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Productions

These photos are from several of my full productions. For more information or a full resume, contact: emasuntalyon@gmail.com

Sex and the Abbey (The Brick)

The Abbey is in trouble – and only Hrotsvit’s play can save them! The canonesses need to impress Emperor Otto (who is visiting tonight!) with a performance… by Hrotsvit, the first western woman who ever dared to write a play. Embroiled in lustful conflicts, the stress of daily prayers, and impassioned moral arguments, can these women save Gandersheim Abbey from male takeover? Find out in this hot goss from 10th Century Saxony!

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 Read The New Yorker feature by Helen Shaw        

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Bold Stroke for a Husband

Imagine if Taming of the Shrew didn't require actors to turn themselves into pretzels to make the ending feminist – because there are 5 dynamic women characters who all get agency around their love lives? Well, luckily Hannah Cowley did the work for us back in 1783, so we don't have to! This Expand the Canon play serves up all kinds of comedy – word play, physical gags, mistaken identities, gender exploration, and more – where our 'Katherine' rather tames our Petruchio... by giving him space, respect, and a few good zingers – and doing the same for herself.

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                                       Photos by Sarah Sanborn

Sex & the Abbey (LPAC)

Sex & the Abbey enters a day in the life of Hrothsvita, the first western woman playwright we know of. She's a cloistered canoness in a 900's Saxony Abbey – where all the educated, unmarried women hang out – and is about to publicly perform her first play. For the Emperor. Who could save or destroy the Abbey. Amidst the conversations on the power and purpose of art, the women reflect on their traumas, loves, and hopes for their legacies. 

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                                       Photos by Ryan Prado

Men On Boats

Men On Boats is a play about men making history by going down a river - performed by women on dry land. The story of John Wesley Powell, who lead the US expedition to map the Grand Canyon, is a part of history... but, why do we tell his story? And whose stories are we leaving out? Join 10 non-cis-white-men as they embody these brave explorers – and continue to question the legacies we honor, the legacies we should honor, and the complexities of identity of the past, present, and future of our storytelling.

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                                       Photos by Elizabeth Vice

#yourmemorial

#yourmemorial is a play about what we choose to remember, what we refuse to see, and what it means to be real in the Facebook age. Fresh out of college, Lottie is determined to change the world and make a difference. But when she's killed at her internship in Afghanistan, the Internet threatens to tear her memory apart. As fangirls, rubberneckers, pseudo-friends, trolls and her own social media fuel the digital storm, Lottie's friends will struggle over how and who gets to tell her story, and what her legacy should be.

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Review: "Resourcefully working on a minimalist level, director Emily Lyon achieves fluidity, some lovely stage pictures and the fine performances with her inspired staging."

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                                       Photos by Gabe Frye-Behar

Mary Stuart

Review: "Under deft direction by Emily Lyon, the play gallops through back-room-betrayals, secrets, and professions...  Lyon’s direction weaves these
long-examined characters through an unavoidable, modern lens of partisanship – where one decision, whether it be to sign an execution, marry a king, or beg for forgiveness, can be seen as an act of manipulative power-grabbing, or well-intentioned concern for image in an ever-watching world for a woman in power.

In the first few moments of the play... the men of the royal court raid Mary’s private trunks for remnants of letters she has written that may or may not contain salacious treason, and one can’t help but to ask,
'But her emails?'”

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                                       Photos by Allison Stock

All's Well That Ends Well

Review: "I find it hard to understand why William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well is so seldom performed. When done as elegantly as Hedgepig Ensemble’s recent, very brief, run at the Gene Frankel Theatre it’s as inviting as any of Shakespeare’s major comedies. Though considered a “problem play”—one characterized by ambiguity and flecked with tragic notes, making it not quite a pure comedy—it’s full of snappy dialog and a complex enough story that creates genuine anticipation. My only regret, and it’s a significant one, is that this production only played for two weekends."

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                                       Photos by Allison Stock

A Taste of Shakespeare

Edited by Emily Lyon

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The Brick's Summer Shakespeare Festival

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Come cruise through some of Shakespeare's island-themed love stories in these 20-ish minute takes on the Bard's plays! Featuring "1/12th Night," "The Tiny Tempest," and "Midsummer: Tedious and Brief," our 5 actors played 10 roles each to tell each truncated story. 

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                                       Photos by Allison Stock

How We Hear

Created by Emily Lyon

LPAC's Rough Draft Festival

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Review: "What Lyon did with the next hour and half of our time was an interesting journey through selected excerpts of our national debate. But even more importantly, Lyon took us on an exploratory journey ­ including some real time processing ­of how new forms of mass media, with the incredible proliferation of information venues and access, impacts our ability to have a honest dialogue about important issues facing our society in a way that everyday Americans are able to process."  - QueensBuzz


From Abraham Lincoln to Trump's Twitter feed, How We Hear is an experimental piece about how our political discourse has changed in response to technology. The piece asks, particularly when debating such weighty issues as civil rights, how we can value and protect nuance in a world of 140 (or 280) characters? 

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                                       Photos by Mehboob Ahmedabadi

The Secret in the Wings

by Mary Zimmerman

Hedgepig Ensemble, Access Theatre

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Crawl into a blanket fort for this compilation of dark fairytales. Childlike imagination meets a probing exploration of what frightens us most in this ensemble-driven, unusual play. With neighborly ogres, sullen princesses, and fraternal swans, dive into the mysterious world of tales that feel familiar.... and examine the roles and assumptions that have been handed down to children for centuries. 

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                                                         Photos by Will O'Hare

The Summoning  (sheNYC)

by Charlotte Ahlin

 

The Connelly Theatre, sheNYC Festival

WINNER: Best Production, Best Director, Best Actress

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Circe and Morgan are college roommates, and tonight they're planning something strange. All they need to set their dangerous plan in motion is that final touch: a virgin vessel. Enter Lily, the last virgin on campus...

A story of female friendship, contemporary feminism, and that "circle of hell for women that don't help other women."

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                                                         Photos by Lloyd Mulvey

The Summoning  (WinterFest)

by Charlotte Ahlin


New York Theatre Festival

 

Circe and Morgan are college roommates, and tonight they're planning something strange. All they need to set their dangerous plan in motion is that final touch: a virgin vessel. Enter Lily, the last virgin on campus...

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                                                         Photos by Lauren Sowa

Sword & the Stone/The Tempest

by Mona Smith

 

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival Fall Tour

 

Touring area elementary schools, this pair of plays asks our three actors to play numerous characters to tell the story that "might doesn't make right."

Women of Williams County

by Karly Thomas

 

Midtown International Theatre Festival

 

This new play throws Tennessee Williams' most iconic female characters all into a room together – where they find out they're all having the same troubles.
A mediation on why women feel the need to be in competition with each other, and why that cycle continues to repeat.

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                               Photos by Allison Stock and Somie Pak

The Arsonists

by Max Frisch (translated by Alistair Beaton)

 

DCTV Firehouse, NYC

 

Why do we read the news... and assume it's all happening to other people? Playing on the architecture of the firehouse, The Arsonists envelops the audience in a blazing satire of politics, class, and the news, pointing out all the ways we let in exactly what we don't want. 

 

 

                                                      Photos by Allison Stock 

Breaking 100

by Michael Bonventre

 

Gene Frankel Theatre

 

Based on a true story, Breaking 100 follows one teacher as he tries to inspire his students by coaching the bowling team – and ends up being transformed himself. A story of embracing diversity and living authentically.

 

 

 

                                                           Photos by Allison Stock   

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare

 

SUNY Brockport

 

With Arden set as a 1930's Hooverville, our current economic problems echoed through the text. The BA students investigated how economics, gender, and social class can affect what we think we want -- and discover that how we expect things to be isn't always how we like them.

 

 

                 

Some of the Side Effects

by David Shaw  

 

United Solo Fest, Theatre Row; Yale Medical Conference; 13th St Rep   

   *Won Best Premiere at United Solo

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A teenage trip through a mental hospital; a comedy... mostly.  Unpacking the stigma of diagnosis, drugs, and what it means to lack open conversation, this solo-show runs the emotional gamut of experiences within our mental health system. 

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                                               Photos from Yale Conference

                      

The Hothouse

by Harold Pinter

 

Studio One

 

Set in an enigmatic, bureaucratic facility, The Hothouse explores the questionable humanity of the healthcare system. 

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

 

Mendelssohn Theatre

 

Hamlet is the story of one man trying to process his thoughts and emotions around trauma in a restrictive, insensitive world. To justify the play's misogyny and resistence to emotional conversations, I set Hamlet in the Mad-Men-esque 1960s. Luckily, that fun idea tripled the Rude Mechanicals' usual audience.

Bright Ideas

by Eric Coble

 

Studio One

 

Two parents find themselves on a humorous Macbeth-esque journey to get their son into the right college – by getting him into the right pre-school. A send up of the priorities of our education system, and the cut-throat culture it creates. Literally.

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

 

Mendelssohn Theatre

 

Produced just before the presidential election, Measure for Measure played upon the unfortunately-apt political discourse of "legitimate rape" to make Isabella's story of corruption and disbelief remain a timely issue.

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