Jessica Wegrzyn

An original devised work written and directed by Dan Shanahan and Melissa Meola Shanahan produced by Torn Space Theater

SUMMER 2020

*This is the second year we explored some of the same characters in FEAST which provided another oppurtunity for me to hand dye 90% of the costumes. We wanted SILENCE to feel like an extension and meditation on FEAST and all that has passed since the last time we gathered.

An original devised work written and directed by Dan Shanahan and Melissa Meola Shanahan produced by Torn Space Theater

SUMMER 2019

*90% of the costumes were hand dyed in an attempt to make a limited color pallette that would pop against the natural and left over industrial elements that make up our backdrop at the Silos. This was the one of my favorite experimentations with monochrome.

Far Away/ Carol Churchill

Director/ Dan Shanahan

Scenography/ Kristina Siegel

Costume Assistant/ Paul Van Sickle

Photography/ Mark Duggan

An original devised work written and directed by Dan Shanahan and Melissa Meola Shanahan as part of RESPONSE Theatre Festival produced by Torn Space Theater.

Assistant + Millinery support/ Paul Van Sickle

Photographs/ Mark Duggan

“..This community is an assemblage of people whose culture has been an appropriation and intersection of race, religion, pop culture and gender. Through their opening ceremonies they enact and recreate acts of resistance from a collective history. The drones signify surveillance. A surveillance that maintains control by an ubiquitous overseeing agent that uptakes, appropriates and commercializes all acts and symbols of resistance or counter culture rendering them mute..”

-From Artistic Director Dan Shanahan and Co director Melissa Meola Shanahan:

The Collection/ Harold Pinter

Director/ Dan Shanahan 

Torn Space Theatre/ Feb. 20 2017

Photos/ Mark Duggan

Rhapsody/ original piece Dan Shanahan/ Flatsitter

Torn Space Theater/ Oct. 2016

Photos/ Mark Duggan

An immersive performance collaboration with virtual reality created by Flatsitter, inspired by Kandinsky’s Bleu.

Burden/ orginal piece by Dan Shanahan

Response Theater Festival/ Silo City/ Aug. 2016

Photos/ Mark Duggan and Michael W. Thomas

“BURDEN is Torn Space’s fourth and newest performance installation for Silo City. The project is being designed for Marine A, a vast grain elevator with 120ft tall interconnecting concrete silos, as well as the SS Columbia – a National Historic Landmark – and the last surviving passenger ship of its kind. The project will draw upon the work of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the fashion of chanteuse entertainers, the perceived luxury of Ralph Lauren, and reflections on sympathy and burden…”

-Artistic Director, Dan Shanahan

The Shipment/ Young Jean Lee

Director/ Dan Shanahan

Torn Space Theater/ Feb. 2016

Photos/ Mark Duggan

Nora/ Ingmar Bergman

Director/ Bob Waterhouse

Torn Space Theater/ Oct. 2015

Photos/ Mark Duggan

The Hairy Ape/ Eugene O'Neill

Director/ Dan Shanahan 

Torn Space Theater/ Feb. 2015

Photos/ Michael W. Thomas 

Storehouse/ original piece Dan Shanahan

Silo City/ Torn Space Theatre/ Aug. 2017

Photos/ Lukia Costello

“…Storehouse is Torn Space Theater’s third and most immersive exploration of Buffalo’s iconic grain elevators. The iconic American Warehouse at Silo City will be transformed into a repository for the significant moments that mark an individual’s life. The narrative draws upon stages of psychosocial development, re-imagining the interior spaces of the warehouse and surrounding landscape of Silo City as points of human development from infancy to late adulthood. Portions of the performance offer unprecedented access to the complex…”

-Artistic Director, Dan Shanahan

They Kill Things/ orginal piece Dan Shanahan

Silo City/ Aug. 2015

Photos/ Flatsitter, Mark Duggan & Michael W. Thomas

“…They Kill Things will transform Silo City into an epic landscape, focusing on a secluded society celebrating the summer harvest as they prepare for the arrival of a visiting traveler…”

-Artistic director, Dan Shanahan

Blood on the Cat's Neck/ Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Torn Space Theater/ April 2013/ Dir. Dan Shanahan

Photos: Lukia Costello 

Mud/ Maria Irene Fornes

Torn Space Theater/ April. 2014/ Dir. Dan Shanahan

Photos/ Lukia Costello