PST is working tirelessly to raise support and give JULIEN SCHWAB’S rogerandtom an OFF-BROADWAY run.

rogerandtom

one hour of mind-bending head-scratching
meta-meta-quasi-romanti-tragi-dramedy

Question the characters.
Question the actors.
Question yourself.

Penny is Penny.
But Richard is William.
And you are just a member of the audience.

Or are you?
Just how impenetrable is the fourth wall?

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As a special thanks to all our supporters, we’re hosting a night of free family fun and holiday cheer. There will be baked goods, hot cocoa, music, caroling and Holiday fun.

Some of our favorite artists will be stopping by to entertain us, including a very special performance from our favorite Humbug of Christmas Carols Past.

Please save the date to kickstart your holiday season with a gift from PST.

Past Events

Performance Photos

Event Photos

About Us

Personal Space Theatrics presents shows in our own particular style: the full space is used for the play. There is no one place where the audience sits, nor is there one place where the action of the play occurs. The story unfolds in front of, behind, above and below the audience areas, which are spread throughout the room. For many of our patrons, this is the first time they have experienced a play in this style. Once introduced, our growing audience base has become hooked. Our work is not limited to any genre or writer. It is our belief that the space can be used and the audience worked into the fabric of any play.

Mission Statement

Personal Space Theatrics, Inc., founded in 2001, is a non-profit theater company dedicated to serve a curious and passionate audience by fundamentally changing the way they experience theatre. The Company promotes the appreciation of storytelling through live performance. Personal Space Theatrics, Inc. produces innovative theatre that returns to the root of storytelling by removing the barrier between stage and audience to create a community within a shared space.

A Message from Artistic Director, Nicholas Cotz

There is a trend developing in theatre, a trend that in years past was only seen in avant-garde productions.  It has become increasingly common for actors to break the fourth wall and interact, or at least recognize, their audiences.

It is my belief that this trend is a direct response to the public’s disillusionment with conventional theater. The audience is a vital part of a live performance – their very presence makes them part of the show. This is what makes theatre different from film and television.  And audience participation doesn’t have to mean pulling audience members up on stage; PST has been breaking down the boundaries between audiences and actors for years without ever requiring patrons to leave their seats.

In the past, plays often asked us to suspend all disbelief and enter a world of implausible plot points, or else they attempted to hide the fact that they were a play by mimicking films with quick scenes cuts and snappy dialogue. Both of these methods cause the audience to lose their emotional investment and disconnect with the characters. We forget that the theater allows for a much deeper and more personal experience, an actual forged relationship between performer and spectator. This relationship makes each performance unique, and makes multiple viewings fun (and sometimes even essential) to understanding the play.

Personal Space Theatrics is recapturing the magic of the genre itself: a magic that only exists when audience and actors exist in the same literal space. Stage actors are storytellers, and unlike film, their stories go unheard without a live audience. These shows are re-exploring that relationship and are attempting to define (and in some cases challenge) the boundaries of the traditional audience.

Theater will not survive on revivals, stage adaptations of film scripts, and juke box musicals alone. Audiences need to be reminded that the plays they love are a two-way street, a relationship between viewer and performer.  By breaking down the fourth wall and asking that the audience engage with the humanity in front of them, theater returns to its roots: a place for examining the human condition.

Board of Directors

Nicholas Cotz – Chair (email)
Joseph Guidetti – Treasurer (email)
Rich Hlinko – Board Member (email)
Sam Asoli – Board Member

Advisory Board

Jo Ann Levine
Micki LeVine
Emily Sproch

Our Venues

In our 6th Season PST decided to once again venture into the great city in search for the perfect space to fit each show.  We made camp at The Algonquin Theater on East 24th Street between Park and Lexington.  Just a short walk from Madison Square Park, The Algonquin is a newly renovated, first floor theater that fit the needs of The Safari Party perfectly.

For our 5th season, PST was proud to announce that we were in residence at the TBG Arts Center at 312 West 36th Street in midtown Manhattan. PST performed the 2005 sold out run of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol here and we were very happy to be back in this modern 99 seat black box house with no fixed seating. This crucial aspect allowed us to pursue our vision of a theater with no set boundaries between actors and audience, whether we are transported to the Middle Eastern desert, an orchid house in Pittsburgh, Victorian England or a subway track in the heart of New York.

Personal Space Theatrics began its first few seasons performing in residence at Theatre 54 at Shetler, 244 W. 54th Street, 12th floor, between Broadway and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. Its prime location in the Theater District made us a very accessible off-off-Broadway company for our audiences to attend. As we grew, we ventured around Manhattan to PS 122 on the Lower East Side, Baruch College and the Greenwich Street Theater in the West Village.

Nicholas Cotz – Artistic Director (email)

Since founding PST in 2001, Nicholas has helped produce over 15 shows and has directed Random Hookup: An Evening of Sketchy Comedy, a reading of Crackskull Row by New Dramatists’ Honour Kane, the New York premiere of Julien Schwab’s rogerandtom, the World premiere of Mr. Schwab’s Nicotine, the New York premiere of Moonbirds by playwright and poet Christopher Woods, the first NYC revival of Arthur Kopit’s BecauseHeCan, and PST’s collage of Americana Myth America (including works by Theresa Rebeck, Israel Horovitz and Arthur Kopit). In the summer of 2004 he went to Los Angeles to once again direct rogerandtom, this time for an extended run at The Tamarind Theatre and in the summer of 2007 he directed the Premiere of Schwab’s newest work, Beautiful Morning. For PST’s 2008/09 Season he directed the first NYC production of Tim Firth’s The Safari Party.  He is now preparing Mr. Schwab’s rogerandtom for its first ever Off Broadway run.

Mel Wadle – Production Director (email)

After graduating with a BA in Theater Management from Buena Vista University in Iowa, Mel moved to Brooklyn.  She has worked on several productions including Manhattan Theater Source’s Estrogenius, KEF Productions’ FestivaL in Williamsburg, Merry !@#$%ing Christmas at Theater Row and Corpus Christi at The Bouwerie Lane Theatre, Barry Primus’s Wonder Comes the 7th Day at American Theatre of Actors, and two productions of Creative Destruction’s Obama Drama at The 45th Street Theater.  Although she continues to work with various theater companies, Mel’s passion lies with Personal Space Theatrics.  Mel has been with PST since early 2003, starting as the Stage Manager for the New York Premier of Julien Schwab’s rogerandtom and quickly moving up to become Production Manager for the company.  She’s been involved with every production since.  Some of her favorite shows have been Schwab’s Nicotine, A Christmas Carol,  the first NYC revival of Arthur Kopit’s BecauseHeCan, and NYC premier of Tim Firth’s The Safari Party.

Jacob Boller – Marketing Manager (email)

Since joining PST as a volunteer who helped build a door frame, Jacob has learned much about the world of Theater in NYC. He has worn many hats for PST including program designer, photographer, concessions and Tollycurney taster. It is in his latest roll as Marketing Manager that Jacob has become most active in the company. Jacob has an MA in Media Studies from The New School and a BA in Communications from the University of Iowa and is excited to be able to use his skills and knowledge to help PST expand its audience. He finds it humbling to be working with these immensely talented people.

C. Alexander Smith – Resident Properties Master

Is a native New Yorker and man of many hats. Some time ago he began a full time arts education career coupled with his freelance design work. He makes efforts to use his artistic talents to educate the youths of NYC and bring attention to some of the social injustices around us. He has worked with several theaters, schools, television companies, photographers and artists in and around the tri-state area. He is greatly appreciative to those who have helped him to get where he is today and sends his deepest love out to his family and friends.

David Esler – Resident Set Designer

Is in his third season as PST’s resident scenic designer PST. Also in NYC: The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (New Butane Group); Closet Chronicles (Ground Floor Theatre); On The Verge (WATTS Collaborative); Bloody Poetry (Westbeth Theatre); Mrs. Dalloway and the Aeroplane (dir.: Raul Esparza; Playwrights Horizons Theatre School); Measure For Measure (New Generations Theatre); a musical: Madame Bovary (Judith Anderson Theatre); Riders to the Sea (Chelsea Playhouse); Peak Sacred (choreographer Doug Varone), and multiple seasons for the International WOW Company (Limitless Joy, The Expense Of Spirit, The Bomb, HyperReal America). Regional: Hangar Theatre, Princeton Rep, Surflight Theatre, Trump Plaza (Atlantic City), Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, Joseph Stein Stage, Augusta Opera, Sarah Lawrence College. David has also assisted on designs ranging from the world premiere staging of Menken and Rice’s King David to the Lost Colony outdoor historical drama and the Big Apple Circus. He holds an MFA from New York University.

Kathleen Leary – Resident Costume Designer

Kathleen received her MFA in Costume Design from Temple University.  Upon moving to New York, she relocated to Florida to assist in the design of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. She has designed for theater companies such as Sonnet Rep, American Theater for Actors, Stella Adler Studios, and is the resident costume designer for Personal Space Theatrics.  In addition, she has worked for Barbara Matera, Ltd., Parsons-Meares, Ltd., Williamstown Theater Festival,  Playwrights Horizons, and East Carolina University.   Kathleen is currently the assistant costume shop manager at Papermill Playhouse. Her film work includes The Waiting Room, Pirates vs. Ninjas, and  Brooklyn Lobster.

Chris Rummel - Resident Sound Designer

Recent designs include Pied A Terre (Stageplays Theater Co.), The Girl Detective (Ateh Theater Group), The Atomic Farmgirl (TheDrillingCompany), The Last One Left (MITF), Two Rooms (Harold Clurman Festival), tempOdyssey (SPF), Air Guitar (FringeNYC), Beautiful Morning (4th Wall Productions), Sweet Bird of Youth, How I Learned To Drive (T Schreiber – NYIT nominee), and the short film Pirates Vs. Ninjas. Chris is a Teaching Artist at Roundabout Theatre Company, the resident sound designer for PST (where he has designed all shows from fall 2003 to the present), and holds a BFA in theater from Syracuse University.

Melissa Sherwood – Web Design and Development (email)

Ms. Sherwood grew up in Darien, Connecticut and is a graduate of Pratt Art Institute. She worked as a freelance designer in New York City for ten years before relocating to Detroit in 2008 to co-found SHERWOOD+BLACK, a web and print design studio.

Mark Ramel – Graphic Designer

Mark Ramel’s joy is taking plain vanilla ideas and making fudge sundaes that will blow minds. Currently, he is the Creative Director and Partner at Armchair Studio, a small design agency located in Brooklyn that creates effective and beautiful websites, print materials and identities for a wide range of clients. Previously, he created winning ideas and designs for NYSE, General Electric, MasterCard, Girl Scouts of America, and Condé Nast to name a few. Mark graduated from Syracuse University’s top-ranked Communications Design school. He now lives in a quaint Brooklyn neighborhood where everyone’s named Pauly or Vito.