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The Wooster Group The Wooster Group
Current Work

Nayatt School Redux

2018-present

The Wooster Group’s current company reanimates Nayatt School, the 1978 Wooster Group piece composed by Elizabeth LeCompte and Spalding Gray.

In Nayatt School Redux, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, Kate Valk reveals newly-restore archival video recordings of Gray’s opening monologue from the original production. In it, Gray described his beginnings in the theater and played LPs from his record collection, inclduing an LP of T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party. Valk tells her own stories of how she came to work with The Wooster Group in the late 1970s. Then the current company imitates, with full vigor, scenes from the original production, including the climactic sequences of The Cocktail Party.

Media & Ephemera

Kate Valk in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Ari Fliakos and Scott Shepherd in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Suzzy Roche and Michaela Murphy in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Michaela Murphy and Suzzy Roche in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Scott Shepherd and Spalding Gray [on screen] in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Scott Shepherd, Suzzy Roche, and Michaela Murphy in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola, 2023.
Michaela Murphy, Ari Fliakos, Suzzy Roche, Kate Valk, and Andrew Maillet in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Andrew Maillet in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Ari Fliakos and Kate Valk in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Suzzy Roche, Michaela Murphy, Ari Fliakos, Andrew Maillet, Omar Zubair, Kate Valk, and Scott Shepherd in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Michaela Murphy, Andrew Maillet, Kate Valk, and Scott Shepherd in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Kate Valk, Andrew Millet, Ari Fliakos, and Scott Shepherd in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Kate Valk and Spalding Gray [on screen] in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.
Ari Fliakos, Scott Shepherd, Spalding Gray [on screen], and Joan Jonas [on screen] in The Wooster Group's NAYATT SCHOOL REDUX. Photo: Spencer Ostrander, 2025.

Production History

Additional Credits

Excerpts from The Cocktail Party used by permission of the T.S. Eliot Estate.

Partial 1978 video of Spalding Gray’s monologue: courtesy of the Mickery Theater, Amsterdam

Special thanks to Enver Chakartash and Erin Mullin who contributed to the making of this piece.

Thanks to Antonia Belt, Niall Cunningham, Tony Oursler, Jennifer Tipton, and Rita Ackermann and Hauser & Wirth.

Development of this piece is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and the National Endowment for the Arts.