Untitled Othello Project Debuts Nine Moons

Play examines Othello and Desdemona’s courtship in Venice

The Untitled Othello Project, launched in residence at Sacred Heart University’s College of Arts & Sciences in 2021, will debut Nine Moons with Blessed Unrest Theatre Company at the Theater for the New City in New York from May 30 through June 15.

Nine Moons: an Overture to Shakespeare's Othello is a co-production of Blessed Unrest Theatre Company and the Untitled Othello Project. The play, directed by Jessica Burr and written by Keith Hamilton Cobb in collaboration with Burr and the Blessed Unrest and Untitled Othello ensembles, is a direct result of years of collaborative work by the Untitled Othello Project.

The Untitled Othello Project features Cobb, its director, and Burr, its associate director, in partnership with Sacred Heart University’s Emily Bryan, assistant professor in languages & literature, Charlie Gillespie, assistant professor of Catholic studies and director of the Pioneer Journey and Rachel Bauer, assistant professor of performing arts. The Untitled Othello Project uses theatrical practices and liberal arts research to address racist and misogynistic tropes and discover greater humanity in Shakespeare’s Othello, as well as in other works of theater and literature.

Throughout this process, Sacred Heart students and faculty members worked with the combined ensembles to explore deep questions about love and meaning and problems of racism and misogyny in Shakespeare’s play as they created this original theater piece.

Blessed Unrest is a New York City based physical theater ensemble that creates and celebrates “safe spaces to do dangerous things.” The company transforms new and classic plays through long-term processes of training and devising. Burr is the company’s artistic director.

The title Nine Moons comes from the first act of Othello, the story of a Black man, a general in the Venetian army, who marries a white woman, Desdemona. In the third scene, Othello tells the Venetian senate, “For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith/Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used/Their dearest action in the tented field.”

It was during his nine-month stay in Venice that Othello and Desdemona met, fell in love and married. In Nine Moons, the archetypes that Shakespeare gives us gather in a reimagined Venice to explore the realities of a family full of secrets, powerful friendships and a story of unknown and ungovernable passion.

Cobb said Nine Moons was created using the Untitled Othello Project’s immersive processes that are still being evolved in its partnership with Sacred Heart. Through ongoing dialogue and workshops incorporating close reading and movement work, the project continues to find deeper and deeper human dimension in Othello and its characters.

Nine Moons features a cast that includes Robert Manning, Jr., Sophia Marilyn Nelson, Perri Yaniv and Aaron Michael Zook, who bring depth and nuance to this exploration of Othello and Desdemona and to those surrounding their love story. Early rehearsals for Nine Moons happened on SHU’s campus. In fact, Cobb said, the years of collaboration in the laboratory that Sacred Heart provided were all rehearsals, and even the current manifestation of Nine Moons is simply a continuation of that work.

English major Ayasha Cantey ’25 has been an undergraduate research assistant for the Untitled Othello Project since her sophomore year. “The Untitled Othello experience taught me that you could take outdated works and ‘modernize’ them,” Cantey said. “I learned that you can still honor the writer and original work while making it appropriate for today’s audience. It gives students a deeper understanding and clarity of Shakespeare’s work. It helps take away the layers of unnecessary racist, misogynistic and patriarchal language that often confuse or alienate young scholars.”

Bryan said student contributions to the Untitled Othello Project have been invaluable. “As a different generation, they are coming at the material from a different perspective,” Bryan said, noting that student input helped shape Nine Moons.

Tickets to Nine Moons are available at the ticket website and on the Blessed Unrest website.

Pictured: Jessica Burr and Keith Hamilton Cobb