NEW YORK CITY: The New Victory Theater has announced its 2017-18 New Victory LabWorks Artists. The LabWorks program aims to expand the canon of works for family audiences by providing New York City-based artists with the resources to develop new works.

The selected artists and companies will be housed in the New 42nd Street Studios, and will be equipped with rehearsal space, technical assistance, and professional development opportunities. This year LabWorks Artists will develop a wide range of works inspired by different art forms, including:

• AchesonWalsh Studios will present William Johnson Hippopotamus XIII, about the challenging of immigrating to America told through the tale of a famous performing hippopotamus.
• Dance artist Leah Moriarty will present beat piece, about the ways we identify ourselves, our histories, our fears, and our relationships.
• Christopher Anselmo and Jared Corak will develop Fountain, a musical about a young girl looking to find the fountain of youth to heal her ailing grandfather.
• How We Do, a musical about a biracial teen finding his place in middle school, will be developed by Howie Dorough, Tor Hyams, Lisa Rothauser, Matte O’Brien, and Tate Theatrics.
• Kaneza Schaal and Chritopher Myers will create a piece about mapping, migration, and the storytelling that is central to the lives of young people seeking refuge and asylum.
• Kate Douglas’s Middlemist Red will be an immersive botanical exploration designed to find the rarest flower in the greenhouse.
• Louisa Thompson and Modesto “Flako” Jimenez will create a textile exploration of clothing and textiles in a play-based theatrical event called Workshop!
• Marisol Rosa-Shapiro and the Soledad Ensemble will develop The Seven Ravens Project, a physical theatre adaptation of a story by the Brothers Grimm, which will incorporate stories of child refugees and migrants from across the globe.
• Phantom Limb Company’s Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko will tell the story of two animals finding common ground through the use of Japanese Hachioji cart puppetry in Over River and Wood.
• Saskia Lane and Stephanie Fleischmann, in collaboration with Julian Crouch and director Melissa Kievman, will develop The Sweetest Life, a riff on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Flax.”

Founded in 1995, the New Victory Theater is based in New York City and produces theatre for young audiences.