Matriline is a somatic ritual with a time-traveling mother and her laundry. In this moment when the world we have known is shifting before our eyes and even the air we breathe is at risk, American mothers are at the front lines. It’s a journey asking those who came before us: How did they survive the times of upheaval in which they lived? — and ask our children and grandchildren: how can we best guide them into a future we cannot see? Our immediate ancestors, perhaps, did not face the particular challenges we do. But others in history have seen similarly difficult, wild times. What could we learn from these women, if we knew their stories, about how to meet this moment for our own children?

Testing the boundaries of solo performance and new artistic territory, early, never-before-seen experimental work finds a home in front of an audiences for the first time,

THE GALLERY SERIES champions the unique potential of the individual performer and challenges artists to craft ambitious explorations of the specific and intimate relationship between solo performers and spectators.

Artists with highly experimental, combustible, pliable works receive up to 25 hours of rehearsal and two nights of performances in our intimate Gallery, for audiences of no more than 20 people as a catalyst for future development.

Theaterlab invites you to join Katie Zaffrann as she develops her never before seen work, Matriline.