About Us | NYC | Angry Fish Theatre

Hey, I’m Natalia, the artist and founder behind Angry Fish Theatre.

I started this work as a collective in 2016, with the goal to bring spotlight to underground artists and explore experimental locations and story structures. Many things have happened since then. Primarily, beautiful things. We did experimental performances at unconventional locations, a photo studio, an art gallery, a boutique storefront display, a designer warehouse... Then many of my dear collaborators moved to different cities, started new jobs and families, or fully committed to long-term projects. Then there was the pandemic. I wrote and created work with other collectives during that time, but took a break from producing original shows.

In 2023 it was time for me to return to creating the experimental theatre! Especially, since there was a new direction that captivated me: Artificial Intelligence. After years of working in interactive and immersive theater field I was inspired by the opportunities the real-time AI generation of stories could bring.

With a brilliant producer Joyce Lao from The Ally Artists Group and co-producers Sabrina Morabito and Anna Bredikhina, we presented an AI-led show “Soulmates (NOT) Found” at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Its impact and the audience's feedback made us expand this unique experience with AI technology to more projects and use it at a more advanced level.

Today we are on a journey creating our third Immersive AI-powered show “The Waiting Room” that is the most complex and will become a new breakthrough genre in digital storytelling. Check out the show's page for more information and follow my work and thoughts on this type of work in the blog!

From now on and for the foreseeable future this page will become my artistic journey diving into the digital world of AI.

- Natalia Yandyganova
Writer & Director, Founder

F.A.Q,

Q: Why Angry Fish? Are you angry at someone?

A: I think anger is a good emotion if it motivates you to grow and work on improving your environment. In that sense, yes I am angry from time to time. I want a better world and I want to grow as an artist.

However the story is more simple. In 2016 my collaborator actor calls me and says he wants to add our film trailer to a special screening at a festival but he needs a name...in 5 minutes. I call another collaborator of ours and we brainstorm...somehow coming to a conclusion that it needs an emotion and an animal to make a production name work. So we come up with Angry Fish Films. Overtime it spills over onto our theatre work and Angry Fish Theatre is what I go by now.