Zemwerk

Proudly serving patented Guerilla Punk-Noir since 2010

Zemwerk is the one and only Punk-Noir Post-Post-Expressionist guerilla film and theatre company… and publishing house. We are based in New York City, but travel Often and with Purpose.

Zemwerk is (mostly):

• Award-winning playwright/director/actress Stella Maria Perry, (Bachelors in Media Arts, MFA in Dramatic Writing).
• Designer/writer/actor OMH (Bachelors in Media Arts, MA in English).

Their collaboration began in 2010 with the production of two short films, Traumland and Stringfellow. Soon after, Stella’s one-act play How One Twin Absorbed the Other was performed by three groups in one night during the Border Theater’s Exhibitions in Dis/Connection.

In May of 2013, Stella’s one-act play Maids of Honor premiered in New York.

Zemwerk’s first full-length production was HMLT, a postmodern, punk-noir Hamlet. It was first performed in December of 2013, with an expanded production in January 2014.

Following quickly afterward, in late January, Zemwerk premiered another one-act Raoul & The Art of Eating Pansies.

In February of 2014, Zemwerk staged the one-act Carte Blanc, a sort-of prequel to Maids and Raoul.

On March 8, 2014, the three related one-acts were performed together as The House of Carte Blanc.

In late 2014, Stella directed the short film Blut Orange, starring Zemwerk regulars Schuyler Mastain, Quinn Rol, Lisbeth Russel, and Ibeth Massari.

In 2015, Zemwerk collaborated with playwright Ryan Johann Perry on his Waldo the Amazing Hypnotist. Zemwerk started publishing its work with The House of Carte Blanc: An Evening of Theatre.

In 2016, Zemwerk produced a theatre-dance production, the history-spanning Lupercalia Über Alles, and published HMLT.

In  2017, Zemwerk published the The Oppenheimer.

In 2018, Zemwerk staged a reading of Perry’s one-act, Norwich Pepper Girl, at the West Cork Arts Centre in Ireland. This was a collaboration with artists Tess Leak and Marie Brett and their exhibition, “The Museum of Miniature”.

Staged readings of Perry’s one-act plays A Womb of One’s Own and Transmission were presented at the Linnell Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

Juli Hedren, (director, founding member and the Executive Director of Tricklock Company) directed Zemwerk’s full length, The Blood Vessel, at the Experimental “X” Theatre in February 2022.

Also in progress is the two-headed monsterpiece, Sandwhyte & Kettleblacke and Kettleblacke & Sandwhyte – a loose riff on Shakespeare’ Henriad. This is a maximalist piece set on the fictional island of Jessup’s End.