Beep…beep….beeeeeeeep…….An NYC train singer named Tariq wakes up in Purgatory with no memory of his death. Despite a rocky past and with big plans for the future - including an impending proposal to his pregnant girlfriend, Marissa - Tariq convinces God to let him live one more day to prove his life deserves more living. Except God is a bad communicator, the music of the city is loud, and there’s something going on with Marissa that everyone except Tariq seems to know about…

Conceived, written, and performed by Antonyio Artis and developed with and directed by Tessa Bagby, Tariq’s Interlude is a physical, joyous, visceral solo show that explores personal responsibility, perseverance, faith, and what it means to choose how we express love. With only his body and a chair, Antonyio channels the sounds and motion of New York City, transforming between six characters and transporting the audience through purgatory, the park, the subway, and even a McDonalds in Queens. This show is hilarious, soulful, and serves as a love letter to NYC and to the born-and-bred underground artists who populate it.

In the Summer of 2022, Antonyio asked Tessa to help him work on building out a short solo piece he had written the year before, and a beautiful partnership was born. The two created their own unique style of working on the show, consisting of immense improvisation, and over the next year, the show began to materialize piece by piece. They presented the show’s first ten minutes at The Village’s Salon 8 in December of 2023, and after an overwhelming response from the audience, they were selected as the Village’s 2024 Artists-In-Residence, marking the first time a collaborative pair has been selected for the residency. What started as a 15-minute concept piece has now become a complete hour-long solo show, fueled by presenting new sections to enthusiastic audiences at four sold-out Salons. Invited by Brooklyn College for a week-long residency, Tariq’s Interlude completed a workshop in March 2025 that culminated in an “open rehearsal” presentation of the full show to students, faculty, and invited guests. The following week, Antonyio performed a revised version of the first 20 minutes for The Actor’s Center at their “Resonance Room” event as a member of their mentorship cohort.

Now, The Village Collective is proud to present Tariq’s Interlude in full for the very first time! We are honored to collaborate with Antonyio and Tessa to bring this play-in-progress to fruition. There are many special surprises in the works, but we need your help to make them happen.

As the saying goes, “It takes a village.” We hope we can count on your donation to Tariq’s Interlude as we continue to expand what is possible when we bring audiences and artists closer together.

By donating to this production, you support the development of new work and ensure equitable pay for the people who bring this show to life. Over 75% of our raised funds will go directly toward paying our cast, designers, and production team. Much of our funds will go toward renting rehearsal and performance space. The remaining funds will cover production expenses, including insurance, props, and sound/lighting equipment.

The Village is a New York City-based arts collective that produces dynamic, live events where emerging artists across all disciplines develop and share “artworks-in-progress” with engaged audiences. By uniting social connection with the creative process, The Village operates as an innovative home for artists, an enlivening community for audiences, and an accessible space for all. In addition to our core Salon events, The Village is growing as a production company through our Artist-In-Residence program. In 2023, we produced our inaugural resident project—Village Co-Founder Caroline Potter Shriver’s original one-woman play The Stella Show—which had a sold-out run at IRT Theater. Last year, we produced a sold-out performance of Planet W: A Science Fiction Musical by 2023 Artist-in-Residence Franco Giacomarra and Matt Coakley at Ars Nova’s A.N.T. Fest and recorded an original cast album for the show. Each year, The Village selects one Visual Artist-In-Residence and one Performance Artist-In-Residence to develop and present their work in segments at multiple Salons. After their Salon residency, the artists’ projects are produced as complete works in collaboration with The Village. For more information, please visit our website iminthevillage.org, and follow us on Instagram @iminthevillage to stay up-to-date on our upcoming events!

Antonyio Artis (he/him)
Creator, Playwright, Performer
Antonyio Artis is a multi-faceted NYC artist who graduated with his BFA in Acting from Brooklyn College. Since graduating, Artis has performed in the record-breaking national tour of New Jack City, ’24 NYTF Winning musical production of Underground, and has self-produced three short film adaptations of the plays Thoughts of a Colored Man (Keenan Scott II), Boy’s Life (Howard Korder), and Jitney (August Wilson), to name a few things. At 16, he wrote an original rap song for Eduham, a program started by the Broadway musical Hamilton, and performed the song on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theater for the original cast and an audience of 1300 people. He is currently a member of the Actors Center’s first-ever cohort of mentees, which began in October ‘24. His solo show, Tariq’s Interlude, is currently in development as The Village’s ‘24 Artist-In-Residence, with a full production planned for later this year. He is about to embark on embodying the roles of Thomas and Billy Strayhorn in the new plays Odds and Storme, respectively, having played the latter in October ‘23. 

Tessa Bagby (she/they)
Director
Tessa Bagby is a Bay Area-born, Brooklyn-based director, dramaturg, and nurturer of original live performance. Proscenium-averse in practice, Tessa collaborates with candor, rigor, and care to develop and present new work. They’re interested in questions about the dissonant relationships between the spiritual and the corporal, desire, personal responsibility, environment, transformation, embodied queerness, and unbalanced power. 

Recent directing credits include MAiD in America (Dramatists Guild Foundation, NYU), Spew’s Little Baby (The Tank), The Angry Brigade (Drew University), God and Abraham Play Ping Pong (Minnesota Fringe Festival). As an assistant/associate director, Tessa has worked with Will Frears, Jolie Tong, Jack Serio on his hyper-intimate production of Uncle Vanya (3 Drama Desk Nominations, including Outstanding Revival of a Play), and Emma Went, whose world-premiere production of Else Went’s Initiative she will be assistant directing at The Public this fall. Tessa and performer-deviser Antonyio Artis were The Village’s 2024 Performance Artists-in-Residence, developing Antonyio’s solo show Tariq’s Interlude. Wearing many different hats, they have supported processes on and off-Broadway with The Public, The Apothetae, HVSF, Juniper Street Productions, The Tank, Mercury Store, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Gym at Judson, Brooklyn College, and, best of all, in basements/roofs/living rooms across the city.