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Wolf 359 is a company of narrative technologists, founded by the writer Michael Yates Crowley and the director Michael Rau. Our work exists at the intersection of theater, technology, and experience. Since the company’s founding in 2007, Wolf 359 work has been shown in New York City at Lincoln Center, the Public Theater, Ars Nova, and the Future of Storytelling Festival, among other venues; outside the city, we have been invited to perform in Berlin, Chicago, Dublin, Edinburgh, and many other cities and city-states.

Founders

 Michael Yates Crowley 

Michael Yates Crowley is a Brooklyn-based writer and performer whose work has been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. His works for theater include The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B Matthias (Playwrights Realm at The Duke on 42nd Street); Block Association Project (2021 Humana Festival); Gunplay: A Love Story (NYTW and Ars Nova); Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead (American Repertory Theater, Joe’s Pub); temping (premiered at the 53rd New York Film Festival, A.R.T.); The Dead, Inc. (Schlosstheater Moers); Evanston: A Rare Comedy (PS 122, O’Neill Playwrights Conference selection); and The Ted Haggard Monologues (published by S. Fischer Verlag; filmed by HBO). He is a former NYFA Playwriting fellow and member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Ars Nova’s Play Group, and a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard. Together with the director Michael Rau, he founded the narrative technology company Wolf 359.

Michael Rau

Michael Rau is a live performance director specializing in new plays, opera, and digital media projects. He has worked internationally in Germany, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, Canada, and the Czech Republic. He has created work in New York City at Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, The Bushwick Starr, The Brick, 59E59, 3LD, and Dixon Place. Regionally, his work as been seen at the Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland, OH, and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. He has developed new plays at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Lark and the Kennedy Center. Michael Rau is a recipient of fellowships from the Likhachev Foundation, the Kennedy Center, and the National New Play Network. He has been a resident artist at the Orchard Project, E|MERGE, and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. He has been an associate director for Anne Bogart, Les Waters, Robert Woodruff, and Ivo Van Hove. He is a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect and an assistant professor of directing and devising at Stanford University. 

Company Members

 Chas Carey 

Chas Carey is an attorney. He has served as an actor, producer, graphic designer, and/or camera operator for various Wolf 359 undertakings since 2008. Reviewers have described his efforts as “believably obnoxious and utterly contemptuous” as well as “confusing and — if one were able to make heads or tails of [them] — massively unfair.” He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. His personal site is http://www.chascarey.com.

 

Photo credit: Adrian Buckmaster

photo of Katherine Kovner with a very cute dog

Katherine Kovner

Katherine Kovner is a dramaturg and the Founding Artistic Director of The Playwrights Realm, an Off Broadway Theater Company devoted to early career playwrights. As a dramaturg she has worked on many plays at The Realm and at other theaters including Block Association Project at Actors Theater of Louisville as part of the Humana Festival of New Plays, and runboyrun & In Old Age at New York Theater Workshop.

As an Artistic Director she’s produced plays that have been nominated for 7 Lortel awards, 4 Outer Critic Circle awards, 4 Drama Desk awards, 2 Obie awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer prize. Under her leadership The Realm was recognized with a special OBIE award for “its dedication to risk-taking new plays”. She was the 2014 recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theater Women and is a graduate of Brown University.

Sara C Walsh

Sara is an assistant professor at the University of Washington where she teaches Scenic Design, Scenic Painting, Puppetry, and Devised Theatre.  When not in the middle of a pandemic, she splits her time between there and Brooklyn.  Initially trained in Chicago as a performer, she graduated from the Second City Conservatory.  While in Chicago she also started designing sets.  Her final year there she was nominated for a JEFF for Best Supporting Actress AND for Best Set Design.  She moved on to NYC, receiving her MFA from NYU in Design.  And there she met Michael Rau, and later, Michael Crowley. 

 

Her work centers on the audience experience, and therefore often explored themes of discovery and change.  She loves non-traditional venues.    She received a Bessie in 2010 for Faye Driscoll’s 837 Venice Blvd.  She designed and co-directed Emily’s D+Evolution Tour with Grammy Winner Esperanza Spalding in 2016.  As a performer, she has attended workshops with Frantic Assembly, Drew Dir and Sarah Fornace of Manual Cinema, and Tom Lee.  She designed for comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Colin Quinn and Hasan Minaj.  She helped create Queen of the Night (as Head of Design), a large scale immersive theatre/circus/food experience built in the Diamond Horseshoe, the new club in the Paramount Hotel in Times Square. New York Magazine called it “New York’s hottest nightlife event”. She designed the Obie award-winning Great Lakes for Lee Sunday Evans, and an immersive house party musical called The Bad Years for Stephen Brackett.  She has designed the sets for almost every Wolf 359 production. 

Asa Wember

Asa Wember is a sound and media systems designer for live theatre and interdisciplinary narrative experiences.
Originally from Annapolis MD, he is currently based in Washington Heights, New York City.