HOST INVITE

WRITTEN BY TARIK DAVIS
DIRECTED BY MICAH SHERMAN

A play for the moment, Host Invite, written by Tarik Davis (Broadway’s Freestyle Love Supreme and The Amber Ruffin Show on peacock), is a virtual one-act horror that blurs the line between science fiction and science fact. Designed to get theater professionals back to work, this project’s backdrop is the very pandemic in which we currently find ourselves. In this workshop performance, investigative reporter Russell Brooks (Billions’ Kelly AuCoin) hosts a Zoom call for whistleblowers from Tangle, a multinational tech conglomerate, to expose the corporation’s labor violations, but he unearths something far more sinister. When it comes to augmented reality and disinformation, it’s so hard to determine what’s real anymore. What is the matrix? You have to see it for yourself!

**This production of Host Invite is made possible by The Tank Artists-in-Residence Program.

TARIK DAVIS
PLAYWRIGHT

Tarik Davis (@tarikrdavis / tarikdavis.com) is an actor/writer/avid pop culture consumer based in Brooklyn, NY. Past experience includes performing for Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and The Second City in Chicago. Tarik wrote and stars in Page One, a short horror film that was featured in the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. He has made numerous TV appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers and has recently appeared on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Friends from College. In 2018, Tarik performed at the Brooklyn Museum in David Levine’s Some of the People, All of the Time and is a regular performer at The Pit with Comedy People’s Time and The Baldwins and at UCB Hell’s Kitchen with Baby Wants Candy. Tarik joined Freestyle Love Supreme in July 2019 at the Kennedy Center in D.C. and made his Broadway debut with FLS at the Booth Theater in December 2019. You can also catch Tarik as a main cast member in the Netflix series The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show and as the on camera announcer for The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock (premiering September 25, 2020) and on the weekly podcast, Brothers From Another Planet.

MICAH SHERMAN
DIRECTOR

Micah Sherman is an actor, director and creator who has worked from Maui to Oslo, but mostly in between. Sherman is an alum of the Second City theater in Chicago, Improv Asylum in Boston and the Peoples Improv Theater in New York City. Original creations of his include NYC’s long running Old School Sketch Show, Mashable’s The Bob Ross Challenge and his award-winning TV pilot, Improvising. Acting credits include roles on HBO’s High Maintenance and the feature film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Since the pandemic, Sherman has been hosting the live game show Art Smackdown on Twitch. It’s really fun and so is he. Micah is honored to be working on this groundbreaking theatrical production.

PAUL(i) REESE

Paul(i) Reese is a technical theater designer, teaching artist, and freelance chaplain based out of Philadelphia, PA. They have designed, produced, and performed in-person shows and live-stream projects for Good Good Comedy Theatre, Fools for Good, Freestyle Love Supreme Academy, and Yale University, where they studied Visual Storytelling with Wendall Harrington. Reese is a co-founder and the head of technology at Off Mic Comedy, a virtual training center with a non-hierarchical class structure committed to transparency and fun. Currently they produce the shows Props! A Hip Hop Game Show with David Bradshaw and Listen, Lurkers: an improvised musical e-show. Follow them on instagram and twitter at @episcopaulian and @pauli.reads.

MARK STETSON

Mark Stetson is a NY-based actor / producer / writer / director / editor who just loves making things. He is currently an in-house producer for Mashable and founder of the production company Georges Briard Productions (GBPro). Mark is the former Artistic Director of PITtv and host of The PITcast, the official podcast of The Peoples Improv Theater, where he performs with Squall, Welcome to Hell, Old School Sketch Show and Awkward Family Dinner. Mark directed the ABC mini-series Discover Beijing as well the films, Attendant, Last Night, Distracted and Sugar.  He also co-created and produced Mashable’s The Bob Ross Challenge and Art Smackdown along with Micah Sherman.

STEVE CAPPS

Steve Capps is an actor/improviser, teacher, and photographer. Originally a musician, he began acting and improvising while working in tv/film production in Atlanta. His Atlanta credits include Astronaut University, Meadowlark, and Fun World. He moved to NYC in 2012 to pursue experimental improvisation and theatre, studying at Magnet Theater and the Barrow Group among others. His latest endeavor was performing as Tape Face in the Australian tour of Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque Stratosphere. Currently, Steve lives in upstate New York, where he’s a photographer, cyclist, and deciding on which dog to foster. (Australian Shepherd or Yorkie?!?)

GREG KOTIS

Greg Kotis is the author of many plays and musicals including Urinetown (Book/Lyrics) for which he won an Obie and two Tony™ Awards, I Am Nobody, The Truth About Santa, The Sting (Lyrics), Lunchtime, Give the People What They Want, Michael von Siebenburg Melts Through the Floorboards, Yeast Nation (Book/Lyrics), Pig Farm, Eat the Taste, and Jobey and Katherine.  His work has been produced and developed in theaters across the country and around the world, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theater, American Theater Company, The Apollo (West End), The Brick, the Eugene O’Neill National Theater Conference, The Geva Center, Goodspeed Musicals, Henry Miller’s Theatre (Broadway), Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Stage and Film, New Line Theatre, The Old Globe, Perseverance Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Soho Rep, South Coast Rep, The Saint James (Off West End), The Tank, and Village Theatre, among others.  Future projects include ZM, an original musical about teenaged fast-food workers trying to survive a zombie plague.  Greg co-founded Theater of The Apes with his wife Ayun Halliday (www.theater-of-the-apes.com), and is a member of the Neo-Futurists, the Cardiff Giant Theater Company, ASCAP, and the Dramatists Guild.  He grew up in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, lives in New York City, and is the proud father of India and Milo.

SUNI REYES

Suni Reyes is an actress, comedian, writer, who used to dance for a living. She hails from Santurce, Puerto Rico, and has been gracing the stage, screen, and dark basements of NYC for the past two decades.  She was part of two groundbreaking, bilingual, Off-Broadway musicals: Celia, the life and music of Celia Cruz and La Barberia.  Suni was a regular performer at Repertorio Español, UCB Theatre, and The Peoples Improv Theatre. She has been to several comedy festivals, including: Del Close Marathon, The One Festival, Boston Comedy Arts Festival, NYC SketchFest, and before the pandemic hit, she was scheduled to perform Stand Up in the Women In Comedy Festival. Some of her TV credits include: Girls, Billions, Nora from Queens, FBI Most Wanted, The Break with Michelle Wolf, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Suni has also starred in several viral videos on Funny or Die, Above Average and UCB Comedy. Her work as a writer and comedian has been featured on Mas Mejor, Remezcla, and NBC's Visiones.

KRISTIN STOKES

Kristin Stokes is a New York based Actor/ Musician who's been using both to keep herself sane during lock down, (ok.. and yoga). Pre Pandemic- she had completed a National Tour and Broadway run of "The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical" starring as Annabeth Chase. She has a passion for new theater, and has worked around the country performing with companies like; Playwrights Horizons, Dallas Theatre Center, Musical Theatre Factory, Two River Theatre, Theatreworks Silicon Valley, Aurora Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Mirror Box Theatre, The Children's Theater of Cincinnati, TheatreWorks USA, and more. Kristin is a regular at 54 Below and recently debuted her show, "Solo", last February. She has also gotten the opportunity to perform with the New York based musicians collective "Shout House" and has toured/performed with her band at SXSW. She has been featured on "Seth Speaks" on Sirius XM Hosted by Seth Rudesky, Yahoo's "BUILD series", "Live at Five" on Broadway.com, "Playbill, The Game Show" on Playbill.com, Mashables' "The Bob Ross Challenge", Comic Con as a panelist, and is a proud *winning* contestant on "The Art Smackdown" with Micah Sherman :) For up to date Shenanigans, check her out @Chitty_Balone (IG)

PRIYA PATEL

Priya Patel is an Indian American comedic actor, and writer. She was featured in content for NBC, ABC, MTV, Funny or Die, and Glamour, as well as national network commercials. She’s also acted in both plays and pilots produced in New York City, including Urban Teach Now and Everything is Okay, official selections for the New York Television Festival and SXSW respectively. After studying advanced improvisation and sketch writing at the Upright Citizens Brigade, Priya co-hosted Very Much Live! a biweekly standup show at the East Village institution Niagara Bar and created videos for her YouTube channel. She produced and directed an anecdotal interview series, This Series is About Periods which was featured on Salon.com, and headlined at the Period Power Film Festival and Benefit hosted by WaterAid.
Priya is a member of SAG-AFTRA. She earned a degree in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design as well as Philosophy and Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh.

DON P. HOOPER

Don P. Hooper is a writer and filmmaker of Jamaican heritage. He was a staff writer for the 2017-2020 Writers Guild of America East Awards. His directing work has been selected and featured in the New York Television Film Festival (award winner), the New York City Horror Film Festival, The New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival (best screenplay), The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, Martha's Vineyard AA Film Festival and more. His poetry has been featured in Unión de Periodistas, the “Ransack” chapbook, “Jerk Apricots and Chains” chapbook and Just No More. He does voice over in video games and documentaries. He performs monthly in CPT: Comedy People’s Time. He is represented by Atlas Talent.

KELLY AUCOIN

Kelly Aucoin has acted on stage all over the place, in New York, and around the country, recently winning a Drama Desk Award for Signature Theatre's revival of the AR Gurney play, "The Wayside Motor Inn." He earned nice reviews playing the "blithely cocky" (Ben Brantley, NYTimes) & "nicely nasty" (Clive Barnes, NYPost) Octavius Caesar in the Broadway revival of "Julius Caesar" opposite two time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington. He plays "Dollar" Bill Stern on Billions (Showtime), and played Pastor Tim on The Americans (FX). He has had recurring roles on several other American television series, including Hercules Mulligan on Turn: Washington's Spies (AMC), and Gary Stamper on House of Cards (Netflix). He has had supporting roles in films, including Steven Spielberg's The Post, The Kingdom, Julie & Julia, and All That I Am, which won the SXSW Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting. He is a former member of the Tony Award winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company.