The Wellness Together Arts Fellowship today announced that its inaugural 2025-2026 season will culminate with hybrid performances of “At this table…” taking place at experimental theater stalwart and Off-Off-Broadway mainstay La MaMa and online on Thursday, May 28^th, at 2 pm and 7 pm Eastern.

“‘At this table…’ is a sexy, jazzy, zany, improvisational, puzzling, experimental interactive theatre of life,” said Breaking the Walls ensemble members Ed Woodham and Maryann DeLeo, “The event will feature an open-hybrid public forum – an adapted “Long Table” conversation, in Lois Weaver’s tradition.”

Wellness Together is University Settlement’s new model for ensuring homebound adults 60+ are connected and cared for, first by ensuring that basic needs are met and then engaging bodies, minds, and spirits. After a major expansion beginning in 2024, Wellness Together now reaches more than 1,100 East Village and Lower East Side neighbors.

The Wellness Together Arts Fellowship (“The Fellowship”) is a partnership between Wellness Together, The Performance Project @ University Settlement, CultureHub, and La MaMa. The Fellowship is designed to leverage creative and interactive possibilities of online performance to create an expanded sense of community for older adults and ensure that technological advances for experiencing theater online are accessible and inclusive for those who could benefit most.

45 artists applied to the Fellowship, and a panel consisting of representatives from each of the partner organizations selected Rita Liu and C Meranda Flachs-Surmanek as Fellows for the 2025-2026 program year. The Fellows then collaborated with older adults and case managers/social workers from Wellness Together in a workshop series which centered community building, intimacy, and the generation of artistic material, and which resulted in the creation of the eponymous Breaking the Walls ensemble.

“This is an ongoing experiment – how we break past the four walls of the theater – and we hope that this approach will get older adults into creative encounters where intergenerational dialogue can happen,” said Mia Yoo, Artistic Director, La MaMa. “We’ve also been so excited to learn that many of the people who have been part of this project came in with an established history with La MaMa. Some frequented La MaMa as audience members, while others are artists with a history performing at La MaMa. These workshops have become an important point of re-connection.”

Home-bound seniors and remote audiences will be able to participate in the culminating performances by joining through CultureHub’s new Broadcaster, a streaming platform specifically designed to be customized by theater artists and to bring participatory elements of experimental theater to audiences at home.

“Our goal with the broadcaster is to find ways to creatively translate the joy and energy of live performance into an online space. Working with seniors and getting feedback from them both as artists and as audience members is invaluable as we continue to push the technology to be equal parts accessible and expressive,” said Billy Clark, Artistic Director, CultureHub.

“We believe that connection, community, and having fun are just as vital to our neighbors’ thriving as is ensuring that their basic needs are met, and that getting older in NYC should bring opportunities to laugh, build relationships, and create,” said Penelope Hernandez Gonzalez, Director, Wellness Together, University Settlement. “That’s why we chose to collaborate with our colleagues at The Performance Project to create this Fellowship, and we’re so excited about all the ways this project has already allowed our participants to access experimental downtown theater, both as creators and as members of the audience.”

“‘At this table…,’ the culminating showcase for the Fellowship’s first season, is organized as a ‘three-course meal’ made up of performances, conversation, and web-based interactions,” said Baba Israel, Artistic Director, The Performance Project @ University Settlement. “Appetizers and desserts will include performances from the Breaking the Walls ensemble alongside Wellness Together case managers and social workers who have as part of this artistic process collectively explored community, wellness, longing, and pleasure. The main course of the “meal” will be the Long Table.”

“When ensemble member Ed Woodham suggested bringing in the Long Table format as a way to invite the audience into our work, everything clicked into place,” said Rita and Meranda. “Lois Weaver’s history with La MaMa and our intention to break the virtual and in-person limitation as a community comes together to create, improvise, and share a supportive space with each other. Where else would that happen other than over a meal at the table?”

“Our Long Table is anything that makes us happy and can be adjusted, adopted or make us advance in our senior golden years,” said Breaking the Walls ensemble member Areerata Sudhasirikul.

“The Breaking the Walls ensemble brings their artistry and their histories to the process. Some members participated in the East Village’s experimental theater scene. Others create important experimental initiatives for art to thrive in community centers and in public space. Ed Woodham is Founder of Art in Odd Places, an initiative that has been an important container for countless artists’ development. Other members are performance artists, musicians, and visual artists themselves, currently part of other vital initiatives in the neighborhood, like Alliance Stage Company, the resident senior theatre program of Educational Alliance,” said Rita and Meranda.

As Elisa de la Roche, an artist with a history at La MaMa and one of the Ensemble members, shared early on: “I have a PhD, have been a professor, teacher, professional actor, writer, singer, dancer, artist, etc, but I always feel as though I am a beginner. I love to explore in a new way, with others. Each person adds something new and refreshing.”