flames—the same soul split between two bodies. They shared a brain, stayed up until 3 a.m. every night, and disappeared into an abandoned tunnel they called their Cave. Months later, the relationship has imploded; Luke has a new girlfriend, and Ivy has spent a month in isolation writing twelve songs about what happened. Ivy and the Poison is an emo-punk rock opera about a woman who mistakes being mirrored for being seen.
LOVING THIS YEAR
\u200b10/26, 10/31, 11/2, 11/7, 11/9, 11/14
\u200bBook, Music, and Lyrics by Chelsea Gabrielle Rose.
Loving This Year is a heartfelt story about a multi-generational family experiencing the tumultuous year of 2020 in real time, as they simultaneously fight to keep their hope alive. As a pair of grandparents fight for their family, their two grown children and their families deal with the chaos of their own homes, most of which are directly tied to the traumatic events of the year. Through deaths, verbal blood baths, and emotional upheaval, this family, despite how hard each day becomes, fights to stay alive in a year where that seems impossible.
BIOGRAPHIES
EMMA TADMOR (Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director) is a writer, director, and actor. Her debut play Plasters premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2021 to a sold-out run, described by The Edinburgh Reporter as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for the New-Text Generation.” Plasters was most recently produced by LAMDA at Theatre503 this summer. Her subsequent work includes Charlie (TheaterLab, 2022), Heretic (WAH Center, 2025) and Hamlet Split Apart, a reimagining of Shakespeare through the lens of dissociative identity disorder, which premiered Off-Broadway at The Flea Theater in 2023 and returns to New York at AMT Theater in fall 2026. Her writing — which explores survival, memory, and the politics of voice — made her a semifinalist for the Cherry Lane Playwrights Collective, selected by Annie Baker from nearly 1,800 applicants in 2026. She is the founder and Artistic Director of RJ Theatre Company and co-founder and Artistic Director of Circle Theater Festival.
TALYA DAYAN (Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director) is a New York–based multidisciplinary artist, actress, director, and creative producer whose work explores taboo, intimacy, and the inner lives of people often overlooked by society. She is the founder of TAL Media and co-founder of the Circle Theatre Festival, where she develops artist-driven platforms and brings bold new work to the stage and screen. Trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Talya approaches performance with emotional honesty, curiosity, and a deep commitment to human complexity. Her studies in psychology, experience in business, and training as a tantra teacher inform a creative practice that bridges the psychological, physical, and spiritual. Across theatre and film, she creates spaces for artistic risk, meaningful collaboration, and stories that challenge audiences to look more closely.
RJ THEATRE COMPANY founded in London in December of 2020, is dedicated to producing new work. The material they look for is intimate, raw and simple. The theatre they create is supremely real; focusing on the moments that define who they are, and who they grow to be. Their goal is to examine and explore the little things that make them human. Their members come from all over the world, as does the material they produce. They form a dedicated team of actors, writers, directors, producers, designers, etc, for each of their projects individually, so that they have the opportunity to collaborate with many exceptional individuals along the way. They can’t wait to share their work with you.
TAL MEDIA is a New York–based creative production house developing bold, intimate work across theatre and film. From immersive performance and narrative filmmaking to artist-driven platforms TAL Media brings distinctive voices and ambitious ideas to life—building spaces where artists can take risks, collaborate deeply, and create work that stays with an audience.
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