INDUSTRY READING
BIOADAPTING
A new play written and directed by Tjaša Ferme
Monday, October 5, 2026
3:00 PM and 7:00 PM
New York City
An AEA industry presentation. Attendance is by invitation. RSVP to info@transformatheatre.com to hold a seat and receive the location.
CAST
Betsey Brown is a New York based actress and filmmaker. She wrote, directed, and starred in the feature Actors, and her screen work includes The Scary of Sixty-First, Assholes, and The Carrie Diaries. BIOADAPTING is her first collaboration with Transforma Theatre.
Jack Cavanaugh-Gialloreto is an actor, writer, director, and designer. He assisted Tjaša Ferme on My Marlene at the Edinburgh Fringe as Assistant Director and Assistant Producer. Primarily an actor, his credits include Norah Gross' Dinner Party, Five:Thirty dir. by Wallis-Meghan Rolle (Cal), Workshop dir. by Adina Alternman (Samanda), and Phantasmagoria dir. by Ana Margineanu, which he co-wrote with the Devised Thesis Class of 2024 Ensemble and starred in (Ivy). He is a Teaching Artist at The People's Theater and performs in the New York Comedy Festival with comedic partner Ryen Hilton. Find him on instagram at @jack_gialloreto
Josephine Chiang is an actor and filmmaker from Taiwan, based in Brooklyn. Their films have screened at Tribeca, NewFest, Nitehawk, Rooftop Films, and New/Next, and their breakout short Clean Slate (dir. Emily May Jampel) premiered at Aspen ShortsFest before playing Palm Springs ShortFest, Frameline, San Diego Asian Film Festival, and Inside Out Toronto. In theater, they have collaborated with Asian American playwrights Esme Maria Ng and Hillary Gao, and performed at The Playwrights Realm, The Tank, Clubbed Thumb, and The Brick. They are excited to expand their theater horizons with this staged reading of BIOADAPTING.
Charles Everett is a stage, film and voice actor based in New York City. Theatre: The Mountaintop (Emerson Theatre Collaborative), Doll House (Strindberg Rep), and the national tour of A Soldier's Play (Roundabout Theatre Company). Television: The Beauty (FX), The Gilded Age (HBO), The Equalizer (CBS), Fleishman Is in Trouble (Hulu) and FBI: Most Wanted (CBS). charleseverett.com
Janet Fiki is an actor and a member of Actors' Equity and SAG-AFTRA. She holds an MFA in Acting from UC San Diego. Credits include An Octoroon at Chautauqua Theater Company, Everybody Black, Mother Courage, A Raisin in the Sun, and Angels in America: Perestroika.
Off-Broadway, Richard Killingworth (lead) in "The Exes" at Theater Row and Mr. Devereaux (lead) in "The Hanging of Razor Brown" at 59E59th Theater. TV credits include an "SNL" short with the improv group Please Don't Destroy and "Law and Order: SVU." Featured film roles include Norman Ashkenas in "Dumb Money" (directed by Craig Gillespie), Mr. Glessell in "A Nice Girl Like You" and Danny in H. Dean Bell's Sundance Jury Award Winner "What Alice Saw." AEA/SAG/AFTRA
Garrett Turner is a Jesus-loving free Black man who believes in the power of both joy and righteous indignation as tools for liberation. Broadway: Thoughts Of A Colored Man. Tour: TINA (First National). Off-Broadway: Bayano (National Black Theatre), Pay The Writer (Signature Theatre). Regional: Primary Trust (Syracuse Stage), The Royale (Theatrical Outfit), Chad Deity (Asolo Rep), Lookingglass Alice (Baltimore Center Stage), Half Time (Paper Mill Playhouse). TV: "Law & Order SVU," "Madam Secretary." Emory/RCSSD Grad. Marshall Scholar. Psalm 115:1
CREATIVE TEAM
Tjaša Ferme is an award-winning-actor, creator and 2024 NYSCA-awarded director. She created The Female Role Model Project, blending interactive theatre with neuroscience, premiering Off-Broadway at 3-Legged-Dog Art and Technology Center, featured at the Ammerman Biennial of Arts and Technology and mounted at Edinburgh Fringe for a full run (NYITA for Outstanding Innovative Design and Fast Company's honorary mention for World Changing Ideas Awards). In 2021 Ferme founded Science in Theatre Festival, commissioning three new theatre pieces based on science research, which sold out and was covered by Forbes and American Theatre Magazine. Science in Theatre Festival is now in its fourth year. She has played leading roles such as Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Eve (Confessions of a Nymphomaniac), Debra/Prairie (Hooded at 59E59-MacArthur Award), Taja (Revolution of Everyday Life-part of Tribeca Film Institute's permanent collection), Ilona in 10+ award-winning TV-series Three Trembling Cities and more. She received a prestigious Slovenian National Film Award (Vesna), Stane Sever's Fund and National Academy's Classical Stage Award, special mention of a jury at FF500 "She literally carries the movie", and the Sapphire acting award at Cinerockom. Tjasa is the creator of Ophelia's Flip (premiere at Cannes Film Festival), farce hit Cocktales (Abingdon Theatre, The Gershwin Hotel, Miami Art Basel) and two solo shows, Wild Child in the City and My Marlene. She recently created and directed Bioadapted, hailed by the NYTimes as "maverick creativity" and "sleekly designed, thoughtfully assembled." At the recent Science in Theatre Festival, which she also produced, she directed a play on xenobots (first programmable living cells) based on the research of dr. Michael Levin from Tufts. Her work has been called "Gender-and generation-transcending," "Best 23 Shows of Edinburgh Fringe" and "Nothing short of brilliant."
Jacob Robert van Winkle (Producer) is an NYC-based producer, filmmaker, and creative strategist working in performance, media research, and technology. Their work bridges storytelling and systems design, with a research focus on how emerging technologies shape culture, audience engagement, and communication. Jacob has produced projects for institutions including Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Festival, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and Transforma Theatre, and is the founder of Who's Cookin' Productions, an independent company developing experimental media and narrative-driven works across film and stage. Jacob's producing credits include AEA readings and projects currently in development that explore hybrid forms of live and digital performance. Jacob's practice unites the rigor of research with the artistry of production, advancing innovative, inclusive, and future-focused storytelling.
Stage directions read by Shannon Gallagher.