Inverse Theater is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization formed in 1998 to create, produce, and distribute new American verse plays.
After doing plays together throughout the mid-1990’s as a part of the thriving theater scene on New York City’s Lower East Side, the original Inverse members (actors, designers, staff, and playwright) organized for the purposes of continuing their collaborations and expanding their audience. Since their first play official play together (The Death of Griffin Hunter, Soho Rep, 1998), they have presented their work at a wide variety of venues, including theaters, parks, festivals, colleges, performance spaces, and parties.

The company is structured to bring actors, directors, designers, and playwright into contact in a workshop process in order to craft a new verse play and bring it to a successful production. Each production features original poetic texts, virtuoso verse acting, elegant sets and costumes, and live music. Inverse also looks beyond our staged productions in order to deliver each of its plays to audiences in a multitude of formats, including sound recordings, publication, photography, and video/film.

Inverse plays merge the intelligence, scope, and passion of verse with the vibrancy, dialects, and spirit of the modern world. They merge street talk with poetics and contemporary themes with classical structures to forge entirely new genres. The results are, in the words of one critic, “bona fide modern classics.”(LA Weekly)

PRODUCTIONS, COLLABORATIONS, & COMMISSIONS

Productions

Since 1998, Inverse has self-produced eight plays and two musicals authored by award-winning Resident Playwright and Artistic Director, Kirk Wood Bromley. Presently, this list includes The Death of Griffin Hunter, The American Revolution, Midnight Brainwash Revival, Icarus and Aria, Want’s Unwisht Work, The Death of Don Flagrante Delicto, The Burnt Woman of Harvard, On the Origin of Darwin, Lost-The Musical, and The Banger’s Flopera – An Amusical (coming in Summer 2005). These plays have been presented at some of NYC’s most important, seminal downtown theaters – The Cornelia Connelly Theater, Soho Rep, The Kraine, St. Marks Theater, The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, The Present Company Theatorium, and The Greenwich Street Theater.

Collaborations

In addition to our original productions, Inverse works with other theater companies to bring our plays to the stage. These collaborations have included Want’s Unwisht Work (Sacred Fools, LA), Midnight Brainwash Revival (FoolsFury, SF and Sacred Fools, LA), Icarus and Aria (SUNY-Purchase and Los Angeles Community College), The Death of Griffin Hunter (Theater of Note, LA), and The American Revolution (Bad Epitaph, Cleveland). Prior to Inverse’s incorporation, many now in the company assisted in various co-productions, including The Sickness and the Cure (Target Margin, NYC), Want’s Unwisht Work (Nada, NYC), Lost Labor’s Loved (Nada, NYC), and Icarus and Aria (House of Candles, NYC).

Commissions

The members of Inverse and Resident Playwright, Kirk Wood Bromley, have joined forces numerous times to deliver commissioned works for both individuals and organizations based on specific themes or topics. These commissions have included a one-man play, Syndrome, about Tourette Syndrome (Legend Productions); The Story of Helen Kortright, a six-scene web play about a woman who lived through the American Revolution (New York Historical Society); Faust – The Musical, starring Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors (Gorilla Repertory Theater Company), and Dream Piece and Song of Narcissus, translations of two plays by Karl Kraus and Paul Valery (Bruce Wall, Producer).

AWARDS, REVIEWS, & ACCOMPLISHED COLLABORATORS

Inverse has won the praise of almost every major review outlet in New York City, Los Angeles, and London. Inverse was named “Best Downtown Theater Company 2001” by The New York Press. In 2003, Inverse’s Lost - The Musical won “Best Music and Lyrics” at the NY International Fringe Festival. The year prior, Inverse’s production of The American Revolution earned Bromley the Festival’s “Excellence in Playwriting” award. For his work between 1996 and 2000, Bromley was awarded the Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award. Among the many artists that Inverse has worked with other than its own company members are Tony Award winners Robert Lopez (Tony for Best Score, Avenue Q) and Mark Hollmann (Tony for Best Score, Urinetown) and Obie Award winners Emma Griffin (director), Steven Rattazzi (actor), Matt Maher (actor), Lisa Thompson (set designer) and James Urbaniak (actor).

VERSE EVENTS

In addition to our theatrical productions, Inverse has hosted and engages in a variety of activities to increase awareness of verse and the importance of theater in our community.

¸ Educational Missions: Inverse lectures at schools and universities on verse, using Bromley’s plays as source material. We have worked at Trinity School, SUNY-Purchase, Pace University, The National Book Foundation’s Writing Camps, as well as other educational institutions.

¸ Verse Circus: This monthly event, presented by Inverse Theater from 2001 to 2004 and curated by Meg Kearney of the National Book Foundation, offered a free evening of verse-based performances - poems, soliloquies, and songs.

¸ The Playground: This monthly reading series, curated by Margaret Sheffer and Joshua Spafford, featured new plays read by members of the Inverse Acting Company and other guest performers.