The Talking Party

An Irons in the Fire Project

By Bailey Williams
Directed by  Keenan Tyler Oliphant

Friday, September 11, 2026 @ 3:00pm
Theatre Row, Theatre 2
410 W 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036

Attendance is free but seating is extremely limited and by reservation only.

Performed By

Patrick Foley
Yonatan Gebeyehu
Emma Horwitz
Erin Markey
Jakeem Powell
Shannon Tyo
Mary Wiseman
Amelia Workman

Synopsis

One night, after the opening of a successful tragedy for the stage, a group of queer people gather around a dinner table to talk, drink, and give speeches about love. As the evening continues, surprise guests arrive, people fall in love, and old grudges come to light. A contemporary perversion of Plato's Symposium and an investigation of queer love and its place within the Western canon.

Playwright

BAILEY WILLIAMS is a playwright, performer, and producer. Productions include The Family Dog, Clubbed Thumb, June 2026 (dir. Tara Ahmadinejad); Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods, written with Emma Horwitz, Rattlestick Theater/New Georges, March - May 2025 (dir. Tara Elliott); Coach Coach, Clubbed Thumb, June 2024 (dir. Sarah Blush); Events, The Hearth/The Brick, Dec. 2022 (dir. Sarah Blush); I thought I would die but I didn’t, The Tank, May 2019 (dir. Sarah Blush); Buffalo Bailey’s Ranch for Gay Horses, Troubled Teen Girlsand Other: a 90 Minute Timeshare Presentation, The Exponential Festival, Jan. 2018. Her work has been supported by Ars Nova, Playwrights Horizons, Fautline Theatre, Portland Center Stage, MacDowell, NACL, NYC Women's Fund, the Mercury Store, Orchard Project, the Barn at Lee, and the Edward Albee Foundation. Bailey is currently the co-director of the Exponential Festival, a Producer with New Georges, a Script Wrangler at Clubbed Thumb, and founding member of Privy Producing Collective, which gives young artists the tools needed to produce their own work. She is a New Georges affiliated artist. MFA: Brooklyn College.  | @buffalobailey

Director

KEENAN TYLER OLIPHANT [he/him] is a Theatre-maker and Director from Cape Town, South Africa. Keenan is a founding member of Mixing Bowl Productions, an underground music theatre company that focuses on the promotion of alternate and contemporary music theatre works. As Artistic Director he has produced and directed premier devised pieces In-between and Private Parts at the South African National Arts Festival. Since relocating, Keenan has directed collaborative pieces at festivals including Dixon Place’s Hot Fest, Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, The International Human Rights Arts Festival. He was a part of the New Ohio Producers Club 2020, a member of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship 2020/21 and the Drama League Directing Fellowship 2021/2022. Keenan is the Associate Director of Hadestown (Broadway), Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), and was the assistant director for the Bengson's work The Broken Ear Set-list (St Ann’s Warehouse). He has served as second assistant director to Rachel Chavkin (Moby Dick, A.R.T Cambridge 2019), Raja Feather Kelly (We’re Gonna Die, Second Stage Theater New York 2020) . MFA Directing [Columbia University]; BMus Honours Jazz Vocals [UCT]; BA Drama, English Jazz [UCT] 

Poster Sketch by Sean Devare
Photos by Shawn Salley