theater

As other pages detail, the brothers have oft been preoccupied by film, television, and new media, but their roots are in live performance, and they remain intimately involved in the Downtown and Brooklyn theater scenes.

DIXON PLACE, Little Theatre 2011
excerpt from Innocent Yet
(10 min play by Frank; starring Megan Gaffney and Brian Hastert)

Frank's background and training is in theater. He achieved his BFA at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2001 and is currently attending Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College (MFA candidate, Dec 2011).

With co-founders Kate Kita (Managing Director of Santa Fe's Theatre Grottesco) and Thom Sibbitt (Managing Director of Omaha's ætherplough), Frank started the Brooklyn-based artistic development utility, The Engine, producing plays and experiments in live performance; hosting classes for working artists; and organizing a writing group.

play reading, Houston 2007

Engine fund raiser, 2004

John Henry immediately boosted the horsepower of The Engine upon joining as co-artistic director after moving to Brooklyn (following a stint as an AP journalist in South Africa) in 2003 - initiating an enormously successful fund-raising campaign; producing, with his three new partners, Michael Weller's Moonchildren; and joining the Writing Group.

The brothers have been involved in the production of numerous plays, events, and staged readings, and they remain two of the six members of the Writing Group.

Writing Group retreat, 2007

Moonchildren, 2004

Co-founders of The Engine, Kate Kita and Thom Sibbitt no longer live in Brooklyn, it's true. They have transported the expertise and performance philosophy that they cultivated in New York to Santa Fe and Omaha, respectively, for the moment. Kate, though, actively maintains her leadership role in The Engine and membership in the Writing Group from afar!

Kate Kita, directing What is In the Way, 2007

Thom Sibbitt in Moonchildren, 2004

Endorsements
The brothers are close friends and sometime-collaborators with theatre innovators 31 Down radio theatre and are colleagues (and fanatics) of New York's The TEAM and Nature Theater of Oklahoma. Check out our links page for more theatre companies Frank and John Henry endorse enthusiastically.