IN DEVELOPMENT
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IN DEVELOPMENT |
THE RISE AND THE FALL is an original feminist cabaret-songspiel: a savage gangster satire of power, corruption, patriarchy, and collapse, told through feminist drag, post-punk concert theatre, circus aerials, burlesque, and theatrical spectacle. A radical re-authorship of Bertolt Brecht’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the piece strips Brecht’s work to its structural bones and hurls it into the contemporary political nightmare of extractionism, ecological collapse, patriarchal dominance, and gangster capitalism.
A QUEER FEMINIST PROTEST-SPECTACLE
This production is being developed with an international, multilingual, multi-ethnic, multi-generational ensemble of women and gender-queer performers: actors, singers, musicians, dancers, burlesque artists, and aerialists. All roles are performed through heightened theatrical drag. At core, the show is a queer feminist protest-spectacle weaponizing drag, camp, and theatrical excess as forms of resistance and liberation.
CAST
Ylfa Edelstein, Merve Atabek, Bri Joy, Wilemina Olivia-Garcia, Lesya Verba, Shadae Alexa Makeda Hyde, Miller Kiesz, Jianing Zhao Emmy Brett, Dora Batinović, Samm Martinez, Joanne Octave, Sky Pasqual, Emmanuelle Zagoria, Greta Rustani, Rhiannon Ling, Vivi Vozniak, Piotr Siwek, Diana Zhdanova. They hail from Iceland, Turkey, Cuba, Ukraine, Chile, Russia, China, France, Poland, and the US—or are the first generation American children of immigrant families from Albania, Haiti, Croatia, Jamaica, China.
THE PLOT
The play recounts the demise of a corrupt state: fleeing the law, two Gangsters and a Brothel Madam found a “utopian” city in the American Southwest consisting entirely of a whorehouse, a boxing ring, and an oil rig. Enter a gang of “whores” — and soon the city floods with “johns” dreaming of the easy life: feasting, fighting, and fucking. “Utopia” rapidly devolves into dystopia: the Gangsters seize power, the Brothel Madam loses control over everything but the “girls” she grooms, stocks rise and collapse, somewhere in the distance San Francisco burns, and everyone is bored. Nearly obliterated in a single night by extreme weather, the inhabitants respond by throwing over what little law and civility govern: one man is killed in the boxing ring, another eats himself to death, and the “hero” is executed in the electric chair for not paying his bar tab. The play closes with rival mobs marching for opposing ideologies.
OUR TAKE
Syssoyeva’s The Rise and the Fall confronts the contemporary machinery of capitalist patriarchy: extractionism, necropolitics, ecological collapse, state violence, the exploitation of gendered and racialized bodies, and the commodification of pleasure, freedom, and desire. Drawing upon queer, feminist, and anti- colonial writing — including Virginie Despentes, bell hooks, José Esteban Muñoz, Achille Mbembe, Paul B. Preciado, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, and Cara Daggett — the piece interrogates power through the body: labor, desire, domination, spectacle, exploitation, survival, rebellion.
THE FIRST PHASE OF DEVELOPMENT
THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY
The Rise and The Fall is unfolding through a multi-phase creative process that brings together experimentation, collective authorship, and theatrical exploration.
The first phase of development took place from June 17–26, 2026, laying the groundwork for the production's artistic language and ensemble-driven approach.
The second phase, scheduled for October–November 2026, will deepen this exploration through further artistic development, while a third phase in March–April 2027 will bring the work closer to its final theatrical form.
The process is moving toward a premiere planned for 2027.
We are actively seeking presenting and producing partners to join us in bringing this queer feminist protest-spectacle to the stage. If this project speaks to you, email us at company@anomalousco.com
PLAYWRITE/DIRECTOR/CO-PRODUCER
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva is a theatre director, writer, scholar, and founding artistic director of AnomalousCo, New York’s queer/women-led, feminist, immigrant ensemble. Her work is driven by an investigation into power, gender, and displacement and a commitment to theatre as a site of collective authorship and political encounter. Her productions foreground the actor as creator and center the voices of women and cultural minorities. Working across avant-garde and contemporary performance, she focuses on transdisciplinary forms fusing dramatic text with music, movement, and image, and directs original devised works, radical reinterpretations of modern drama, and premieres of politically engaged international plays.
A Fulbright Fellow and a Mellon Fellow, Dr. Syssoyeva holds a PhD from Stanford University, and is widely recognized as a leading international voice in the study of collectively devised performance. She frequently lectures and leads workshops on devising practices in Europe and China, and has taught at Yale School of Drama, Stanford University Department Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, Florida State University School of Theatre, and Bowdoin and Colby College Drama Departments. Kathryn is a 2026 recipient of the Jean Dalrymple Independent Theatre Award for Best Director in Feminist Drama.
ACTOR/CO-PRODUCER
A New York-based queer dissident artist, Diana Zhdanova is an actress, director, producer, and multimedia performance maker. A graduate Summa Cum Laude of the renowned V. Filshtinsky Studio at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts (St. Petersburg), Diana combines the Stanislavsky psychological theatre tradition and the Etude Method with devised theatre, multimedia, and performance art to create politically engaged work.
Since 2020, Diana has served as Co-Artistic/Producing Director of AnomalousCo. Her work with the company includes “Beckett.Women” at HERE (director/co-producer); “(beyond) Doomsday Scrolling” at Center at West Park, HERE, and the American Theatre of Actors (co-director/co-producer/actress); and, most recently, “Stiffler” and “Bounds” at the American Theatre of Actors (actress/co-producer). Diana has also performed at numerous New York venues, including 59E59 with Labyrinth Theater Company, Culture Lab LIC, and the Bechdel Project. Diana is a 2025 recipient of the Boris Sagal Directing Fellowship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she served as Assistant Director on “Spirit of the People”, a new work by Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris (“Slave Play”).
