TiQ’s Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Horror is now available to stream on YouTube in both 2D and 3D. For 3D glasses you can email theaterinquarantine.com
I converted my East Village closet into a digital white-box and all I got was this New York Times profile. (Also an Obie)
Orion Johnstone, Jeremy Mage and I have officially released the live concert recording of Hail Oblivion featuring some incredible performances by Ato Blankson-Wood, Bryce Pinkham, Rick Burkhardt, Amber Gray and more! Listen at our bandcamp now!
Joshua William Gelb is an Obie and Drama League Award winning multi-hyphenate theater maker whose various hats include director, performer, creative technologist, producer, designer, and librettist. His work runs the gamut from devised physical theater, to stylized adaptations of classics, to original musicals as well as collaborations with emerging playwrights. With an eye for the highly theatrical verging on the cinematic, Gelb’s direction has been known to feature striking integrations of technology, music, movement, clowning, and dance.
During the Covid shut-down, Gelb founded Theater in Quarantine, a performance laboratory dedicated to the exploration of the live theatrical experience in the digital space. TiQ developed and live-streamed dozens of visually distinctive, original works to its YouTube channel, working out of a closet in the East Village measuring only 8 sq feet and reaching audiences around the globe. Theater in Quarantine has been presented by La Mama, CultureHub, Theater Mitu, New Georges, The Invisible Dog Art Center, A2SF, Cultural DC, and most recently an in-person hybrid performance at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Theater in Quarantine has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered, Japan's NHK Television, and has been profiled in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Within a single year Theater in Quarantine has been a four-time New York Times Critic's Pick as well as one of Vulture’s “Top 10 Best Theater Moments of 2020” and the New York Times' "Best Theater of 2021."
Prior to the pandemic Gelb created a musical interrogation of the 1927 Al Jolson film Jazz Singer (New Yorker critic’s pick) which was commissioned and built in residence at Abrons Arts Center with Nehemiah Luckett. Previously in residence at Abrons, Gelb conceived and directed the sesquicentennial anniversary reimagining of America’s supposed first musical The Black Crook (NYT Critic’s Pick), about which he lectured at Harvard University's Houghton Library. His adaptation of Kafka's A Hunger Artist, developed with Sinking Ship Productions continues to tour. Other productions include Bear Slayer (Ars Nova), Party in the USA, Clara Not Clara: A Nutcracker, Sometimes in Prague, Blind Alley Guy: Notes for an Unfinished Play by Eugene O’Neil. Gelb received his BFA at NYU Tisch’s Playwrights Horizons Theater School and his MFA in directing at Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama where he graduated as a John Wells Fellow. He has assisted Marianne Weems (The Builders Association) and Rebecca Taichman (Soho Rep), is a member of the 2012 Lincoln Center Directors Lab, is an associate artist with Sinking Ship Productions, and is currently the Associate Director of Pig Pen’s Phantom Folktales aboard Virgin Cruise Line’s Scarlet Lady.
As a performer Gelb has appeared in the majority of Theater in Quarantine’s output as well as Little Lord’s The Peanut Butter Show (NYTW Nextdoor), BambiFucker/Kaffeehaus (The Brick) and Pocahontas and/or America (Bushwick Starr). Also, How to Hamlet (Theater Reconstruction Ensemble), Memory Retrograde (Haruna Lee), Empire Travel Agency (Woodshed Collective), She is King (Dixon Place/Other Forces Festival/Boom Arts), The Floatones (La Mama/Dixon Place), Thanksgiving! A! Pageant! (Ars Nova) as well as his own productions of Bear Slayer, Dukus, Blind Alley Guy, and Party in the USA.
For Video Work Samples, you can check out Theater in Quarantine’s YouTube Channel or my Vimeo Page.