La MaMa, ETC in association with Peculiar Works Project presents a World Premiere
Thursday–Sunday, March 19–April 5, 2026
The Downstairs Theater, 66 East 4th Street, New York City (map it)
Tickets available soon!
“La MaMa, ETC in association with Peculiar Works Project presents…” We’ve been wanting to say this for a long time, and now it’s finally happening—next spring, 2026! Peculiar Works Project is pleased to announce that our next production, ANTIGONE In Analysis, has been selected by legendary theater presenter La MaMa ETC for their 2026 line-up.
Written by Barbara Barclay and directed by Ralph Lewis, this new play with live music will premiere next March in The Downstairs Theater. We can’t wait to return to the site where our Spring Pictures of the Floating World (2012) launched this space as a performance venue. And Antigone in Analysis will celebrate Women’s History Month, running Thursday–Sunday, March 19–April 5, 2026 at 66 East 4th Street, NYC.
A feminist spin on Sophocles’ tragedy, this contemporary makeover reimagines the classical Greek myth with a metaphysical twist: a chorus of great thinkers from across time conjures a new version of Sophocles’ play, so they can put Jocasta on the throne to square off with Antigone. Their meddling erupts in a mother-daughter throwdown that interrogates patriarchal storytelling through a feminist lens. And there is no battle more fiercely fought than that between a daughter and her mother.
From the playwright…
I wanted to explore my relationship with my mother—especially her blindness to who I was. I thought about blindness in Greek tragedies, and Antigone caught my eye. Do daughters have the right to unconditional love from their mothers?
The embattled mother-daughter relationship in Barclay’s script reveals new motivations for Antigone’s defiance and exposes how patriarchal rule fuels their fight. As conflicts escalate in the chorus, egos get crushed and mayhem ensues with a surprising resolution in this new play written for mothers, daughters, and everyone who’s ever had one.
Following a sold-out December 2024 staged reading at La MaMa/Great Jones, next year’s 3-week run of this 75-minute play will feature an ensemble cast of seven supported by a design team of six. The artistic team includes Rachel Cohen (choreography), Alana Asha Amram (composer), Evan Frank (sets/projections), Grace Martin (costumes), David Castaneda (lighting), Ruya Tazebay (community engagement), and Peculiar Works Project producers Catherine Porter and Barry Rowell.
MEET THE MAKERS
Peculiar Works Project (Producer) is Ralph Lewis, Catherine Porter, and Barry Rowell, site-based performance producers who create, develop, and present original multi-disciplinary experiences in local, grassroots neighborhoods. Founded in 1993, our award-winning company encourages collaboration, experimentation, and a rebel spirit by providing artists with the tools and opportunities needed for creative exploration. We perform in unconventional spaces because we believe artistic work wakes up a site, the site transforms the work, and audiences experience both in surprising new ways—city streets, landmarked buildings, gutted storefronts, and other peculiar sites throughout NYC. Acclaimed works include Language Games, a play shot on video during COVID that has received multiple film festival awards; Manna-Hata, an epic NYC history through vacant floors of the Farley Post Office; and the OBIE Award-winning OFFStage, in which 200+ artists toured audiences to sites of original Off-Off Broadway venues in The Village.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (Presenter) is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa's 64th Season, LA MAMA NOW, focuses on creating solidarity and building community, exploring ways to build connections for cross-sector coalition and invite artists, activists, organizers and community members into the creative process La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theatre Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. We are a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.
Barbara Barclay (Playwright) is a multi-disciplinary artist living in SoHo, NYC, since 1973, working as a painter, sculptor, and photographer before taking up playwriting in 2019. Following two decades of dramaturgical work with Peculiar Works Project, her first play, Language Games, was selected by NYC’s Rogue Theater Festival (2020). A film version was screened in AD ABSURDUM: The Politics and Poetics of Absurdity and in the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe. Acknowledgements include Women Empowerment Award and Women Awareness Award (Rome Women Festival), along with awards from N.Y. International Women Festival, L.A. Independent Women Film Awards, 4th Dimension Independent Film Festival, Berlin International Art Film Festival, and Madrid Arthouse Film Festival. Her short plays Intuitive Leap and Animal Magnetism followed, creating The Hare Trilogy, and others include Quick Release, Blindspot, and Manny and the Celtic Hare. Currently in development, Antigone in Analysis received a 2025 Puffin Foundation grant.
Ralph Lewis (Director) is a producer, director, writer, and actor who creates multi-disciplinary performances as a co-director of Peculiar Works Project. Post-Pandemic: Antigone in Analysis (La MaMa @ Great Jones); The Great Climate Change (Howl! Happening); In Memoriam: Astor Place Riots (Under St. Marks); The Hare Trilogy (Wild Project, Frankel Theater); Good Jew (Museum of Jewish Heritage); Birth of Broadway (BroadwayCon, NY Adventure Club); and Railroad Christmas (Episcopal Actors’ Guild). Pandemic work includes: Smile Like A Knife (Ego Actus Theatre); Astor Place Riots (NY Adventure Club); and 3 short films: Language Games (Edinburgh Fringe, 2020), Intuitive Leap (Irondale’s On Women Festival), and Animal Magnetism (Anthology Film Archives). Pre-Pandemic: Afterparty (222 Bowery); Two Jane Jacobs (Cherry Lane Theater); Planet X (Black Mountain College, NC); 3 Robert Heide Plays (Howl! Happening); 2 Climate Change Theater Actions (Artichoke Arts); and America’s first play, Androboros (Fraunces Tavern Museum; Overthrow Boxing Ring), among others. When not devising performances, Ralph lives in a 200-year-old Federal-style house on the Bowery and volunteers with the Bowery Alliance, NYC Loft Tenants, and his local community board. AEA, SAG/AFTRA, NYU-TSOA, LCT Directors Lab, and Trinity/LaMaMa master teacher.
