Thirdwing presents an encore of their acclaimed drama about the unionization of Disney studios.
March 12 - 24, 2024 at the wild project
"Smart and entertaining... Warm and alive, it’s layered with nuance as it captures the anxiety that can grip a workplace amid a labor struggle — and the ruthlessness that can ensue on all sides." -- Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
"An enjoyable cross-section of a time in the life of Disney as a business, with some thought-provoking notions about the cost of making art." - Christopher Caz, TheaterScene.net
"Burbank is fun, thought-provoking, and insightful." -- Edward Kliszus, Front Row Center
"A compelling, hard-hitting one act from Thirdwing... the production resonates, and captivates, from start to finish." -- Jon Sobel, Blogcritics.org
Thirdwing, an innovative new hybrid theater company that has been presenting bold new works both live and streaming under a subscription model (like Hulu or Netflix) since January 2020, will present an encore production of their critically acclaimed Disney unionization drama BURBANK by Cameron Darwin Bossert beginning March 12 at the wild project.
Pushing for a new and affordable way to engage theatergoers, Thirdwing won’t be selling regular tickets to BURBANK. Instead, Thirdwing members can reserve a complimentary ticket after subscribing to their streaming platform for $4.99, which is their monthly fee. Membership includes tickets to all live performances and events year-round plus hours of original streaming theatrical and film content.
BURBANK tells the personal story of a 39-year-old Walt Disney fighting against Art Babbitt, the womanizing genius young animator and creator of Goofy, who led an animator’s strike in 1941. A painter named Betty Ann Dunbar, who by sexist company policy is only allowed to work in the ink & paint department, gets caught in the middle, soon forced to decide if going on strike is worth endangering the closest thing she may ever get to being a paid artist.
BURBANKruns March 12 - 24, 2024. Performances are Tuesday - Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 2pm and 7pm. Running time is 80 minutes. The Wild Project is located at 195 E. 3rd Street between Aves A & B. For more info, visit www.thirdwing.info.
Before or after seeing BURBANK on stage, members can stream the play's prequel, The Fairest, about the underpaid women who painted “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Also now streaming on Thirdwing are hours of episodes based on their highly-acclaimed United Nations play series, ground-breaking Female Genius anthology, masterclass sit-down chats with theater greats, John Turturro & Danny Burstein, and more.
Thirdwing’s 2024 in-person lineup in NYC includes their popular live reading and wine series Doctors vs. Lawyers, affinity space dramedy Renegade Speakeasy, and this fall’s new play about a 1980s conservative Jewish family reckoning with pop culture, Blood on the Door.
“I was inspired by the 20th-century teleplays on American and British television, which were designed not for the stage but for the small screen,” says Thirdwing founder, Cameron Darwin Bossert. “But I wanted to make live theater as well, and then find a way to bring them together. What you watch at home is different than what you see on stage, but it’s connected. We’re trying to make something expansive and fun, like seeing TV come to life, or bringing the characters of a play home with you after the performance. On occasion Netflix will sponsor a live immersive theatrical experience attached to one of their properties, but I think we’re the only streaming service that actually tells you to get out of the house regularly and connect with other people."
BURBANK stars Zachary Speigel, Kelley Lord, and Cameron Darwin Bossert. Directed by Thirdwing, the production features costumes by Yolanda Balaña, sound design by Deeba Montazeri, and scenic and lighting design by Clayton Mack.
Cameron Darwin Bossert (playwright/ Walt Disney) is the founder of Thirdwing, whose directing credits include the streaming anthology The Female Genius, by Rachel Carey (2020), the hybrid streaming and theater cycle A Venomous Color (2021/ 2022), the stage play The United Nations: the Border and the Coast (2022), and feature films The Last 48 (2011) and Jewtah (2018). He designed the opening sequence for John Turturro’s feature film Fading Gigolo (2013), and the multimedia/ film elements for Yasmina Reza’s A Spanish Play at Classic Stage Company (2007). As an actor he appeared in Bambi Everson’s The Thin Man in the Cherry Orchard (NYC Fringe, 2019) and Rachel Carey’s The Disciple (2021). Bossert is also a composer whose work has been performed by the American Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, DaCapo Chamber Players, and the JACK Quartet, for which he was commissioned by the Utah Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2008 Meet the Composer Series.
Launched in January 2020, Thirdwing is a hybrid theater and streaming company taking inspiration from the classic mid-century teleplays pioneered by Paddy Chayefsky and Harold Pinter. Their mission is to bridge theater and film to tell expansive, world-building stories and make traditional in-person theatergoing more affordable with a subscription model offering new content every month, either online, in-person, or both. Thirdwing’s first narrative offering, The Female Genius, by Rachel Carey, had its first episode premiere on March 8th, 2020, presenting a new streaming theater experience 4 days before the NYC Covid lockdown. The rest of the series was released in April 2020, as the first new streaming play with full staging, lighting, and costumes. Since then, Thirdwing has premiered four more hybrid shows. Their in-person offerings include Burbank, Television, The Disciple, The Fairest, The United Nations: The Border and the Coast, Vermont, and The United Nations: The Other West.