In this original overture to Othello, Shakespeare's archetypes are made human in our version of Venice, uncovering family secrets, powerful friendships, and a story of ungovernable passion. Every tragedy has a history.

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“Blessed Unrest and The Untitled Othello Project seek to explore social themes more deeply through a process of creating backstory that turns dimensionless archetypes into dimensionalized characters, representations of humanity into human beings,” states playwright Keith Hamilton Cobb. “What was the spark that caused the fire of Shakespeare’s tragedy to begin to burn out of control?”

“The creation of Nine Moons requires that we as theatre-makers bring our unadulterated humanity to the table in order to embody the exquisite, painful, grotesque, inconvenient and alluring renderings of the humans who enact a tragedy that is perhaps not as familiar as it seems,” shares director Jessica Burr. “The ardent narrative that is Nine Moons, however, is not a tragedy. Not yet…”.

Nine Moons emerges from The Untitled Othello Project, a deep and sustained exploration of Shakespeare's text that seeks to center the African-descended hero and provide dimension to all characters that people the world wherein his story unfolds. Through ensemble-based creative practices, the project aims to reveal a plausible Black hero's journey that Shakespeare left us both too few and perhaps too many words to illustrate.

Blessed Unrest is a subversive physical theater ensemble that transforms new and classic plays into channels for unexpected alchemy, energetic discomfort, and complex articulation. Through a dedicated and diverse ensemble, international collaborations, and a rigorous training and devising process, we are fueled by the innate human desire to collaborate, the thrill of the impossible challenge, and the instinctual need to rebel. We teach our methods of physical theatre and devising to university students across the country and internationally through workshops and residencies.

We have performed at New York Theatre Workshop, Public Theater, P.S. 122, Mabou Mines, New Ohio Theatre, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Interart Theatre, NYU’s Loewe Theatre, Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, San Francisco’s Exit Theatre, Emelin Theatre in Westchester, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, and on international tours in Western Europe and the Balkans. We have staged thirty-eight full productions in New York (twenty-three world premieres), including original devised plays, adaptations of classics, and stagings of established scripts. See our past productions here