ABOUT THE RESIDENCY
As women’s rights continue to be eroded, and a sense of dread for an inescapable future creeps in, how will we know when it’s no longer safe to be a woman in America?
Conceived by choreographer Charlotte Bydwell and playwright Diana Ly, Bodies, Bones, Blood – The Last Women in America is a physical theater work that speaks to the rapidly deteriorating experience of being a woman in America. It follows the journey of four female-identifying archeologists, searching for an ancient artifact in an alternate future. This sought-after item has the power to bolster the narrative of the oppressive State or to justify the rising Rebellion. Each night, the women are haunted by ancient energies awakened by the dig; apparitions depicted with light, sound and movement will evoke the mythical, the dead, and the infinite. Each day, they argue over how to interpret these visions and negotiate their relationship with the all-powerful State. The discovery of a seductive portal to a potential escape leads to fissures in the group as they must decide if it’s better to stay in their dystopia, or leap into the unknown.
CREATIVE TEAM
Charlotte Bydwell—Conceiver and Choreographer
Diana Ly—Conceiver and Playwright
Tala Ashe—Actor
Tina Benko—Actor
Myka Cue—Actor
Carlye Eckert—Dancer
Olivia Kurima—Stage Manager
Teresa Avia Lim—Actor
Christina Scarfuto—Dramaturg
Nicole von Arx—Dancer
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Charlotte Bydwell is an artist who works primarily at the intersection between text and movement. She has a BFA in Dance from Juilliard and an MFA in Acting from The Old Globe/USD. She represented the USA and Canada as a DanceWebber at Vienna’s Impulstanz Festival. Favorite credits as a performer include: HELP (The Shed), A Month in the Country (Williamstown), Private Lives (Cape Playhouse), Much Ado About Nothing (Old Globe), and Lucy Michael in Tony Award–winning playwright Richard Nelson’s The Michaels (Public Theater), The Michaels Abroad, and Incidental Moments of the Day.
Bydwell has choreographed Off-Broadway, across NYC, for national tours, and at leading regional theaters. She was the season choreographer for Comedy Central’s Alternatino with Arturo Castro and has created multiple pieces with the global advocacy organization Mighty Earth, blending dance with climate activism. Her solo show, Woman of Leisure and Panic, was presented by the soloNOVA Festival, The New York International Fringe Festival (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), Exponential Festival, DanceNOW Raw at Gibney, and Chashama. Her solo film, The Nude Model, premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe. Bydwell has taught her movement-based approach to acting at Juilliard, Limón Dance Company, Gibney, Stella Adler, Barnard, Peridance and HB Studio. More info: www.charlottebydwell.com
Diana Ly is a Vietnamese-American screenwriter and playwright based in New York. She grew up as an expat in the Philippines before studying Computer Science at Stanford and subsequently working at Google. She received her MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College under the guidance of Christine Scarfuto, and formed a producing collective with her playwriting cohort, The Omnivores. Their production, in partnership with The Sống Collective, of her play Sex and the Abbey at the Brick in August 2024 was positively reviewed in TheaterMania and warmly recommended by Helen Shaw in The New Yorker. She recently completed the Universal Pictures Writers Lab and the Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab. Her work has been funded by NYSCA Support for Artists and 2G Productions, and presented at NYTW’s Mondays@3 Series, LPAC+The Brick’s Rough Draft Festival, and Piper Theatre’s Spotlight Series. Ly was previously a Women in Film|Black List Feature Resident, a Project Involve Fellow at Film Independent, a member of The Sống Collective’s inaugural Việt Writers Lab and BMP: Producer Academy. She writes about women and people of color coming into their own power, agency and artistry.