Meucci & Bell emerged as a theater collective out of making the play botte di ferro at the tail end of high covid in the summer of 2021. Our first production was staged in the back patio of a Covid-shuttered restaurant in Red Hook, taking advantage of outside seating to provide a safe space for audiences and using the back facade of the building as the primary set piece for the play. Our core members are Jess Barbagallo, Tara Elliott, Ben Gassman, & Layla Khoshnoudi. 

Meucci & Bell conjures performance work from, and for, specific places and artists, primarily relying on a palette of hyper-naturalistic contemporary spoken language and a choreography that punctures realism, packages messes, and produces laughter.

We are interested in facing down present reality, and in slipping in and out of it. We value evolving modes of authorship and revision and site-responsiveness in design and staging. Our plays have a language score and a physical score. They are built for intimate, challenging spaces. We seek to make use and take advantage of the constraints and opportunities such spaces offer. Design responds to both dramaturgy and physical environment, and we aim to build plays that can exist in theaters and more unlikely, non-theatrical spaces. 

Lena Engelstein and Cate McCrea have been deeply involved in the development of our second project, Adult Relationships, since early 2024.