KATE NAME, WRITER + PRODUCER

The Factory was created by Kate Name, a Brooklyn-based writer and performer. 

Kate started her career as a choreographer. Passionate about telling stories through dance, Kate choreographed over 20 musicals while living in Seattle before moving to New York City in 2013. 

After moving to NYC, Kate’s interest in stories led her to focus on writing for the stage. Kate was a founding member of sketch-comedy group OK Meatplace, a six-person ensemble formed in 2016. In addition to their monthly show at The People’s Improv Theater in Chelsea, OK Meatplace was a featured act at New York City SketchFest, The Wild Project, and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. 

Kate is an accomplished live storyteller. She has been a guest performer at The New York Story Exchange, Mara Wilson’s What Are You Afraid Of?, and the She Makes Me Laugh comedy festival. Kate is also a proud Moth StorySLAM winner. 

Kate has spent the last decade working in some of the most renowned corners of NYC nightlife. For seven years Kate was the head waitress at Audrey Saunders legendary Soho cocktail bar, Pegu Club. Currently she works at Bar Goto, Kenta Goto’s award-winning LES izakaya. 

The Factory is a blend of Kate’s passions - well crafted writing, telling stories through movement, and throwing absolutely spectacular parties.

CORAL COHEN

Coral Cohen is a director, writer, and performance deviser based in Brooklyn. Her work spans multiple forms, mediums and subjects, but is largely defined by an emphasis on creative collaboration and deep engagement with the people and subjects she approaches. In Winter 2019, she produced, conceived, and directed “Between the Threads,” an ensemble created movement-theatre piece about Jewish women exploring their relationship to their Jewish culture, traditions, spirituality, and intergenerational trauma at HERE Arts Center. The piece also had a short run in the DC area in Summer 2019. In Fall 2019, she directed a live performance of Hannah Goldman’s In the Kitchen, featuring personal storytelling about Arab-Jewish women and culture passed down through food. In Fall 2020, they adapted In the Kitchen into an audio play paired with a recipe box designed by Awafi Kitchen. In Fall 2021, excerpts of the audio play were featured as part of a group installation “I Mean…How Do You Define Safety?” as part of the exhibit “A Fence Around the Torah: Safety and Unsafety in Jewish Life” at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Most recently, Coral co-created and directed "Third Law," a new immersive game-based performance which was developed at BRIC as part of their Performance Lab Residency and had a workshop production at MITU580 in late 2022. Coral also wrote and directed short film “Wresting Place,” which is slated to premiere in 2023.

Assistant Directing credits include: Fefu and her Friends (Theatre for a New Audience, dir. Lileana Blain-Cruz); My Heart is in the East (La MaMa E.T.C, dir. Jen Wineman); S 16 Luna Nera (La MaMa E.T.C, Gian Marco Lo Forte). She is part of the SDCF Observership class 2015/16 and 2017/18 and a member of the inaugural Director's Track at the legendary SITI Company Summer Training Intensive in 2018. She is also a freelance events manager who has worked at the Park Avenue Armory, Theatre for a New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Lincoln Center, and The Shed. BA-Theatre Arts/Directing, Pace University.