Jane Elias, Theatre Artist
Jane Elias is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her solo play Do This One Thing for Me debuted in the 2013 EstroGenius Festival and later ran at both the Access Theater and TBG Theatre in Manhattan. In 2015 DTOTFM won the Producer’s Choice Award at the Secret Theatre’s Flying Solo Festival in Long Island City. Other recent acting credits include Max Mondi’s Personhood at Columbia University’s Shapiro Theatre, the New York premiere of Arlene Hutton’s Letters to Sala, and Dean Imperial’sAdults Only at the TBG Theatre (with Core Artist Ensemble). Jane’s plays have been developed with Naked Angels Tuesdays@9, Access Theater Writers Group, Core Artist Ensemble, Stony Brook Southampton, The Barrow Group, and FAB Women@TBG. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in literary magazines including Washington Square, trans lit mag, and The Southampton Review, and her play Baby Steps is included in The City Theatre Anthology 2015. Jane has been a finalist for the City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting and the Heideman Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville. Prior to her training with TAP, she worked as a volunteer tutor for over ten years with 826NYC. Jane received her BA in English from Duke University and her MFA in creative writing--poetry from NYU. Acting training: Michael Howard Studios, Larry Singer Studios, The Barrow Group.
TAP Work:
"My TAP in-school residency was a third-grade theater/creative writing class at PS 132 Juan Pablo Duarte, with mentor Teaching Artists Rachael Schefrin and Jessie Paddock, and fellow TAP trainee Alyssa Digges. I learned so much by first watching Rachael and Jessie co-lead the class and later by working one-on-one with students on their individual creative projects. By the time I taught my lesson at the end of April, although I had a lot of jitters and anxiety leading up to it, I felt that everyone was in my corner, which helped immeasurably. I also learned a lot by observing Alyssa - who has more teaching experience than I do - lead her lesson the week before mine. We spent several weeks on reading and writing odes; the students wrote odes to parts of themselves, which I thought was a fantastic way to cultivate positive self-reflection and to strengthen observational and language skills. In the latter part of the residency we moved into mask-making, with the students designing and wearing their own masks as they learned about the role of mask work in enhancing personal narrative. In addition to my CWP residency, I also have been working with Arts for All at PS 15, the Roberto Clemente School, assisting TAs Barbara Matovu in a second-grade class and Angela Polite in a kindergarten class; as well as with Wingspan Arts, assisting Rachael Schefrin in the after-school program "Actors Studio" at PS 130, the Parkside School, for 3rd-5th graders."
Most Memorable TAP Moment:
“It's hard to pick just one, but a particular moment that stands out for me is when the students shared the poems they wrote at the end of my lesson at PS 132. Their writing was so imaginative and lively, and I was happy to have created a space for that to happen. One student, writing in response to a Shel Silverstein drawing, asked the question, "Are you three legs with two legs, or are you two legs with three legs?" I mean, good question."
Find out more about Jane here:
Clip from Do This One Thing For Me at the TBG Theatre, April 2015.
Check out Jane's Lesson Plan she presented in her CWP residency.
Interested in TAP? Find out more about our 2018-19 Program.
See more of our 2017-18 Graduates in the 2018 TAP Anthology!