provoking questions through untold stories
What Will the NeighboRS Say? is a Brooklyn-based theatre company with a mission to provoke questions through untold stores.
The Neighbors create theatre that examines historical, social, political and economic narratives that have been disregarded, misrepresented, or otherwise untold in order to provoke discourse in our audience and community. WWTNS? maintains a consistent commitment to diversity, arts education, community outreach and artistic experimentation.
What Will the Neighbors Say? was founded in 2016 by Sam Hood Adrain, James Clements, Jorge Morales Picó, and Ana Cristina Schuler, who met while studying Drama at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU Tisch. Since its inception, WWTNS? has performed 9 original plays to over 3,000 audience members during the course of over 150 performances in 5 cities in 4 countries on 2 continents. They’ve also launched education and outreach departments, and created jobs for over 100 artists, writers, and technicians across the world - 70% of them womyn-identifying. The Neighbors have organized symposiums, staged benefits for organizations ranging from Planned Parenthood to PERIOD, and hosted community events, including our monthly storytime program. The Neighbors are currently Artists-in-Residence at CUNY Queens College in New York.
The company has staged original productions of WWI drama Sources of Light Other Than the Sun, Romanov epic Four Sisters, media thriller The Diana Tapes, political comedy Dogs of DC and historical drama Beauty Freak, amongst others. They have also extensively toured their original theatre-for-young-audiences musical, the Untitled Shape Show. The Neighbors are currently developing a number of new projects including the multimedia choreopoem, Agua, Vida y Tierra, which enjoyed a sold-out workshop production at MITU580 in November 2019, with support from our community partners, El Puente Presente, Pregones/P.R.T.T. and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. Other projects include The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost, which was curated for a development workshop and reading as part of the Catskills Mountain Shakespeare festival, and TRACES, a commission from CUNY Queens College set to premiere in Spring 2022.
WWTNS? has been featured in The Evening Times, Harper’s Bazaar, International Business Times, The Herald, The Providence Journal, the Daily Mail, STV, BBC Radio, My Entertainment World, Motif Magazine, Mooney on Theatre and was BroadwayWorld’s New England Pick of the Week. In 2016, the company were shortlisted for the Holden Street Theatre Award. The company has also received institutional support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Donn Russell of the Peg Sandvoort Foundation, the Off-Broadway Angels, A.R.T./New York, the Indie Theatre Fund, the Rhode Island Foundation and the Brooklyn Arts Council, amongst others. WWTNS? has a strong audience base in New York, with their shows having an average sell-through of 75%. The Neighbors have presented work at HERE Arts Center, MITU 580, IRT, Theatre for the New City, American Theatre of Actors, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, the Hudson Guild Theatre, the Sheen Centre, the Living Gallery, WOW Cafe Theatre, the RED Sandcastle (Toronto) and the Stockwell Playhouse (London).