About

The Nerve Tank is the exploratory and developmental wing of LIVE Theater Company. Founded in 2006 by Melanie S. Armer and Chance D. Muehleck, The Nerve Tank is an incubator for theatrical performance. We collaborate with actors and designers in a spirit of artistic adventure, and our rehearsal methods lie outside the traditional models. We combine elements of popular culture, mediated image, and physical presence to test lines of engagement between spectator and live event.

Based in New York, we have staged works at Theatre for the New City, chashama, the New York International Fringe Festival, Dixon Place, and Pittsburgh’s Flux Festival. Our performance-installation The Attendants will travel to Basel, Switzerland in 2009, marking The Nerve Tank’s first international appearance. We are currently in residence at the Brooklyn Lyceum, where we are developing A Gathering.

An antic sci-fi thriller-comedy, Our Father's House [by Chance D. Muehleck] is surreal and broad and intriguing; it's clearly meant as satire.

--Martin Denton, NYTheatre.com

Our Father's House, by Chance D. Muehleck, is another case of deceptive appearances... Each of the ensemble of courageous players jumped into this surreal swimming pool with both feet, coaxed through the comedic chaos by director Melanie S. Armer.

--Elias Stimac, OOBR

Chance D. Muehleck's The Honeypot Redux is the most fully-realized play of the program... It's all very Pinteresque, with a creepy, off-kilter feel.

--Anna Rosenstein, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Honeypot Redux by Chance D. Muehleck... is another example of glorious writing. The most complete of all the works, it's a full-length play in miniature.

--Ted Hoover, Pittsburgh City Paper

[Eating the Dead] is a compelling, intriguing tale, punctuated by fanciful spirits of the haunted night that may or may not be real. Melanie S. Armer directs this sometimes chaotic play with a kind of pixilated naturalism that suits the material well.

--Martin Denton, NYTheatre.com

Two parallel stories converge in Lanford Wilson's Sympathetic Magic... Under the direction of New York director Melanie S. Armer, Wilson's trademark character development shines.

--John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In System Eternal, Chance D. Muehleck's mysterious, oddly compelling play with music, a sordid group of characters from both sides of the law banters about in the pithy, haunting language of noir... An original, stylish piece.

--Michael Lazan, BackStage