$40 (including fees)$20 (early bird tickets, including fees)Performances: Fri. Oct. 23 at 7 pm; Sat. Oct. 24 at 7 pm; Sun. Oct. 25 at 3 pm; Mon. Oct. 26 at 7 pm; Thur. Oct. 29 at 7 pm; Fri. Oct. 30 at 7 pm; Sun. Nov. 1 at 3 pm; Mon. Nov. 2 at 7 pm; Fri. Nov. 6 at 7 pm; Sat. Nov. 7 at 7 pm; Sun. Nov. 8 at 3 pm; Mon. Nov. 9 at 7 pm; Thur. Nov. 12 at 7 pm; Fri. Nov. 13 at 7 pm; Sat. Nov. 14 at 7 pm; and Sun. Nov. 15 at 3 pm.
LIVIA
A Roman Tragedy
by Paul David Young
Oct. 23 to Nov. 15, 2026
The Flea Theater
Livia longs for her lover, who leads the rebellion against a corrupt, evil emperor, and asks what she can do to save Rome. A parable for today.
An evil, corrupt, narcissistic emperor has seized the throne, and the late Roman Empire is in chaos. Livia longs for her lover, who has left Rome to lead the forces gathered in rebellion against the incompetent, debauched emperor. She tries to understand how the once noble Roman republic has crumbled, and Rome has succumbed to the tyrant's hand. She struggles with the feeling that she is isolated in her opposition to and loathing of the demented clown who exiles, imprisons, and executes those brave enough to struggle against the horrid dictator. What can she do to save her society?
Livia: A Roman Tragedy, though set in ancient Rome, is an urgent message for our time.
Livia quotes the dramatic literature situated in ancient Rome, such as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus,Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra, and other Roman plays by Corneille, Ibsen, and Dürrenmatt, as well as Roman philosophers Seneca, Cicero, and Epictetus, and the German sociologist/philospher Norbert Elias.
All performances at
The Flea Theater
20 Thomas Street (Tribeca) New York, New York 10007
Running time: 75 minutes
BAIZE BUZAN (Livia): Broadway: To Kill A Mockingbird. Off-Broadway/Regional: Page 73, New York Stage and Film, The New Group, What Will The Neighbors Say?, Compagnia de Colombari, Arena Stage, Steppenwolf, and more. Film: Being The Ricardos, Our Father, Nobody’s Home, and the upcoming Netflix feature The 99’ers. TV: Chicago Fire, Your Friends and Neighbors. Baize received her BA in Drama from Vassar College and her MFA from the Yale School of Drama, with additional training at the Moscow Art Theater and School at Steppenwolf. She is a resident company member of The Actors Center and a proud volunteer for Experience Camps, a one-week no-cost summer camp for grieving children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling, or primary caregiver.
DANILO GAMBINI is a NYC-based director and producer originally from São Paulo, Brazil. Recent directing credits include Beauty Freak at the cell theatre; A Case for the Existence of God at Mosaic Theater; Wipeout and The Heart Sellers at Studio Theatre; the world premiere of Ni Mi Madre at Rattlestick Theater (OBIE Award winner, Drama Desk nominee, New York Times Critics Pick); and The Rake’s Progress and Iolanta at Yale Opera. His production of Agreste (Drylands) at Spooky Action Theater received six Helen Hayes Award nominations, including Outstanding Director. Other directing credits include the world premieres of the operas When the Smoke Clears and Treaty Between Self and Earth; the musical Sabina at Portland Stage. As a producer, he has served as Associate Artistic Director at Studio Theatre and Rattlestick Theater, and Co-Artistic Director of Yale Summer Cabaret. He is a Tony-nominated co-producer of Cats: The Jellicle Ball on Broadway. Danilo is a member of Roundabout Theatre’s Directors Group, Immigrant Theatermakers Advocates, and Theatre Producers of Color. He holds an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama and degrees in Film, Television, and Acting from the University of São Paulo. danilogambini.com
PAUL DAVID YOUNG's play All My Fathers was presented by La MaMa E.T.C. in New York in fall 2019 as part of La MaMa's 58th season. Evan Yionoulis, dean of David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, directed the production, which was praised in The New Yorker ("hilarious "); The Reviews Hub (five stars *: "All My Fathers is remarkable work and should not be missed."); Interludes (RECOMMENDED); Theater Is Easy ("performances that are both hilarious and poignant"); Theater Pizzazz ("Young’s humor is salient and sardonic. The actors are just terrific."); and Lighting & Sound America (“Packed with curveballs, All My Fathers is also a work of considerable literacy.”). His 2017 Trump satire, Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal, performed by four clowns at Judson Church, was featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Village Voice ("Voice Choice"), The Wall Street Journal, and Hyperallergic. Upstage Downstage picked his play Kentucky Cantata, at HERE in New York, as one of the top 13 plays of Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway for 2015. Erik Haagensen of Backstage selected his In the Summer Pavilion in NYCFringe and at 59e59 Theaters as a "Critic's Pick." His A Picnic for Orpheus was presented by La MaMa E.T.C. in New York in a reading in June 2025 in its Experiments series and will premiere as part of La MaMa's 2026-27 season in October/November 2027.
His No One But You won the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and was a finalist for the Kendeda Fellowship. His one-act Aporia was a finalist for the Kennedy Center's John Cauble Short Play Award. His translations, with Carl Weber, of Heiner Müller’s Anatomy Titus Fall of Rome and Macbeth were published as Heiner Müller: After Shakespeare. At the 2025 PEN World Voices Festival, he performed his translation of a part of Daniel Kehlmann's play Ostern. He has written performance criticism extensively for The Brooklyn Rail, PAJ: A Journal of Art and Performance (MIT Press), Art in America, and Hyperallergic. He wrote program notes for the 2014-15 season of New York Live Arts. His book newARTtheatre: Evolutions of the Performance Aesthetic, about visual artists appropriating theater, was issued by PAJ in 2014. He is a graduate of Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa), Columbia Law School (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), and The New School for Drama (M.F.A. Playwriting), and he was a Fulbright Scholar at Universität Bielefeld in Germany. He has had residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace, Millay Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Ensemble Studio Theatre's Summer Conference. LMCC awarded him a five-month Process Space residency on Governors Island for 2015, where he conceived and performed Curtain Wall Part 3: An Immersive Landscape Theater Performance of Christopher Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," in which he swam across New York Harbor. www.pauldavidyoung.com
NICOLE LANG MCDONALD is a lighting designer, a consultant on the lighting team at Theatre Projects, and a lighting technician at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Her lighting design work spans performance, architectural, and exhibition environments. Recent performance credits include: Purple Rain (Assoc. Design, pre-Broadway), Henry IV (Theatre for a New Audience), My Marlene (Edinburgh Fringe and Boston Museum of Science with Transforma Theater Co.), True Love Forever (Third Rail Projects), Other People’s Dead Dads (Arterial Projects), BIOADAPTED (Transforma Theater Co.), Hanging with Clarence (Park Avenue Armory), and Today Is My Birthday (Yale Repertory Theatre). Member USA Local 829 and IOUE Local 30. nicoleelang.com
JIMMY STUBBS (he/him/his) (Set and Costume Design) is a New York City-based set and costume designer for theatre, opera, and dance. Recent credits include Henry IV (Theatre for a New Audience), King Roger (Des Moines Metro Opera), Rules for Living (Roundhouse Theatre), Wipeout (Studio Theatre), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Signature Theatre), Pipe Dream (Berkshire Theatre Group), and The Band's Visit (Huntington Theatre). Associate design credits include Sunset Blvd. and The Hills of California on Broadway, Carmen at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Turandot at Washington National Opera. Jimmy holds an M.F.A. in Set Design from the Yale School of Drama. He is a proud member of USA Local 829. jimmystubbs.com
LIAM BELLMAN-SHARPE is a US-based Australian composer, sound designer and engineer, writer, and multi-instrumentalist working in theatre, music, film, dance, installation, and hybrid forms.
Recent theatrical credits include The Smuggler and The Beacon (Irish Repertory Theatre), SUMO! (The Public Theatre), The Matchmaker and Octet (Hudson Valley Shakespeare), Song of Rome (The Spoleto Festival), The Age of Innocence (Arena Stage Company), Babbit (Shakespeare Theatre Company), and Escaped Alone (Yale Repertory Theatre), Letters From Max (Ancram Centre for the Arts), Beauty Freak (The Cell).
