Remote Theater Commemorates Attack on Congress with “Insurrection”

 Online theater pioneer to premiere play by four writers and six people with stories about 1/6/21.

Remote Theater, a pioneer in live online drama, today announced the upcoming premiere of “Insurrection,” a multi-story play about the impact of the 1/6/21 attack on Congress. Among the playwrights are Michael Gene Sullivan, Eugenie Chan, and Tanya Shaffer. The actors include Stacy Ross, James Carpenter, Amy Resnick, Atticus Shaindlin, Bonnie Akimoto, and Samrat Chakrabarti. Director: Giovanni Rodriguez, co-founder and artistic director at Remote. “Insurrection” will premiere on January 6, 2022 4PM Pacific for friends-and-family preview. A videotaped version of this live performance will be aired later in the month.

“Insurrection” marks the beginning of a new series of original works created, directed, and performed by company members and close associates. It comes on the heels of an award by the Bay Area Theatre Critics for its premiere of a new version of Anthony Clarvoe’s “The Art of Sacrifice,” directed by Desdemona Chiang.

“It’s an important time for the company, and we are committing to only four productions next year to fine tune the experience of online drama,” said Giovanni Rodriguez. “In the Spring, we will experiment with a hybrid format where audience members can meet to watch events in person in safe public facilities. ‘Insurrection’, in fact, will help imagine the opportunities.”

Conceived in the summer of 2021, “Insurrection” explores the attack on Congress and conditions leading up to it from multiple perspectives, including a Chinese immigrant, a white supremacist, two beings from another planet, and a well-known vice president and his wife. The play in a composite seeks to comprehend the nature of insurrection itself.

“We are present in this piece not to judge so much as to understand the nature of political violence,” said Rodriguez. The theatre, we believe is one of the few places where stories like these can be told with depth and honesty.”

Registration is free. Go to www.remote.theater.

Photo: James Carpenter as the 44th Vice President

About Remote Theater

​​Born during the pandemic, but with an eye trained on the future, Remote Theater is a company of artists exploring the boundaries of live online performance, what we call “live cinema.” We’re committed to developing and reimagining great dramatic works and finding global audiences for them. Artists we have worked with include Obie-award-winning playwright Naomi Wallace, writer/librettist/TV producer Billy Aronson (the originator of the concept for Rent), and playwrights Tanya Shaffer, Anthony Clarvoe, and Lynne Kaufman.

Remote is the beneficiary of a Facebook Small Business Grant. Past and current partners include The Marsh, the Actors Reading Collective (ARC), and Playwrights Foundation (for their support of our world premiere of Tanya Shaffer’s Manatee On Mars). We are a fiscally sponsored non-profit; all donations are tax deductible.