The Tusk Hunters

a new play by Dan Caffrey

directed by Dina Vovsi

puppetry direction by Betsy Rosen

featuring Savidu Geevaratne, Aaron Haskell, Nick Lehane, Erik Lochtefeld, Jens Rasmussen, Betsy Rosen, and Eric Wright

stage manager Sara Minisquero

Workshop | February 10th at 7 p.m.

Two men in the Alaskan tundra search for woolly mammoth tusks as an alternative to elephant ivory. But their most recent discovery causes their employer to pivot from the ivory trade to a more technologically innovative venture as a means of combating climate change. Inspired by the real-life founding of Colossal Biosciences, The Tusk Hunters explores the morality of de-extinction and the toll that scientifically revolutionary ideas take on those who execute them.

*In this workshop sharing, portions of the script will be explored with the beginnings of a woolly mammoth puppet, created by the puppetry team of Betsy Rosen, Aaron Haskell, Nick Lehane, and Eric Wright.

This presentation is made possible through the New York State Council on the Arts

about the artists

Dan Caffrey (Playwright) is a playwright, musician, teacher, and pop-culture critic who graduated from The University of Texas at Austin's M.F.A. Playwriting program in 2020. Prior to that, he lived and made new theatrical work in Chicago for more than a decade, where he co-founded the Tympanic Theatre Company (RIP) and served as its Artistic Director from 2007 to 2015. He's currently based in Brooklyn after a stint teaching playwriting at the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. His work draws heavily from wildlife, horror, and various otherworldly elements. He's interested in how these external, often non-human forces can upend his characters' views of humanity, pushing them to confront more internal threats such as secrecy, repression, insecurity, and fear. Most recently, his stories have focused on the physical and psychological effects of the climate crisis, including the zero-waste world premiere of his play The Amphibians at Weber State University and River Watchers, an immersive theatre experience on a moving 14-person canoe in Brooklyn's Newtown Creek (co-created with Dina Vovsi and Jens Rasumussen). Other work includes the plays Matwan, KAIJU, Universal Monsters, and Sow and Suckling, and “Mortality Rate,” an audio drama commissioned by 20th Century Studios as a tie-in to the Stephen King film The Boogeyman. ​Dan is a proud alumnus of the 2023/2024 Civilians' R&D Group. He has been a three-time O'Neill Finalist and seven-time Semi-Finalist, two-time Finalist for Princeton University and The Civilians' The Next Forever project, Jerome Fellowship Semi-Finalist, shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship's 2021 Theatre Prize, Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship, Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center, M.F.A. Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and his work has been published in several anthologies by Smith & Kraus, including The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2021. His plays have recently been developed/produced by Gloucester Stage, Think Tank Theatre, the Atlantic Acting School, Hot Playwright Summer, The Workshop Theater, The Orchard Project, American Records, Mixily Presents, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, JOOK, Jarrott Productions, Kitchen Dog Theater, Hot Kitchen Collective, Genesis Ensemble, Sundown Collaborative Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, Otherworld Theatre Company, and Pegasus PlayLab, as well as many colleges and universities all around the country. His play "A Seed" was part of the 46th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, produced by Concord Theatricals. His play "Duckass" was part of the 2022 festival, making it to the final 12. Dan has also written for a variety of pop-culture publications, including The A.V. Club, Consequence, Pitchfork, and Vox. His first book, Radiohead FAQ, is currently available from Backbeat Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield). He co-hosts The Losers' Club: A Stephen King Podcast (recipient of the Silver Bolo Award For Excellence In Horror Media) and Halloweenies: A Horror Franchise podcast, in addition to recording music with Mae Shults under the name Methodist Hospital. Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau hailed their debut album, Giants, as one of the best of 2018.

Dina Vovsi (Director) is a New York-based director, multidisciplinary theatermaker, and educator. She is a 2025-2026 Resident Artist at the cell for The Tusk Hunters with playwright Dan Caffrey and puppet artist Betsy Rosen, which received a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant. She is a 2026 New Georges Audrey Resident and a co-facilitator of the 2024-2026 New Georges Jam. With Dan Caffrey and performer and canoeist Jens Rasmussen, Dina co-created and directed River Watchers, a site-specific, journey-based play on a 14-seat Langley canoe in Newtown Creek, which was called “a stirring new immersive theatrical experience” and “a one-of-a-kind night of theater that embraces the size of our city’s history and humanity’s place in it.” Produced in association with The Motor Company and the North Brooklyn Community Boathouse, River Watchers was awarded grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Puffin Foundation. Dina has directed and developed new work with WP Theater, The Civilians, New Georges, Working Theater, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Orchard Project, New Dramatists, The Bushwick Starr, and more. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and an alum of the The Drama League Directors’ Project, WP Directors’ Lab, the Roundabout Directors Group, the Mercury Store, the Robert Moss Directing Fellowship at Playwrights Horizons, The Civilians’ R&D Group, the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, and the SDC Foundation Observership. With collaborator Dan Caffrey, she is a two-time finalist for The Civilians’ Next Forever Commission with ​​Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute and Lewis Center for the Arts. As an associate/assistant director, Dina has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally with Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Spoleto Festival USA, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and more. A frequent guest director at universities, Dina also teaches directing at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and acting at Brooklyn College's MFA Acting Graduate Program www.dinavovsi.com

Betsy Rosen (Puppetry Direction) is a New York-based actor, puppeteer, puppetry director, and educator. She appeared in the US Premiere and the original Broadway cast of Life of Pi, performing the roles of Richard Parker (the Royal Bengal Tiger) and Puppetry Captain. The production won three of its five Tony Award nominations. Betsy continued to play Richard Parker in Life of Pi’s first National Tour and served as the Tour’s Puppetry Captain and Assistant Puppetry and Movement Director. Betsy is a 2025-2026 Resident Artist at the cell for The Tusk Hunters with playwright Dan Caffrey and director Dina Vovsi, which received a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant. Since her year as a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Bruce E. Coyle Acting Intern, Betsy has been a part of multiple Playhouse productions including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Hank Williams: Lost Highway, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Peter and the Starcatcher, Rooted, and most recently, as the Puppetry Director for the annual production of A Christmas Carol, now in its third year. With the Australia-based company, Dead Puppet Society, Betsyhas twice toured Australia as an actor/puppeteer in Laser Beak Man, culminating in a run at Sydney Opera House, as well as performed in Argus at Lincoln Center, and workshopped The Wider Earth at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Betsy has performed with companies across the U.S. including The Drama League, American Repertory Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Arts on the Horizon, Round House Theatre, Taffety Punk, Delaware Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, The Studio Theatre, HERE Arts, La Mama, The Samuel French Festival, La Mama, New Victory, PlayGround NY, and Mango Moon Productions. She won a 2012 Helen Hayes Award for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe at Imagination Stage. As part of a Washington, DC-based artist collective, including Patrick Lord and Natalie Cutcher, Betsy is currently developing a new multi-media stage adaptation of the 1929 novel, Emil and the Detectives. A graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, with degrees in Theatre and Mathematics, Betsy is thrilled to return to her alma mater as the 2026 Puppeteer in Residence.