without mirrors
coming to The Brick, February 12-28, 2026!
I’m thrilled to finally make this public -- Third Ear’s next full production, without mirrors, will have its world premiere at The Brick in Williamsburg this coming February! In fact, tickets are already live!
The germ of this play came about in late 2021, when, after seeing an early workshop performance of Mahinerator, David Greenspan asked me to write a solo show for him. I've been a huge fan of David's since I first moved to the city - I've had several peak theatergoing experiences seeing him perform everything from Gertrude Stein Lectures, to Eugene O'Neil's 5-hour epic Strange Interlude (preposterously, brilliantly performed as a solo piece), to his own achingly gorgeous plays. I mean, the man has 6 OBIE awards. Come on! If you're not familiar with his work (including his recent scene-stealing turn in Prince Faggot), well my glob, do I have a treat for you.
Suffice it to say, I was a bit gobsmacked when he approached me -- writing for him, one of the great performers of the downtown scene, would be an absolute dream. And it has been.
Having watched David for years, I wanted to write him something that would make use of his particular abilities. He's a performer who can take extremely abstract, disconnected language, and fill it with such rich interiority that it sings. So the text I wrote him plays with discontinuity and disjuncture -- words and sentences don't quite line up; thoughts and images zig-zag and jigsaw; meaning spirals in on itself.
The play that emerged, without mirrors, is in some ways a departure from my last two shows, Mahinerator and The Barbarians. It's more spare, more mournful. It sits somewhere between a poem and a play.
David and I have been slowly working on the text together for the last few years. In these past few months, he's started memorizing and embodying it, and having just seen him perform a sizable portion last week, I can safely say that what he's making is a thing of beauty -- beguiling, delicate, emotional. I can't wait to share it with you.
Much love,
Jerry