MONARCH THEATER COMPANY is a New York based not-for-profit group founded in 1997. We are dedicated to staging contemporary stories, which challenge and excite the audience and performers alike. We like to keep an open mind in interpreting plays and always try to pick the style of interpretation most suitable to the play at hand. This approach has led us to do movement based pieces, puppet shows and radio plays, as well as stage plays. If the text seems to call for it, we use video technology, elaborate sound design, puppets or just rely on the actors to convey the story. Working with artists from different fields interests us, so we are always on the lookout for collaborators, whether playwrights, directors, actors, musicians or visual artists.

Jennifer Ortega, the company’s artistic director, founded Monarch so that new plays and playwrights would get produced. Monarch is interested in staging plays about immigrant experiences in the USA, plays by women, or any stories that inspire the audience to think. Jennifer has directed and produced many stage plays, but while working on her Master’s degree at Sarah Lawrence College, she grew an interest in puppetry. She has built her own for a few short plays, and puppets are likely to play a part in future Monarch productions as well.

In 2001, Monarch took Migdalia Cruz’s play, FUR, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The production was well received and it won the Fringe First Award. Inspired by Cruz’s work, Monarch is planning to stage a series of her plays in the coming years. The first will be a radio play version of the one-act DREAMS OF HOME, followed by a full production.

Recently, Monarch has concentrated on shorter works, which have been collaborations with artistic associates Curtis Curtis, Troy Diana, Piia Mustamäki and Julie Troost. With Curtis Curtis as the sound designer, Monarch is finishing up a series of new ten-minute radio plays, which are available for downloading on this website. In 2005, Monarch Theater Company moved into an office at The Players Theater on 115 MacDougal St. in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.

Jennifer Ortega

Jennifer M. Ortega orginally comes from San Antonio, TX. She graduated from Hunter College with a BFA in Theater and Film and received her MFA in theater arts from Sarah Lawrence College.

Her directing credits include: VIEW FROM THE END OF TIME radio play via podcast, SHELTER radio play via podcast, Vertical Corp Studio, WHISTLE, F.A.R. Space, New York City, MY MACHINE - PRINCESS SUPERSTAR WORLD TOUR Major cities in U.S. and Europe, HESPER THE PRIATE QUEEN Mountain View Workshop, ROTTWIELER WHO THINKS IT’S A PENGUIN Mountain View Workshop, SCALE OF FEAR, LOS DUENDES, Henry Street Settlement, FUR Edinburgh Fringe Festival, LUPE VELEZ STORY, IN THE HEART OF AMERICA (Staged reading), PINK ARMADA, FALANGA, MY DEAR ONE, (IN)COMPLETE WOMAN or DISSECTED DETECTIVE STORY Center Stage NYC, PLANET OF THREE PEOPLE at New York International Fringe Festival, performance piece THORN the Lesbian Theater Festival, NYC.

Assistant directing Credits include: UPSIDE DOWN BOY, THE WHALE: ONE MAN MOBY DICK, LIFE AND LIMB, ANGEL WITH A LEAD PIPE, MEDEA MATERIAL, THE PELICAN, and VOZES.

Ms. Ortega resides in Greenwich Village.

Curtis Curtis

Curtis Curtis is also the Vertical Corp. He’s a recording artist/programmer/engineer/writer/producer. As the titles for the various parts of the music creation process are becomming increasingly blurred, Curtis tends to reply “I play computer.” He starts with sound clips and samples from various places, synth sounds from the studio’s collection of classic synths and guitar sounds and drum loops from the studio. All of it gets sequenced with a computer. He has recently produced a series of radio plays for podcast for Monarch and is Monarch’s in-house sound designer.

Troy Diana

Troy Diana’s solo piece, Stressed, Depressed, and Repressed, debuted at The Pulse Ensemble Theatre in 1998. Other solo pieces include: Take This Job and The Journey. Other performing credits include Whistle (Monarch), Tha Marriage of Bette and Boo, The King and I, God’s Country, and Anything Goes. His directing credits include: Four Dogs And A Bone, Tenneessee, and Life and Limb. Troy spent the 2003-2004 season teaching Western Theatre Techniques in Nantong, China. He recently received his Masters degree from Sarah Lawrence College.

Piia Mustamäki

Piia Mustamäki has worked with Monarch from the beginning. She met Jennifer Ortega at Hunter College, where they collaborated on several pieces. While at Hunter, a student group staged Piia’s short play Sylvia’s Neighbor, and Our Father, another short, received a staged reading. As her BA thesis, she directed Heiner Müller’s Quartet. After college, Monarch has produced two of her plays, Planet of Three People and (In)Complete Woman. She originally wrote these plays in her native Finnish and directed them for The Student Theatre of Turku, Finland.

Piia was the assistant director for Monarch’s production of Migdalia Cruz’s FUR. In 2003, Piia acted in an ATM production of Richard Foreman’s Deep Stories at the New York Fringe Festival. Currently she collaborates with Monarch as a dramaturge. She would like to do much more, but at the moment, academic pursuits take most of her time. She also writes lyrics and plays bass in the band Vaginity.

Julie Troost

Julie Troost graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Theater, Dance and Psychology. She has studied extensively with Mary Zimmerman, Billy Siegenfeld, Jennifer Nugent, and Brian Jeffery. Continued studies include Viewpoints, Suzuki, Klein, Alexander, improvisation, and contact improvisation. As a dancer, Julie has performed for Jennifer Nugent, Billy Siegenfeld, Rebecca Lazier, Ann Robideaux, Alexx Shilling, and Jessica Reese-Dessner. Julie has appeared in numerous modern dance and theater productions in NYC and Chicago including, most recently, Ann Robideaux and Alexx Shilling’s modern dance piece, The Sun is Over the Yardarm on Pier 63’s Frying Pan.

Original works include: Congregation, FrEdem, one long, slow day, Farewell, You Are Here, and Zero4one3two2three1four0. Her site-specific work has been shown at venues such as fashion designer Shelley Steffee’s boutique in the Meatpacking District, a community garden in the East Village, and painter Edy Ferguson’s SOHO gallery opening. This past summer, Julie was chosen by her peers to show the first version of Congregation at P.S. 122 as part of the GoTour RoadShow. This past fall, with a Field Artist Residency Showing Grant, she showcased the same piece in the second phase of its development.