Blessed Unrest | theatre for the adventurous

Nine Moons Runs Now Through June 15th!

NINE MOONS

an original overture to Shakespeare's Othello

Written by Keith Hamilton Cobb,

in collaboration with the devising ensemble

Directed by Jessica Burr

Presented by Blessed Unrest

at Theater for the New City

NOW - June 15, 2025

Monday, June 9 at 7:00PM

Thursday - Saturday, June 12-14 at 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, June 15 at 3:00 p.m.

Runtime: 105 Minutes (no intermission)

Theater for the New City

155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10003

$20 Tickets

Artistic Director Jessica Burr directs a cast of four, including Robert Manning, Jr., Sophia Marilyn Nelson, Perri Yaniv, and Aaron Michael Zook.

“Blessed Unrest and The Untitled Othello Project seek to explore social themes more deeply through a process of creating backstory that turns dimensionless archetypes into dimensionalized characters, representations of humanity into human beings,” states playwright Keith Hamilton Cobb. “What was the spark that caused the fire of Shakespeare’s tragedy to begin to burn out of control?”

“The creation of Nine Moons requires that we as theatre-makers bring our unadulterated humanity to the table in order to embody the exquisite, painful, grotesque, inconvenient and alluring renderings of the humans who enact a tragedy that is perhaps not as familiar as it seems,” shares director Jessica Burr. “The ardent narrative that is Nine Moons, however, is not a tragedy. Not yet…”.

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Nine Moons is produced by Blessed Unrest Theatre Company, in partnership with The Untitled Othello Project and with support from Sacred Heart University. Costume Designer: Sera Bourgeau, Stage Manager/Associate Producer: Rebecca Whitney Klein, Composer: Frances Pollock, Sound Designer: Attilio Rigotti Jr., Lighting Designer: Jay Ryan. For Blessed Unrest, Business Manager/Associate Producer: Jenn Allen, Training Director/Associate Producer: Taylor “TV” Valentine.

All photography is by Maria Baranova.

Help Blessed Unrest turn 25 in '25!

As Blessed Unrest approaches our 25th anniversary, we urgently need your support to ensure we can continue to thrive for the next 25 years. Independent theater plays a crucial role in nurturing emerging artists and enriching our cultural landscape.

Our goal is to raise $50,000 in order to expand our Ensemble Training Program, to implement the necessary changes to Blessed Unrest’s organizational structure, and to mount our spring production.

Donate Now!

We are one of the last, if not the last, remaining theatre companies in NYC offering free, ongoing ensemble training in physical theatre techniques. Accessibility to the arts should not be a luxury, and Blessed Unrest keeps the arts accessible to audiences and artists alike.

Thank you for considering a gift to Blessed Unrest. Your support fuels our mission, provides free training to our Ensemble, and helps us continue our work. Together, we can make a lasting impact and bring arts and community to those who need it most.

Blessed Unrest is a subversive physical theater ensemble that transforms new and classic plays into channels for unexpected alchemy, energetic discomfort, and complex articulation. Through a dedicated and diverse ensemble, international collaborations, and a rigorous training and devising process, we are fueled by the innate human desire to collaborate, the thrill of the impossible challenge, and the instinctual need to rebel. We teach our methods of physical theatre and devising to university students across the country and internationally through workshops and residencies.

We have performed at New York Theatre Workshop Next Door, Public Theater, P.S. 122, New Ohio Theatre, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Interart Theatre, NYU’s Loewe Theatre, Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, San Francisco’s Exit Theatre, Emelin Theatre in Westchester, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival and on international tours in Western Europe and the Balkans. We have staged thirty-two full productions in New York (nineteen world premieres), including original devised plays, adaptations of classics, and stagings of established scripts. See our past productions here.

Recently

Yale Innovation Summit

Artistic Director, Jessica Burr was honored to be a part of the Arts & Innovation: Centering Creators in the Creative Economy panel at the annual Yale Innovation Summit which, for the very first time ever included an Arts Track, helmed by the Midnight Oil Collective. Watch excerpts from the panel below.

“What happens is that the surrounding structures get valued more than the art itself, more than the process. We are supposed to make something from nothing in about three weeks' time. If we are going to be allowed to do our job in society: to see your heart, to heal your soul, to understand the inside of the human condition, we need to be allowed process. We need time, we need resources.”