ARA is a multidisciplinary theater and production company founded by Michaela Lind and Drew Valins with a combined 40+ years of experience working as award-winning performers and creators. Their work has toured globally (Edinburgh Fringe, Israel, Prague, and Sweden,) and has been featured in unique venues (Public Theater/Under the Radar, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ted Talks, The Swedish and Czech Embassies in DC, The Beijing Children’s Opera, to name a few). They have worked with true artistic luminaries such as Slava Polounin (of Slava’s Snowshow), Bill Irwin, Kendall Cornell, and David Shiner, and they have had the esteemed audiences of the Dalai Lama and Madeline Albright.
In ancient Greek mythology, ARA was identified as the altar where the gods first made offerings and formed an alliance before defeating the Titans.
RECENT WORKS
LAKEPLAY
A full length play written by Drew Valins had its World Premiere at the Wild Project, NYC in October 2024. A co-production with the Drilling Company and Ara Theater
WHERE IS NOW
Our short film had its New York City Premiere on October 11th at Cinema Village.
DER BAU (THE BURROW)
After a packed-house staged reading at the Czech Embassy in Washington DC, in June of 2024, we are working to mount the full staged piece in 2025.
Der Bau is a new adaptation for the stage, written by Franz Kafka, adapted and performed by Drew Valins, designed and directed by Michaela Lind.
PIFF PAFF POOF : THE MAGIC OF NOTHING
We discovered Daniil Kharms in 2020 via two artists whom we admire, Slava Polunin and Robert Wilson. From our initial inspiration we began exploratory work on the material and presented some of the texts at a couple of variety nights. The work began to take hold of us. The absurdity of the texts and the entire "Kharmsian" world gave us a stimulus for creation and a vehicle to stretch ourselves as clowns and theater performers.
It was first performed at Theaterlab in New York city of fall 2023.