Mission
Anna & Kitty, Inc. is a 501(c)3 registered not-for-profit organization devoted to female+ arts and culture with an emphasis on education and leadership through the development and interpretation of Jewish contemporary and classical texts.
Our name comes from the dual heroines of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Anna & Kitty, as well as the fictional character "Kitty" to whom Anne Frank addressed many of her diary entries. Drawing on the power of writing and self-expression, we aim to re-center and uplift women's voices, imaginations, and narratives. We seek to develop, produce, and educate through diverse artistic work that makes the world better through cultural interrogation. Through curricular workshops, hands-on coursework, and institutional collaborations, we create spaces for initiative and exploration.
Anna & Kitty, Inc. and its affiliate artists have co-produced and taught with Fault Line Theater, the Tank, 59E59, Civilians, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference, Manhattan JCC, GenerationR, Working Theater, NYSCA, Colt Coeur, Rattlestick, COJECO, 14STY and LABA Second Stage and been profiled and featured in American Theater Magazine, TDF, The New York Times, The Jewish Weekly, The Brooklyn Rail, CANVAS Compendium, Lilith Magazine, and many more.
We provide and cultivate crucial cultural leadership that raises the standards of arts and culture as a benchmark of personal and global development.
Erin
Erin Capistrano graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English and Theater Studies, and has trained in acting, movement and voice at LAMDA, RADA and Shakespeare’s Globe in London. She received her M.A. in Shakespeare Studies from King’s College London, where she wrote her dissertation on gender and the law in the plays of Shakespeare and Webster. She also interned with Headlong Theatre in London.
She is currently the Head of Theater Studies for the Waterwell Drama Program at the Professional Performing Arts School in NYC, teaching classes in theatre history and dramatic literature. She is the co-founder of Old Hat Theatre, a classical theatre company based in Brooklyn.
Selected acting credits include Sing, Goddess! (HERE Arts Center), Dumpster Fire (SheNYC) Alkestis, Trial by Fire (Columbia Stages), Julius Caesar (Gallery Players), Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Chekhov Project, Twelfth Night, Hamlet (Old Hat), The Poisons (NY Fringe), Doctor Faustus (King’s Players) and other work with Fault Line Theatre, The Amoralists, Queen's Shakespeare, Taksu Theatre and Terra Incognita. Her dramaturgical work includes The Russian & the Jew (with Anna & Kitty, at the Tank), Closing Night (HERE Arts Center), The Time of Your Life (Hunter College) and short films (during lockdown) for Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater.
Her writing credits include Sing, Goddess! (HERE Arts Center) and Dr. Zoom, or Love Like You’ve Never Been Muted (Fault Line).
Described by the New York Times as "wonderfully real and raw," Liba Vaynberg is a first generation American writer and actor. Bilingual in English and Russian, she studied Molecular Biology & International Studies at Yale before getting her MFA at Columbia. She has recurred on New Amsterdam (NBC), Madam Secretary (CBS) and has appeared on Billy & Billie (DirecTV), The Deuce (HBO) and The Plot Against America (HBO). New York highlights include Annie Blumberg in the PBS broadcast of The Soap Myth opposite Ed Asner & Tovah Feldshuh, Black Milk at Classic Stage Company, Bekah Brunstetter’s Oregon Trail at the Women's Project, Novaya Zemlya at HERE, and Golem of Havana at La Mama. Regionally, she has worked at Yale, Williamstown Theater Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre, Penguin Rep and Miami New Drama.
She is the recipient of the inaugural commission at Rattlestick with CBE as well as the LABA 14STY Humor 2019-2020 Fellowship. Her play The Gett was produced at Rattlestick & Theater Ariel, and her follow up The Matriarchs was selected for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference as well as Sewanee Writers' Conference and was a Princess Grace and Blue Ink Award Finalist. Her play Round Table premiered at 59E59 (Times Square Chronicles 10 Best Plays of 2019) and her play Scheiss Book premiered at the United Solo Festival at Theatre Row where it won Best Show as well as the Backstage Magazine Audience Choice Award. She has been published by the LABA Journal as well as Lilith Magazine and writes sketch with her partner Allison Minick with Main Wench.
Liba
Inés
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Inés Braun is a stage and film director from Buenos Aires. She moved to NYC to study theater at Columbia University, and received her MFA in Directing in 2017. Since graduating, she has worked in NYC as a director and writer for both theater and film.
She was selected as a finalist for Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s 2021 Breakout Award, and was chosen as an SDCF's Observer for the Broadway production of How I Learned to Drive. NYC theater credits: Roundabout (Rattlestick Theater), Classic Six (Powerstories: Voices of Truth Festival), Sing, Goddess! and Closing Night (HERE Arts Center), The Russian and the Jew (The Tank), Dumpster Fire (SheNYC Theater Festival), The Time of Your Life (Hunter College), Alkestis (Connelly Theater), Trial by Fire and Eurydice (Columbia Stages).
Regional theater credits: Living Dead in Denmark (U of Arizona). Film credits (as writer and director): Ocean Mother, The Silence, La Ronda, Bajo Figuras, Melancholy: an homage to Sarah Ruhl. www.inesbraun.com