The Bioengine

The Bioengine - is the first episode of an experiment combining sculpture, performance, and digital video.
The series, [NOMAD LAB] , features the affable heroine, Shrew P. Coot. Shrew wanders logic to logic through an underworld of nomad scientists who are saddled with debt and have no eggs to sell. Shrew is pressed to work as a test subject for a compendium of every day chemicals: »The Bible of Bad For You«. When a popular cold medecine causes apocalyptic visions, Shrew and her poisoned colleagues seek refuge with their neighbor, an asthmatic herpetologist who is sustained by an eco-systemof mosses and guided by a consort of unionized frogs.

The Bioengine - written and directed by Hilary Koob-Sassen and Jen Mitas.

Regarding Jen Mitas's performance art, City Search says »...a uniquely winning combination of ridicule and compassion.«
Hilary Koob-Sassen's sculpture has fared far worse at the hands of the critics. The New Yorker says of a recent exhibition in New York at the Exit Gallery : »Uglier than the ugliest Louise Bourgeois...«. The New York Times was kinder, its critic writing, »At once sophomoric and visionary...«.

Hilary Koob-Sassen
was trained at Yale as a sculptor : he works in marble, steel, performance, and video.

Jen Mitas
performs and writes multiple character theatrical solos; her venues range in New York from the Knitting Factory to the Manhattan Mall. Her last solo performance, »Gross National Happiness« [commissioned by BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange] had an extended run at BAX last fall and traveled to the Midwest. She writes for the Living Newspaper Theatre.