What do 10 students enrolled in a 6 a.m. yoga class in Harlem have in common with each other? They’re all finding their way through life, of course.
This is the conceit of playwright James Anthony Tyler’s Pranayama, the first New Play Workshop — and opening production — of Chautauqua Theater Company’s 2025 season.
Pranayama, directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll, will see the first of three readings this weekend at 6 p.m. tonight in Bratton Theater. There will be a talkback after the show in which audience members will have an opportunity to hear about the development and staging of Pranayama.
Tyler is an accomplished playwright, having graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in film from Howard University and a Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing from New York University. His other works include Some Old Black Man, All We Need Is Us, hop thA A, Artney Jackson and Dolphins and Sharks.
CTC New Works Associate Lily Wolff described Pranayama as “a slice of life piece about a community.” Set in 2016, Pranayama takes place in a yoga studio in which a diverse group of students navigate the rewards and challenges of their own lives, and their lives in proximity to one another. The play, named for a breathwork technique used in yoga which can regulate and calm the nervous system, explores interpersonal relationships and connection as characters seek out healing and transformation.
“It’s both about the individual experience within the community — you see the individual and the community more by zooming in and zooming out in that way — and it really wants to be a piece about the community we choose and how we come together in that community,” Wolff said, “not just if we do, or who does, but how that happens.”
Wolff said she is most captivated by the play’s commentary on internal versus external narratives and how the two can often contradict one another.
“Something that has been really singing out to me in the last few days of rehearsal is this idea of the narratives of our lives: the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and the story that we tell about ourselves to others, the way we craft the story of our lives,” she said.
Wolff explained that while it can be difficult or even painful to discern the truth from the exaggerated in the stories of our lives, the play reflects those moments of tension between internal and external images through the characters’ relationships.
“That’s been really resonant with me, and it’s both quite a vulnerable message and quite an empowering message,” she said.
