Mission
The Combustibles are a physical theater company based in New York City, making original ensemble- based work. As a team of creative explorers, we seek answers to questions about the possibilities of live performance. Within our creative laboratory we are conducting explorations into the impulses of movement, the poetry of text, and the mysteries of objects. We collaborate with innovative artists and creative thinkers to expand and strengthen our productions.
The Combustibles strive to create green, less wasteful theater. We are committed to theatre that is thrilling and unexpected.
Company Members
Founder, Artistic Director
Liza Zapol
Founder, Artistic Director
Liza Zapol is also Co-Director of the True Body Project, NYC. In 2009, she worked with The True Body Project at the Brooklyn Museum, and co-write and choreographed “Longing: What do we hunger for?” She is an experienced teaching artist in the New York City public and charter schools, teaching literacy through the arts. She has worked with various ensemble theatres as a collaborator and creator. Liza was an associate company member of Elevator Repair Service (Assistant Director, No Great Society , Company Manager, Gatz), and recently appeared in Tricksaddle’s Wickets at Culturemart (HERE), and Mabou Mines’ Toronada space.
In London, Liza worked with physical theater company Kazzum, and performed at the Bull Theater and Theater 501. She has also collaborated with Redmoon Theater in Chicago, and with A Traveling Jewish Theater, Transparent Theater, and Last Planet Theater in San Francisco.
Liza trained at Northwestern University, Shakespeare at RADA, and London International School of Performing Arts.
Director
Rachel Eckerling
Director, Burnt Umber
Rachel Eckerling is currently co-director of an exciting new play, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. She has worked closely with Director Francis Ford Coppola, workshopping various projects, including his current film Youth Without Youth. Francis also commissioned Rachel and her company, Tea Girl Productions, to write the film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank.
Rachel co-directed Marco Jo Clate’s original play, REAL! LIVE! AMERICA! in the New York Fringe Festival of 2001. She co-produced The Grid, which played to sold-out audiences at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in New York. And in 2005, she led a screenplay-writing workshop with writer/director Paul Schrader for All-Story Magazine .
Rachel received her BFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Larissa Lury
Director
Larissa Lury
Director, Detritus
Larissa Lury is a director, actor, acrobat, and filmmaker. Most recently, she directed works for The 52nd Street Project, McCarter Theatre’s Youth Ink Program, and Passage Theatre. She is currently rehearsing a production of Jane Martin’s Sez She, which will open at the Abingdon Theatre at the end of January.
She has assistant directed for Emily Mann (The Birthday Party), Kenny Leon (Radio Golf) and Michael Unger (A Christmas Carol. She also worked as Emily Mann’s playwriting assistant for the premiere of her play, Mrs. Packard, at McCarter Theatre and its subsequent transfer to the Kennedy Center.
In 2005, she was given an AREA Award for Project Development from chashama for her Porch Plays– three plays set on porches, performed simultaneously on separate floors of a converted storefront space, and linked together by sound.
She often uses her gymnastic and aerial training in her theatre projects. In an adaptation of Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, she and her Co-Director trained their ensemble cast to use acrobatics and Pilobolus-style dance to create a world with different “gravitational laws.” She also performed on trapeze in an adaptation of the story “Aeysha” from Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses to create the illusion of walking on water, and on silks as Athena in Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of The Odyssey.
Larissa is an Affiliated Artist with New Georges and received a B.S. in Theatre from Northwestern University.
