Sleep That Knits Up: A Play Reading and Talkback with Artist in Residence Kate Abbruzzese

This event is being held in-person at Bethany Arts Community. For your safety, and the safety of our artists and staff, attendance is being limited and you will be required to wear a mask while at Bethany irrespective of vaccination status. Please read our Covid-19 Safety Statement before your visit.

Bio
Kate Abbruzzese studied drama, psychology, and a smattering of literature and poetry at Vassar College, where she also participated in the selective Vassar Improv and Vassar Shakespeare Troupe. Her senior project, playing Lady Macbeth in an all-female Macbeth at Vassar’s Powerhouse Theatre, earned her the Molly Thatcher Kazan Memorial Prize. After her graduation, she apprenticed at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and subsequently spent four years acting regionally before gaining acceptance into NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, where she received her MFA and the Olympia Dukakis and Ron Van Lieu Scholarships. While at NYU, she wrote and directed her first play, which was one of four selected to be performed for prospective students during audition weekend.

Kate has acted in 17 of Shakespeare’s works (favorite roles include Desdemona in Othello, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Perdita in The Winter’s Tale and the titular role in Hamlet), and written several of her own plays based off of Shakespeare’s characters: Before the Storm, an exploration of Caliban and Miranda’s relationship prior to The Tempest, Motley Fool, an imagining of Rosalind and Orlando’s marriage after As You Like It, and An Evening With the Macbeths, a vignette examining the domestic side of Shakespeare’s most infamous couple. The latter two received a place in Red Bull Theatre Company’s Short Play Festival in 2016 and 2019, respectively.

Aside from acting and writing, Kate moonlights as an illustrator and cartoonist, and recently completed the first issue of “The Zero Waste Comic” in partnership with the intrepid Kayla Miller. You can see more of her art on instagram at @theheartoonist or by visiting www.studiozayzay.com.

Artist’s social media:

Instagram: @theheartoonist
Facebook: Kate Abbruzzese
Website: studiozayzay.com

Residencies and programs at Bethany Arts Community are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Westchester, and numerous individual donors.