Backstreet Boy Howie D. and Others Among New Victory LabWorks Artists

The New Victory Theater, a presenter of Theater for Young Audiences, has announced the 2017-18 New Victory LabWorks Artists. Described as "NYC-based artists pursuing the creation of bold and exciting performing arts for family audiences," this year's roster will include projects from a variety of art forms.

Hosted in the New 42nd Street Studios, LabWorks equips artists with tangible resources, such as rehearsal space and basic technical assistance, as well as exposure to new creative processes and artistic principles through The New Victory's community of leaders in the field of performing arts for families.

For 2017-18, New Victory LabWorks Artists include:

— AchesonWalsh Studios use puppetry to tell the true story of a famous performing hippopotamus and his life as a migrant in America in William Johnson Hippopotamus XIII.

— Beat Piece, led by Leah Moriarty, a dance artist trained in South Asian, Arabic and African Diasporic techniques, sets out to address the ways we identify ourselves, our histories, our fears, and our relationships while challenging the role of the spectators in With Feeling.

— Christopher Anselmo and Jared Corak develop Fountain, a new musical that explores the peculiar and perilous oddities of Florida through the eyes of a young girl as she hunts for the healing waters of the Fountain of Youth to save her ailing grandfather.

— Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough (Howie D.), Grammy-nominated Tor Hyams, Lisa Rothauser, Matte O’Brien, and Tate Theatrics present How We Do, a new musical about a biracial teen finding his place and acceptance in the awkward halls of middle school as he and his new-found friends embark on a journey through musical genres.

— Theater artist Kaneza Schaal and Caldecott Honor-winning author and illustrator Christopher Myers team up to consider mapping, migration, and the storytelling central to the lives of young people seeking refuge and asylum throughout the world today.

— Kate Douglas emphasizes conservation in an immersive botanical exploration designed to find the rarest flower in the greenhouse: Middlemist Red.

— Obie Award winner Louisa Thompson and collaborator Modesto "Flako" Jimenez create a tactile exploration of clothing and textiles in Workshop!, a play-based theatrical event.

— Marisol Rosa-Shapiro and her Soledad Ensemble incorporate the stories of child refugees and migrants from across the globe in The Seven Ravens Project, a physical theater adaptation of a lesser known tale from the Brothers Grimm.

— Phantom Limb Company's Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko employ the Japanese style of Hachioji cart puppetry to tell the story of how two young animals find common ground in Over River and Wood.

— Saskia Lane and Stephanie Fleischmann, in collaboration with Julian Crouch and director Melissa Kievman, meld concert and theater to create The Sweetest Life, a riff on Hans Christian Andersen's little-known tale The Flax — a meditation on hope, resilience, and transformation in the face of life's hard knocks.