Promotional photo by Rio Che featuring performer Zhanna Zakharova
Written by Lanxing Fu, created by the company
Mammelephant is a musical epic exploring displacement and identity in the era of climate change through the eyes of the world’s first mammoth-elephant hybrid and the humans confronting rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost. Inspired by the Pleistocene Park geoengineering experiment, the Colossal de-extinction project, and an ancient Sakha song-poem, the play follows the first “mammelephant” as they try to make a hopeful future in a place where everything– knowledge, ancestry, even the ground beneath their feet– is unstable.
Photos by Maria Baranova
Featuring (L-R) Izzy Sazak, Zhanna Zakharova, Imani Russell, and Jen Anaya,
Lighting and Production Design by Alejandro Fajardo
Costumes by kindall houston almond
Mammelephant premiered July 21-August 6, 2022 at 122CC in Manhattan. It was one of Vulture’s 2022 “Top 29 Plays and Musicals We Can’t Wait to See This Summer”.
Written by Lanxing Fu
Directed by Nana Dakin
Performed by Jen Anaya*, Imani Russell, Izzy Sazak, and Zhanna Zakharova
Music Composed by Trevor New
Production Design by Alejandro Fajardo
Costume Design by kindall houston almond
Sound Design and Engineering by Trevor New
Crankie Design by Lexy Ho-Tai
Music Direction by Erika Ji
Additional Music by Treya Lam
Additional Sound Design by Eva von Schweinitz
Understudied by Belle Le and Jackie Rivera
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association
Costume design by kindall houston almond
Produced by Jem Pickard
Production Managed by Kelly Lamanna
Stage Managed by Rachel Denise April
Assistant Stage Managed by Olivia Kurima
Associate Production Designer Eddie Pin
Creative Marketing Producer Emily C. Bell
Press Representative John Wyszniewski, Everyman Agency
Production Interns Wells Mundell-Wood and Nisani Walser
Graphic Design by Alexandra Kwiatkoski and Lanxing Fu
READ THE 2022 SHOW PROGRAM INCLUDING ARTIST BIOS HERE
Crankie design by Lexy Ho-Tai
Mammelephant was previously developed as part of Theatre Row’s Kitchen Sink residency, a two-year period of support created and led by Sarah Hughes. Work-in-progress performances of Mammelephant were presented in February 2020 at Theatre Row and in February 2019 at HERE Arts Center & The New Ohio. Early development took place in November 2017 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and February 2018 at the Dragon’s Egg Retreat Center.
GRATITUDE TO PAST COLLABORATORS
Developmental workshop 2021: Mariko Takizawa
Theatre Row February 2020: Ashni Dave, Treya Lam, Serena Ebony Miller
HERE Arts Center & The New Ohio 2019: Alanna Raquel Bowers, William Cook, Ciara Cornelius, Zoë Geltman, Treya Lam, Serena Ebony Miller, Priscilla Villanueva, Sim Yan Ying
Developmental workshops 2017-18: Sergio Botero, William Cook
Promotional photo by Rio Che featuring cast member Zhanna Zakharova playing the khomus, a traditional instrument of the Sakha people.