- A Writer Director Lab Presentation
MILK WEED
Iris McCloughan & Alex Tatarsky
Writer Director Lab 2024-2025
September 16 - September 17
A presentation of Iris McCloughan & Alex Tatarsky‘s MILK WEED, the piece they’ve developed over the last year as a part of the 2024-2025 Writer Director Lab.
Waylaid on their way to the renaissance faire, five friends are trapped in a terrible Airbnb. To pass the time, they tell each other stories. Stories about themselves, about each other, and about the society they wish they lived in. Inspired by the Decameron, bad Shakespeare, and pandemic melancholy, stories nest inside stories, dissolving into a kaleidoscopic jumble.
Creators
Iris McCloughan
Iris McCloughan is a director, performance maker, and writer in New York. Their performance works have been presented in New York (PAGEANT, BAX, The Poetry Project, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Ars Nova), Philadelphia (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Contemporary, FringeArts), and elsewhere. Recent direction includes Sam Bell’s Il Bunkerini (Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks), Alex Tatarsky’s Sad Boys in Harpy Land (Playwrights Horizons), and Joan Jonas & Eiko Otake’s Drawing in Circles   WHY? (Castelli Gallery/Danspace Project). Iris is a past winner of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review. Their writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, Prelude, Tupelo Quarterly, juked, jubilat, Gertrude, Denver Quarterly, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse, among many others. They are the author of three poetry chapbooks, including triptych (greying ghost, 2022). Iris has collaborated with many other artists and writers, including Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Alex Lin, Mike Lala, Alex Tatarsky, Vincent Tiley, Lena Engelstein + Lisa Fagin, Jesse Jae Hoon, and Pig Iron Theater Company. Their work has been supported with residencies and fellowships from Clubbed Thumb, New York Theater Workshop, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Mercury Store, JACK, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Photo Credit: Thomas Dunn
Alex Tatarsky
Called “a hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” (Theatre Jones) and “outrageous and profane” (NYTimes), Alex Tatarsky makes performances in the uncomfortable in-between zone of comedy, poetry, dance-theater, and deluded rant–sometimes with songs. Their original solo performances Americana Psychobabble, Untitled Freakout, Dirt Trip, Sad Boys in Harpy Land, and MATERIAL have been presented by venues including Abrons Arts Center, The Kitchen, La Mama, MoMA PS1, Playwrights Horizons, The Whitney Museum, and many bars and basements. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a series on the poetics of rot. Research interests include bootlegs, hellscapes, and compost. @tartar.biz
Photo Credit: Maria Baranova
Sponsors + Partners
Thanks to the following friends for supporting the Writer Director Lab: Lawrence Sutton & Rick Titone and The Jerome Foundation.