Theater For The New City

New York Butoh Institute

in association with

Theater for the New City

present

New York Butoh Institute Festival 19

October 10-27, 2019

at Theater for the New City

 

New York Butoh Institute presents the New York Butoh Institute Festival 19 from Thursday, October 10 through Sunday, October 27, 2019 at Theater for the New City. This year will mark the 60th anniversary of the Japanese performance art form butoh.

 

Curated by New York Butoh Institute's founder Vangeline, the Festival will consist of an exciting program of Butoh workshops and masterclasses, as well as seven nights of groundbreaking performances presented at Theater for the New City. The festival will conclude on Sunday, October 27 with a lecture and short film celebrating the founder of butoh, Tatsumi Hijikata, and the 60 years of this historical and revolutionary art form as it continues to evolve into the 21st century.

 

The bold butoh performances being presented during the festival will feature 14 female dancers from Japan, Colombia, Norway, Italy, Germany, France, and the U.S. One of the pieces, Hijikata, Mon Amour, will be performed by Vangeline as an homage to butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata. A highlight of the piece will be the costume Vangeline will wear: an exact replica of the bold red costume Tatsumi Hijikata wore in his legendary butoh performance of Tatsumi Hijikata and The Japanese-Revolt of the Flesh in 1968.

 

Thanks to a loan from the Tatsumi Hijikata Archives and a Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Festival is able to showcase the replica of this iconic costume worn by Tatsumi Hijikata in Revolt of the Flesh. Hijikata's costume remains a totem for butoh-it holds secrets of the avant-garde art form.

 

Much like butoh itself, it was born at the confluence of East and West. This costume chronicles the evolution of postmodern art in Japan. The Festival will close with a short film of Tatsumi Hijikata in his 1968 solo, and a lecture with costume expert Todd Thomas who recreated the costume, and who will discuss his process, shedding light on how the original costume was designed and constructed. Prior to and during the presentation, the replica will be on display for audience members to see.

 

The New York Butoh Festival 19 will take place at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, NYC. Thursday through Saturday October 17-19 and October 24-26 at 8pm, Sunday October 20 at 3pm, Sunday October 27 special event lecture at 3pm. Tickets are $18-$20, and can be purchased by phone at (212) 254-1109 or online at https://butohfest-19.eventbrite.com/. The lecture on Sunday, October 27 is free and open to the public.

Artists Featured:

Eri Chian (Osaka, Japan); Mari Osanai, (Aomori, Japan), Tove-Elena Nicolaysen (Chile/Norway), Salome Kokoladze (Georgia), Sindy Butz (Germany), Katherine Adamenko (USA), Madelyn Sher (USA), Angela Newsham (Hawai-USA), Melissa Lohman (Italy), Margherita Tisato (Italy), Yazmin Gonzalez (USA), Vangeline, (France), Lauren Farber (USA) and Brenda Polo (Colombia).

 

VANGELINE THEATER/NEW YORK BUTOH INSTITUTE aims to preserve the legacy and integrity of Japanese Butoh while carrying the art form well into the future. The unique art of Butoh originated in post- World War II Japan as a reaction to the loss of identity caused by the westernization of Japanese culture, as well as a realization that ancient Japanese performing traditions no longer spoke to a contemporary audience. One of the major developments in contemporary dance in the latter half of the 20th century, Butoh combines dance, theater, improvisation and influences of Japanese traditional performing arts to create a unique performing art form that is both controversial and universal in its expression. The Vangeline Theater is home to the New York Butoh Institute, dedicated to the advancement of Butoh in the 21st century. www.vangeline.com

 

Vangeline is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in the Japanese postwar avant-garde movement form Butoh. She is the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater (New York), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese Butoh while carrying it into the 21st century, and the founder of the New York Butoh Institute. Her work has been heralded in publications such as The New York Times ("captivating"), Los Angeles

Times, ("moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist") and LA Weekly, to name a few. More recently her solo "Butoh Beethoven: Eclipse" received critical acclaim from the Ballet Review.

 

Vangeline is a 2018 NYFA/ NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography. She is also the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance's Beth Silverman-Yam Social Action Award. Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the 2012 feature film The Letter, written and directed by Jay Anania, She has performed with/for Grammy Award-winning artists SKRILLEX and Esperanza Spalding. She is the author of a forthcoming book about butoh and looks forward to curating the second New York Butoh Institute Festival 19 this October.

 

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Vin Diesel, Oscar Nuñez, Laurence Holder, Romulus Linney and Academy Award winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and COBU, the Japanese women's drumming, and dance group. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of Between Life and Death, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 42 OBIE Awards for excellent in every theatrical discipline. TNC is the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

 

Sometimes a trip to the Emergency Room is so awful that it's just made for Theater of the Ridiculous. That's the premise of "Singin' in the E.R.," the newest musical by Ruby Lynn Reyner, a star of John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous who has been called a female Jerry Lewis. The piece is inspired by ordeals in a New York City hospital suffered by the author and her husband. Now she believes that the only way to deal with such life-changing experiences is through unrestrained, exorbitant laughter. Theater for the New City will present the musical's world premiere run September 26 to October 13, directed by and starring its author.

Arts.Theatre

Three new comedies featuring a Feral child, a burnt-out musician, and a mysterious woman.

GOLDFISH

Sabrina, a feral child, just turned 6 and her parents are throwing her a party in their shabby loft in the desolate rug district. After the cake is eaten, the parents and their only friend Beth, wait for an aristocratic couple to arrive. The couple arrives minutes before midnight with a strange “poet” they just met on the street. Now, as a goldfish presides, the evening begins.

MEMORY LIKE A PALE GREEN CLOCK

A husband surprises his wife with a romantic dinner at an extravagant restaurant. Across from them is a woman sitting alone that he remembers but can’t place. As his distraction persists his wife becomes increasingly irritated. While the evening unravels an ancient waiter serves as an enigmatic master of ceremonies.

BONE APPETITE

A tale inspired by a true story. One character focuses on a special dinner, the other on how it will be served. What is at “steak” here, a simple meal or something of a more existential nature? Enlightenment--served as desert?

Featuring Wynne Anders, Elizabeth A. Bell, Christopher Borg, Claudia Fabella, Steven Hauck, Jamie Heinlein, and Ryan HilIiard.

Produced by Nedworks, Inc. in association with Theater for the New City.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY presents SHAREHOLDER VALUE, a new play by Tom Attea where stocks plummet and tensions soar. This play, which reunites the playwright with director Mark Marcante and composer Arthur Abrams, the team behind Heather Smiley for President, America’s Favorite Newscaster, and An American Worker is based loosely on the meltdown at General Electric. It centers around the struggles the CEO of a troubled conglomerate faces to deliver what he must every quarter, regardless of the problems the company runs into. The production will play a limited engagement from Thursday, March 21st through Sunday, April 14th at Theater For the New City (155 1st Avenue at East 10th Street).

 

Like all CEO's of publicly held conglomerates, Dennis Holland of the fictional company Total Electric must deliver one thing: SHAREHOLDER VALUE. From the financial crisis of 2008 through the present, Holland scrambles to implement short-sighted ways to deliver quarterly profits, including spinning off divisions and green lighting cutbacks, consistently favoring quick fixes over long-term strategy. An activist investor challenges his leadership, and when the CEO decides to sell the light-bulb division, TE’s founder, Thomas Edison, haunts his dreams. When the stock continues to tumble and debt mounts, the cost of his actions becomes increasingly apparent to his shareholders, his employees, and finally to himself. Tickets, priced $10-$15, may be purchased online through SmartTix , by calling (212) 868-4444 or the the box office at (212) 254-1109.

 

The cast of SHAREHOLDER VALUE features Debbie Bernstein, Joe Candelora, Matt Gorsky, Dennis Holland, Bill McAndrews, Benjamin Russell, and Kristen Tripolitis. Original incidental music is by Arthur Abrams. Costume design is by Desiree Conton; lighting design is by Alexander Bartenieff; sound and video design is by Alex Santullo; and prop design is by Lytza Colon. Jordyn Prince is the assistant director and Jessica Schedlbauer serves as stage manager.

 

 

THE OPEN GATE will open on Sunday October 14th, for a limited engagement, through October 27th at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue at 10th Street). The musical, which deals with the fates of a wealthy Jewish businessman and his four daughters, begins previews on Thursday, October 11th. A musical adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel The Manor, THE OPEN GATE is a struggle between modern thought and values and the old life of intense piety. The musical is written and directed by David Willinger, with music composed by Arthur Abrams and choreography by Michael Vazquez.

 

The performance schedule for THE OPEN GATE is as follows: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm, with matinees on Sundays at 3pm through October 27th.

 

Tickets are $20 and $10 for seniors and students, which can be purchased by visiting www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-868-4444. In an effort to reach all audiences, tickets for previews for THE OPEN GATE will be priced as “pay what you can” and are only available at the Box Office the day or performance.  The 15 member cast is soon-to-be-announced.

 

The world premiere engagement of AMERICA’S FAVORITE NEWSCASTER, a new musical with book and lyrics by Tom Attea, music by Arthur Abrams, and directed by Mark Marcante will play a 4-week exclusive engagement, Thursday, January 4, 2018 through Sunday, January 28, 2018 at Theater For the New City (155 1st Avenue, between East 9th and East 10th Streets, NYC).

With a cast of twelve, AMERICA’S FAVORITE NEWSCASTER is a new American musical about a young, highly rated TV journalist, struggling to maintain his famously calm yet fearlessly insightful demeanor while dealing with the challenges of today’s news cycle.

Performances will be on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00PM and Sundays at 3:00PM.

Tickets to AMERICA’S FAVORITE NEWSCASTER are priced at ​ $15 ($10 for Students and Seniors) and are now available online at http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net , at the Box Office via telephone at 212-254-1109, and, as the first performance nears, at SmartTix.

Following a critically U.S. and International tour, Vangeline Theater presents BUTOH BEETHOVEN: ECLIPSE (Admiring Tatsumi Hijikata) on October 14, 2017 at 8pm at Theater For the New City, 155 First Avenue, NYC.  Tickets are $15 general admission ($12 for students/seniors) and are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3056947.

 

New York Butoh dancer Vangeline conjures the ghosts of two passionate giants - Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of Butoh, and composer Ludwig van Beethoven in this hypnotic, electrifying and award-winning solo performance.  80 minutes with a 10 minute intermission.

 

"Virtuosic solo performance that will make your skin crawl in the best way possible, conjuring the ghosts of tortured geniuses Beethoven and Tatsumi Hijikata and bringing Butoh into the 21st century with technical marvels and masterful skill. Vangeline is an artist who knows the darkness of Butoh well, and has the incredible skill to make that darkness dance." - Theasy

 

The word "eclipse"is derived from the ancient Greek verb ἐκλείπω (ekleípō) which means "to abandon," "to darken," or "to cease to exist." Butoh is likewise the "Dance of Darkness" where performers dance on the threshold of Life and Death Life.

 

BUTOH BEETHOVEN: ECLIPSE is a solo piece that illuminates the darkness of Butoh with the addition of cutting edge lighting technologies such as the futuristic creations of European designer Tilen Sepič and fiber optic costume by the French company Lumigram. After touring this show for the past three years and receiving four stars at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, five stars at Copenhagen Stage Festival and critical acclaim in New York City, Vangeline shines a new light on Butoh and will transport audiences.

 

This program is supported in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

 

ABOUT VANGELINE THEATER

Vangeline is an award-winning teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in the Japanese postwar avant-garde movement form Butoh. She is Artistic Director of The Vangeline Theater Inc., an all-female dance company that she founded in 2002. Firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese Butoh, The Vangeline Theater is committed to providing programming, performances and classes that honor the legacy of the art form while moving it forward in the 21st century. Vangeline is the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance's Beth Silverman-Yam Social Action Award recognizing excellence in the field of Community Action.  Vangeline's Butoh work has been commissioned by Atlantic Records' Grammy award-winning artist SKRILLEX and Grammy Award winner Esperanza Spalding, and is featured in a major motion picture "The Letter" with James Franco and Winona Ryder, as well as on CNN's Great Big Story. 

 

Since its inception in 2002, Vangeline Theater has fused the post-apocalyptic vision of Butoh (the Japanese dance form that developed after Hiroshima) with the near-cinematic aesthetic of 21st Century science-fiction noir. The mission of Vangeline Theater is to be at the forefront of the artistic movement to address environmental awareness providing artistic, socially responsible engagements in our community. The Vangeline Theater is home to the New York Butoh Institute, dedicated to the advancement of Butoh in the 21st century, with a special emphasis on scientific research as it relates to Butoh.

A world premiere musical based on Robert Sickinger’s 1994 musical Platinum Taps, with music composed by John Taylor Thomas. Grand Theft Musical is written by Lissa Moira who directs a cast of 17, including Taylor Brandon, William Broderick*, Jef Canter*, Darcy Dunn, Shana Farr, Carlos Gomez, Becca Gottlieb*, Devon Hall, Robert Homeyer, Douglas McDonnell, Marlena Mack, Alex Hayden Miller, James Parks, Caroline Portu, Darius Anthony Robinson, Kaily Shuler, and David Sloane Esq.

Grand Theft Musical is a boisterous, bawdy, bang-bang musical comedy, which openly purloins from some of the greatest examples of the genre to hilarious effect. The cast of 17 characters includes a powerful, bisexual, vindictive columnist and his network of adorable spies; a ridiculously successful good guy Broadway producer, his gorgeous super-smart stripper girlfriend, and his envious sneaky business partner; an exceedingly dangerous mafia Don and his tap-dancing nephew; a larger-than-life Broadway director - a big bear of a man who is an unapologetic Socialist; a beautiful, sensitive suicidal actress and wide-eyed, optimistic writer composer - a stunningly insufferable super-star British couple who invite sexual intrigue; and a highly talented acid-tongued choreographer. How they relate to, deal and double-deal with, fall in and out of love and in and out of bed with each other, while singing and dancing up a storm, constitutes the plot. Grand Theft Musical is a sophisticatedly silly, satirical lampoon yet warm embrace of Broadway and all things theater. Beg, borrow but please don’t steal a ticket to Grand Theft Musical.

Robert Sickinger was a guiding spirit of the theater’s avant-garde, a founder of several cutting edge companies in Chicago and here in New York City (Manhattan Theater Club). He has been sorely missed since his passing. In his final years, Robert became entranced by the musical theater form, so to honor this great man, his ideas and his legacy, Lissa Moira has adapted his 1994 musical Platinum Taps into this brand new incarnation, Grand Theft Musical. John Taylor Thomas remains the composer.

Grand Theft Musical is presented by Theater for the New City. Musical Director/Pianist: Andy Peterson; Choreographers: Carlos Gomez, J. Alan Hanna and Mallory Brophy; Set Designer: Marc Marcante; Sets and Costume Designer: Lytza Colon; Lighting Designer: Alex Bartenieff. Stage Manager: Charles Casano; Fight Choreographer: Mark Lang.

The Title Should Be Spoken Out Loud Around Three-Quarters In is a comical drama that satirizes the tropes and culture of contemporary theater. Convinced that "comedy is the new drama," this play subtly offers a dialogue about certain unhelpful practices in theater criticism and about the nature of playwriting and the concepts of the muse. 

Critically acclaimed playwright Antony Raymond’s new play, The Title Should Be Spoken Out Loud Around Three-Quarters In will have its World Premiere at Theater For The New City’s Dream Up Festival on September 12. Raymond, is the Artistic Director of Elsinore County, previous writing/directing credits include JULIO!, Pretty Babies, and yeah i met this girl.

The cast features Greg Bell, Christopher Heard, JJ Pyle, and Eric Doviak. The creative team includes choreography by Bronn Blackwaters, and lightning design by Daryl Embry.

About the Company: Elsinore County

Elsinore County (EC), so-named after one of their most successful productions, is an award winning Greenwich Village based theater company founded in 2011 by a small cohort of talented New York City actors under the direction of Antony Raymond. EC is a tightly knit, uninhibited, impassioned community of artists who are committed to creating entertainment that challenges the status quo. They engage their audiences with works of satire, farce, and dark humor that examine timeless social tenets and the politics of wanton power and sexuality so prevalent today. Elsinore County's mission is to give their audience smart, poignant and exciting entertainment that fearlessly explores the full gamut of human experience: from hilarious to tragic and back again.

 

A fantastical musical of Prohibition-era NYC queer life written and composed by Danny Ashkenasi.

1929 - New York City. John and Jane Allison are newlyweds. Although they love each other, they have desires they haven’t even acknowledged to themselves, let alone explored. But after giving her neighbor Roberta White a kiss, Jane goes “down the rabbit hole,” entering the strange world of a Speakeasy, where time and space and identity don’t appear to follow conventional rules. On accepting a sexual proposition in a public men’s room, John mysteriously slides “through the looking glass,” and in one fantastical magical realist dream night, they explore their sexuality through the course of two simultaneous and intertwining magical adventures. Lewis Carroll’s literary characters and events from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” are transformed into real-life historically-significant entertainers and events from NYC’s Prohibition-era queer culture, with whom Jane and John enjoy friendships and love affairs. After a night of speakeasies, buffet flat parties, police raids, drag balls, and a bizarre trial, will they reveal their “dreams” to each other and “speak easy” about their truths?

Speakeasy: John and Jane's Adventures in the Wonderland shares the sexual freedoms explored in the 1920s and 30s, and how those freedoms were ruined with the end of Prohibition. It is a love song to queer life in NYC and to forgotten entertainers such as Gene (Jean) Malin, the openly homosexual headline act of New York’s short-lived Pansy Craze of 1929; Vaudeville’s famous Dolly Sisters; the larger than life black lesbian singer Gladys Bentley of Harlem’s “Negro Vogue” fame; and the popular female impersonator Julian Eltinge, to name a few. The music in Speakeasy is based on various styles of the era, but with a modern twist, including Tin Pan Alley, showtunes, jazz, swing, cabaret, operetta as well as classical and agitprop strains of the time.

Lissa Moira directs a cast of 28, including Camille Atkinson, Torian Brackett, Anne Bragg, Tim Connell*, Nick DeFrancesco, Darcy Dunn, Rosalie Graziano*, Bevin Bell-Hall, Brian Michael Henry*, Dan Kelley, Marlena Mack, Rebecca Marquardt, Bri Molloy, Sarah Mostov, Matias Polar, Kristen Quinn, Allie Radice*, Nathan Richardson, Kayleigh Shuler, Cory Tarallo, Yeuris F. Taveras, Amanda Thomas, Tommy Vance, Zach Wachter, Desi Waters, and Kit Yan, with additional cast members to be announced shortly. Music direction by Jonathan Fox Powers.

Adapted from the Jane Austen Novel.  

A tale of two sets of very different lovers and the pitfalls (some of their own making and some imposed by the strict hierarchical society that demands that everybody – especially women know their place) they encounter on their separate roads to finding each other. The mise en scene is early 19th century at war with Napoleon, while members of its intelligentsia fight a war in print about women’s’ duties in maintain family values and by extension the fabric of the nation versus a nascent feminist movement.  

Lissa Moira will direct a cast of 19, including Jeffrey Marc Alkins, Louisa Bradshaw*, Thom Brown, Chris Donovan*, Emily Hin, Rebecca Knowles, Mark Lang, Stephanie Leone, Caroline Lyell, Frances Franklin McGovern, James Parks, Katya Powder, Jonathan Fox Powers, Katherine Rose Riley, Robert Charles Russell*, Britney Simone, Henrietta Stevenson, Hallie Wage, and Amanda Yachechak.  *Member, Actors' Equity Association. AEA Showcase.

Two new American operatic musical adaptations from classical works, Seymour Barab’s operatic parody Out The Window based upon Georges Feydeux’s farce “Par La Fenetre;” and Rappaccini’s Daughter, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s gothic short story, with libretto by Linsey Abrams and music by Michael Cohen.  Out The Window is a one act comic opera set in the late 1950’s/60’s ‘Mad Men’ era.  Rappaccini’s Daughter, from the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a gripping Gothic tale set in medieval Italy.

In "Out The Window" when a willful wife and hapless husband who don’t happen to be married to each other get together to combat a scourge of jealously, will the cure turn out to be worse than the disease? Or, will love prevail?  Out The Window stars Lauren Hoffmeier and James Parks.

 

Rappaccini’s Daughter, a musical tale

Rappaccini’s Daughter, from the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a gripping Gothic tale set in medieval Italy. Two young lovers with their dreams of a shared future, become the victims of the brilliant Dr. Rappaccini, intent on changing the very laws of nature. No one is safe from his scientific experiments, not even his own daughter–and no one can stop him except, perhaps, for Professor Baglioni, an unheralded doctor committed to healing and humanity. The evil secret lies in a garden.

Rappaccini’s Daughter stars Samantha Britt, William Broderick*, Darcy Dunn, Martin Fisher, and Douglas McDonnell with Michelle Lamb, Bryan Ernesto Menjivar, Michelle West, Masami Ishibashi, Amanda Yachechak, and Gloria Makino*.*Member, Actors' Equity Association. AEA Showcase.

Suitable for all ages, an original musical version of Charles Dickens' classic tale with a cast of 35 Iincluding 6 children), including Broadway star Luba Mason* (Chicago, Jekyll & Hyde, How to Succeed, Sunset Blvd.), Cabaret luminary Karen Kohler* (Das Cabaret, Vienna to Weimar w/ KT Sullivan), Becca Gottlieb* (Nat. Tours: Damn Yankees, The Wedding Singer), and Douglas McDonnell (Metropolitan & New York City Operas), A comedic satire. Memorable characters. Famous romantic 1830’s novel with themes of class inequality & social injustice.

Join the Crummles Troupe in protest mode as they bring The Nickleby Family, The Squeers, The Cheerybles, Smike, Newman Noggs and an array of early Victorian era characters to life. Left penniless after his father’s death, teenage Nicholas, his mother and sister embark on a journey to London to seek help from their Uncle Ralph, who immediately dislikes Nicholas and finds work for him in The Squeers’ boarding school. Run like a prison, Nicholas is horrified by the school’s conditions and escapes with crippled friend Smike back to London. Reunited with his family, Nicholas finds himself defending the honor of his family and friends against his Uncle’s deceptions. 

"Blind Angels" by Dick Brukenfeld is a nail-biting drama in which a news reporter (inspired by Daniel Pearl) is taken prisoner by a group of cosmopolitan, integrated, successful, secular Muslims who are embarking on a terrorist attack. The twist is, he has long relationships with two of his three "hosts"--one is his ex-fiancee and the other was his college roommate. They are playing an endgame scenario that dwarfs what any small fry terrorist has tried before and they need him to tell their story. Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., will present the play's world premiere run February 6 to March 2, directed by Melissa Attebery.Playwright Dick Brukenfeld is a former reporter for the Boston Globe and Lowell Sun who was a theater critic for the Village Voice for six years. He writes, "I felt a kinship with Daniel Pearl. He was out there doing what all of us dream of--getting the crucial story that wasn't being written, finding out who the terrorists were and what was motivating them. Unfortunately, the people holding him were too dumb and vicious to recognize the opportunity he was offering." In this play, they do. The newsman, named Aaron Samzer, is the son of a rabbi who opposed his marriage to one of the Islamic cosmopolitans who are holding him. He is entrapped by friends he loves, who are planning hit New York City with "a small catastrophe to avoid a larger one." All three are American citizens and not fanatics; two are Ivy League educated jet setters and all of them know they need this trusted, Jewish newsman to tell their story.

Drama"

Theater.Drama

"I grew up in the Jewish left wing community in New York City in the 60s and 70’s. I lived in a union-built cooperative housing project, spent vacations at a socialist colony, and went to a summer camp with a communist lineage. I was raised on a liturgy of labor songs and civil rights anthems and learned Marxist theory by osmosis. But by the time I came along, the movement I was born into was fading away." - Billy Yalowitz, Playwright of East Towards Home"East Towards Home" brings to life three generations of Jewish left-wing culture in New York City. The play braids together the annals of radical choreographers from the 1930's and 40's, texts and songs from Woody Guthrie, and first-person stories of childhood in NYC a generation later. With loose-limbed storytelling, visual projections and animation, modern dance, and live music, this coming-of-age piece offers a personal and impassioned look at the culture and history of the American Jewish radical left-wing community, at a time when that legacy is in danger of passing into obscurity.

Play"

Theater.Play

Two Alone/Too Together is a dark comedy that pits two emotionally wounded men against each other in a psychological minefield of their own creation.Stephen Essay is a gay nurse living a lonely, regimented life in Athens, Ohio. Jude Donnelly is a mischievous wanderer, ostensibly on the road taking pictures for a fine art photography series titled America's Lost Highways, but is really trying to escape the emotional scars of his past. These two men meet one night after Jude crashes his car outside of Athens and is taken to the hospital where Stephen works.Soon after their meeting Jude senses that Stephen is as emotionally wounded as he is, so he suggests that the two partake in a game of "role playing" that he believes will help them overcome the wounds of their pasts. Stephen resists at first, thinking the game silly and professionally out of bounds. But after a lot of coaxing and insults from Jude, Stephen gradually decides to play along- though he doesn't play the game in the manner Jude expects. Within this context the two men take each other on a savage journey of cat and mouse, as they both desperately try to reconnect with the world without the world slapping them in the face once again.

Comedy"

Theater.Comedy

Kitty Lunn's Infinity Dance Theater, the company for dancers with and without disabilities, presents “Unbound: Dancing From Here to There,” four performances, two different programs, December 6-8 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue. The concerts feature choreography by Kitty Lunn, Peter Pucci, Alice Sheppard, and Carla Vannucchi.Program A – Repertory Program – Friday & Saturday, December 6 & 7 at 8 PMInfinity’s evening program features new and revived modern dance works, including Kitty Lunn’s The Unbound Suite (premiere), inspired by the elements of Feng Shui, set to original music by William Catanzaro, and performed by Alice Sheppard and Kitty Lunn.Program B – The Women’s Stories Project – Saturday & Sunday, December 7 & 8 at 3 PM Infinity’s matinee program, The Women’s Stories Project, is a unique and inspiring theater/dance work featuring four amazing women with courage and resourcefulness to spare, telling their stories of love, loss, illness, and aging. Depressing? Not at all! Women’s Stories is funny, sad, ironic, and unpredictable.

Modern"

Dance.Modern

A generic couple struggling to be mutually understood. A couple of patients waiting for deliverance. A pair of janitors meeting a pair of lawyers. Two women in a tense standoff playing a deadly card game."Three of a Kind, with Two Wild Cards" is a series of four one act plays ("Generically Speaking", "Waiting for Goodreau", "Out of Order" and "The Caregiver") with overlapping characters. Equal parts sketch comedy, melodrama, juggled timelines and theater of the absurd, this new work by writer/director Robert Homeyer explores the variety of ways in which human beings discover their own identity...or have it forced upon them by circumstances beyond their control.

Comedy"

Theater.Comedy

The story is based loosely on the career of the "real-life" David Ippolito, who is known to hundreds of thousands of people across the country and around the world as "That Guitar Man from Central Park". Part singer/songwriter, part storyteller, part social-commentator and activist... David has become famous for his simple catch phrase, "It's just us" and his ability to turn a large crowd of strangers into a group of friends. The story follows this fiercely independent street musician who has been a fixture in New York's Central Park for the past 22 years. As the show opens he writes a funny but politically charged song, poking Conservative talk-show host Sean Kilroy of FAX News. What happens when the song goes viral on YouTube? What happens when the song angers a man who is a powerful voice in the right-wing media and considers himself the voice of America? What happens when Kilroy sends a beautiful and ambitious young woman on a special assignment to destroy the "Guitar Man"? It sets up a "David and Goliath" scenario... and a ride that's unpredictable, fascinating, thought-provoking and fun, with the audience singing half the score and playing the part of the "people on the hill" in Central Park.

Musicals"

Theater.Musicals

Grown up siblings in Streatham, London resist their lonely future by idolizing Frank Sinatra in this 1991 play by Bernard Kops, one of Europe's best-known and most admired playwrights.Norman can't leave their family nest; his sister, Sandra, knows she must. Her new friend, Philip, is drawn into their trap to escape his painful past. This American premiere will be performed by Austin Pendleton, Katharine Cullison and Richard McElvain. Kelly Morgan directs. Playwright Bernard Kops was born in the East End of London of Dutch-Jewish working class parents in 1926. This neighborhood, in the 1950s, was rich in nascent playwrights including Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker and Kops. Of the three, only Kops is still writing. Now 86, he has recently completed two new plays. His body of work also includes nine novels, six books of poetry, numerous radio plays and an autobiography.REVIEWS--NEW YORK"a perfectly acted production....As Sandra, Katharine Cullison conveys a potent sense of foreboding. Like the lonely Laura of 'The Glass Menagerie' and Maureen, the spinster of 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane,' Sandra is alternately endearing and frustrating. She's a complex character, given a stellar rendering here. Richard McElvain, as Norman, is more frenzied and no less intriguing as he rants, if only to hear himself speak. Austin Pendleton, as Phillip, is a sprightly and suspect presence who supplies the welcome levity." --New York Times, Ken Jaworowski"This is one hell of a play and deserves a longer run. Go see it."--Alan Miller, A Seat on the Aisle."Master craftsman Bernard Kops has fashioned a challenging play about ties that bind, creating a captivating trio of damaged characters who are full of depth but also full of terrible contradictions."--Marti Sichel, Woman Around Town."[Sandra is played] with childlike naivete by the terrific Katharine Cullison" [and Norman is played by] "the excellent Richard McElvain, simultaneously displaying affection and thinly-veiled rage....It’s both charming and pathetic to see the [con] man,...played with false-modesty and con-man swagger by Austin Pendleton, lure Sandra with tales of spiritual encounters and personal adventures."--Eleanor J. Bader, Theatre is Easy."This superbly acted production will keep you on the edge of your self-awareness for its ride through the dark reaches of your own psyche. It is simply great..."--Carole DiTosti (BlogCritics)REVIEWS--LONDON"Fills its space to the bursting-point and expands outwards with whirling centrifugal force, scattering ideas from its tight central core....[The evening] kept the first night audience so rapt that this critic found himself unable to turn a page in a notebook." -- London Times (Harry Eyres) "This intense, challenging and thoroughly accessible domestic tragicomedy...will surely prove to be one of the most important plays of the year...because of the psychological depth and complexity that Kops achieves in his economical but oh-so-potent three hander." -- Time Out London (Michael Wright)

Play"

Theater.Play

FINDING MY WAY BACK HOMEWritten & Directed by MICHAEL VAZQUEZFinding My Way Back Home is a play about a group of people that, from a hard and homeless journey, find a hopeful new path.Although the play is based on real people and serious, true events, it is full of humor and characters that show love and togetherness, in spite of their tragedies.

Drama"

Theater.Drama

ALESSANDRA BELLONIdirector of the Italian Folk Music, Dance & Theatre company I GIULLARI DI PIAZZAArtist in Residence at the cathedral of St John the Divine, REMO artistRHYTHM IS THE CUREA ONE WOMAN SHOWThis fiery “percussive journey” through the South of Italy will explore through songs, dance and rhythm, magic rituals, tarantellas used as music therapy and exorcism, healing chants in honor of the Black Madonna, lullabies, love ballads, work chants and protest song. Original songs compose by Alessandra dedicated to the Black Madonna, and Goddess of Love and Waters Yemanja, Brazilian Rhythms and chants inspired by her travels to Brazil , Hawaii, Italy and France.The performance ends with the authentic Pizzzica Tarantata, the healing trance dance from Puglia used as an exorcism to cure the mythical bite of the tarantula, a mental disorder that afflicted mainly women, and which goes back to the ancient Greek rites of Dyonisus. Featuring Alessandra Belloni : voice , Southern Italian tambourines, frame drums, ocean drum, Bodhran, shakers, berimbao, harmonium.

World Music"

Music.World Music

Take off those Spanx and get ready to let loose for FAT ASSES: THE MUSICAL. Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Director is thrilled to present the world premiere of the all-new musical/comedy March 21st-31st. From the writers of the FringeNYC favorite Parker & Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow, Peter Zachari and Damon Maida reunite to present this hilarious and thought provoking musical described as “The First Wives Club meets 9 to 5.”
 
FAT ASSES: THE MUSICAL follows the crusade of three larger-than-life ladies who find themselves ostracized from their friends, families and even their weight-loss support group.  Fed up of feeling invisible, Margaux, Candy and Lacey join forces with the militant newcomer Dustine and decide to storm the offices of the fashion magazine, Gaunt. When the girls are thrust into an immediate spotlight of social media adoration, they are forced to confront their deepest and sometimes deadliest secrets. Songs include, “Fed Up!” “Showstopper,” “Loving You Is a Dying Art,” “A Taste of Fashion,” and “We’re All the Rage” and more.
 
Featuring rollicking performances by Heather Anderson (The Wild Party; Secret Theater), Jane Aquilina (Bawdy n’ Soul; The Metropolitan Room, NYC), Elise Castle (Parker & Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow; FringeNYC), Kelly Teal Goyette (Shrek; National Tour), Caitlin McGinty (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Theatre by the Sea), Joey Mirabile (Parker & Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow; FringeNYC) and Itanza Wooden (You Can Tell the Devil That I’m Back; Rose Baby Enterprises). Peter Zachari will direct the production with musical direction by Douglas Maxwell and choreography by Joey Mirabile.
 
For more information, visit www.fatassesthemusical.com

About the Company: Theater For The New City

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York’s most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC’s Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Ma-Yi Theater Company, which won an OBIE Award for its 1996 TNC production, FLIPZOIDS. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company’s 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

Theater for the New City (Crystal Field, Executive Director) will present Lesser America’s World Premiere of Nick Jones’ (Jollyship the Whiz-bang with Ars Nova/The Public;The Coward with Lincoln Center) Trevor, February 28-March 17 at Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue between 9th and 10th Street). The production will be directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God with EST; My Base and Scurvy Heart with Studio 42) and will feature Steven Boyer* (Hand to God; Jollyship the Whiz-Bang), Geneva Carr* (Hand to God; Boise), Nathaniel Kent (The Three Seagulls at HERE; Doctor Faustus at The Brick), Andy Nogasky*, Shawn Randall* (Big Tex at EST; Blue Man Group), Amy Staats* (One Thing I Like To Say Is with Clubbed Thumb) and Colleen Werthmann* (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; The Mistakes Madeline Made). The creative team will include Set Design by Andrew Boyce, Props Design by Sarah Dowling, Costume Design by Elizabeth Groth, Lighting Design by Mike Inwood, and Fight Direction by Robert Westley. *Actor appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association.

Trevor is a chimpanzee who once performed with the likes of Morgan Fairchild. Now, he's approaching puberty and can't even get a callback. Is it because he's big and strong and potentially dangerous? Or does he just need better costumes? Trevor lives alone with Sandra, a middle aged widow. Sandra knows Trevor would never hurt anyone, at least not on purpose. And just because he's not "cute" like he used to be, she won't send him to some dirty sanctuary, at least not to appease her paranoid neighbor Ashley and her precious newborn baby. 

About the Company: Lesser America

LESSER AMERICA is a pop theater ensemble of renegade artists dedicated to smart, quality entertainment that puts the audience first, fulfilling the promise of affordable, accessible theater for the 21st century. The company’s past productions include Squealer by Jonathan Blitstein, directed by Daniel Talbott,Too Much Too Soon, a series of six short plays, featuring writing by Nikole Beckwith, Dean Imperial, Nick Jones, Melissa Ross, Emily Schwend, and Ken Urban. The series was directed by Portia Krieger alongside Stephen Brackett. In the summer of 2012, Lesser America also presented American River, a world premiere by Micheline Auger, directed by Stephen Brackett. The company is currently in residence at Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Director. The Lesser Americans were also named nytheatre.com’s 2011 People of the Year. 

How many ways are there to tell the time?

Come share our experiences in nature and in the routine workday world of New York City. Transcend your spatial and temporal coordinates as we explore our relationship to time, and to each other, through circus and physical movement. The working version of this show was originally introduced in July 2012 for one night at Circus Warehouse, and now we are very excited to premiere the full-length show for four nights at Theater for the New City.

TIME CO/LAPSE is conceived and directed by Scott Combs, who has been working for a year now on completing this project. The early music of Brian Eno is the catalyst for this
talented cast's exploration of speed and rhythm.

Peformed by Megan Cattau, Scott Combs, Ari Klein, Wendy Louie, Jan Manke, Danielle Natoli, Maia Ramnath, and Satomi Shikata.

4 shows:
Thursday, January 10th 8:00
Friday, January 11th 8:00
Saturday, January 12th 8:00
Sunday, January 13th 3:00pm

Venue:
Theater for the New City
155 1st Avenue (between 9th and 10th Streets)

Arts.Dance

 

The Theater for the New City with the support of Spain Culture New York-Consulate General of Spain presents The New Stage Theatre Company's Garden of Delights, written by Fernando Arrabal and directed by Ildiko Nemeth (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), with original music by Jon Gilbert Leavitt (Outmusic Award winner).

 

A beautiful and troubled actress, Lais, is tortured by guilt and isolated in her palatial home. As she fields prying calls from a live celebrity talk show, her memories and emotions manifest before her. In Fernando Arrabal's Garden of Delights, the lines between reality, imagination and remembering blur. Lais is forced to confront the ghosts of her past, and the injuries she has sustained and inflicted.

 

The cast includes Kaylin Lee Clinton (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), Belle Caplis (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), Brandon Olson, Chris Tanner, Geraldine Dulex, Denice Kondik (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), Francisca Magalhães, Valerie Miller, Florencia Minniti, Devin Nelson, Emma Pettersson, Alexandra Pike, Juliana Silva and Jeanne Lauren Smith.

About the Company: Theater For The New City

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York’s most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC’s Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Ma-Yi Theater Company, which won an OBIE Award for its 1996 TNC production, FLIPZOIDS. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company’s 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

Theater For The New City will present the World Premiere of John Jiler’s RIPE beginning October 11. Workshopped at both Playwrights Horizons and the Actor’s Studio, “Ripe” displays award-winning actor/writer Jiler at the height of his powers, as he plays a dozen unforgettable New York characters swirling around his dying, Runyonesque father.“Jiler’s work brims with a wit and vitality that separates living theatre from all entertainment that comes in a can..” --New York Times

Play"

Theater.Play

Drama"

Theater.Drama

  New York City. A place where most of us grow up.  A place that defines our lives and its most pivotal moments. DeFLYance uses circus to portray these formative experiences with dexterity and humor.  Three people squeeze onto a tiny airborne triangle (representing their first New York City apartment), geriatric walkers are used for more than assisting the elderly, and both the tragic and triumphant sides of a romantic break-up are felt 20 feet in the air in a top story apartment surrounded by people.  Special guests include Kristin Young and Sara Joel, both formerly of Cirque du Soleil. Sara will be performing at 8 months pregnant! The show also features  award-winning juggler and NYU Tisch Professor, Hovey Burgess, who wrote the book Circus Techniques.   

The latest play by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas is a wry comedy about feeling out of place.The New Yorker says Fulcrum's production of Bird in the Hand is a "[A] delightful piece. The dialogue is fresh and the performances first-rate". Backstage calls the play "a smart, distinctive show" that "bubble[s] with wit and unforced emotions while still infused with imaginative theatricality."

Drama"

Theater.Drama

Sketch Comedy"

Comedy.Sketch Comedy

New Genre

Play"

Theater.Play

Comedy"

Theater.Comedy

Farce"

Theater.Farce

Dance Theater"

Dance.Dance Theater

Play"

Theater.Play

Play"

Theater.Play

Play"

Theater.Play

Multi Media"

Theater.Multi Media

Fat Man can't live without his beef sandwiches. Unfortunately it’s those very same sandwiches that have fattened him up to the brink of combustion. His world gets turned upside down as a team of doctors, trainers, nutritionists, and one adorable Tiny Man struggle to save this fat, fat, fatty from an explosive demise – resulting in a spectacle of dancing cows, an array of high intensity cardio routines, and one huge appetite on gluttonous display.

About the Company: Theater For The New City

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York’s most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC’s Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Ma-Yi Theater Company, which won an OBIE Award for its 1996 TNC production, FLIPZOIDS. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company’s 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

Play"

Theater.Play

Performance Art"

Acts/Attractions.Performance Art

The comic reality of Rebecca--a delusional mother, Bonnie--her ex-stripper daughter and Bob, a poet and wanna-be guru boyfriend, living together in Plainview, Long Island; Winter, 1985. An elegy to people in small spaces and neighborhoods, in and around the hometown areas.

Comedy"

Theater.Comedy

For 35 years, Pulitzer Prize winning THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY has nurtured hundreds of playwrights through its EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM. In June, 2006, we launched NEW CITY , NEW BLOOD, a play reading series designed to serve our audiences and writers even better. Curated by Michael Scott-Price, TNC Literary Manager, NEW CITY , NEW BLOOD will provide a hearing for worthy plays in earlier stages of Development. Audiences will get the opportunity to provide feedback, and artists will gain valuable insight from audience response. Be sure to check www.theaterforthenewcity.net for details about upcoming readings. Please join us!

Reading"

Theater.Reading

These are people in flight from the urban NYC maze who find their place in multi-dimensional time wherever they are traveling, even on the outskirts of Phoenix, Az.For more info on performances, please visit: http://magickmirror.com/new_page_4.htm

Mystery/Thriller"

Theater.Mystery/Thriller

Crystal Field and Theater for the New City (TNC) will present a varied schedule "Scratch Night” performance program, which offers the opportunity for artists to present work in progress to an audience for one night. Scratch Night started in the United Kingdom in 2000 as a way to show work in progress in an evolution of performances. At TNC, we will put our own spin on the idea to best serve our own theatre community and New York area audiences. Scratch Night is looking for a variety of the most daring artists to try out their most cool thoughts on stage and the audience will help in the development by way of TNC’s scratch ballot. Scratch Nights will take place throughout the year on a varied schedule. All theatrical forms are welcome. All stages of development are welcome.

Reading"

Theater.Reading

Danish dramatist Jokum Rohde's play "Pinocchio's Ashes" is a modern Gothic thriller; an alarming detective story from an emotional and dark area, filled with humor. In a universe of corruption, innocence and perversity, Rohde generates a universally relevant story, which is brutally relevant to today and echoes past fascist-regimes. SATC will present the US premier of the play, in a collaboration between SATC and Jokum Rohde, directed by Henning Hegland.

Arts.Performance

For 35 years, Pulitzer Prize winning THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY has nurtured hundreds of playwrights through its EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM. In June, 2006, we launched NEW CITY, NEW BLOOD, a play reading series designed to serve our audiences and writers even better. Curated by Michael Scott-Price, TNC Literary Manager, NEW CITY, NEW BLOOD will provide a hearing for worthy plays in earlier stages of Development. Audiences will get the opportunity to provide feedback, and artists will gain valuable insight from audience response. Be sure to check www.theaterforthenewcity.net for details about upcoming readings. Please join us!

Reading"

Theater.Reading

Crystal Field and Theater for the New City (TNC) will present a varied schedule "Scratch Night” performance program, which offers the opportunity for artists to present work in progress to an audience for one night. Scratch Night started in the United Kingdom in 2000 as a way to show work in progress in an evolution of performances. At TNC, we will put our own spin on the idea to best serve our own theatre community and New York area audiences. Scratch Night is looking for a variety of the most daring artists to try out their most cool thoughts on stage and the audience will help in the development by way of TNC’s scratch ballot. Scratch Nights will take place throughout the year on a varied schedule. All theatrical forms are welcome. All stages of development are welcome.

Reading"

Theater.Reading

Following its sold-out run at last summer's Dream Up Festival, JUST SEX returns to Theater for the New City for a limited engagement!Katherine and William are in lust — with other people. But they are also married — to each other. Unwilling to cheat, they open their marriage, test their limits, and confront hilarious reminders that extramarital escapades can lead to much more than just sex. What begins as an online exercise in physical release becomes a real-life challenge to the couple’s notions of normalcy, love, and fidelity.What are the moral boundaries of cybersex? What's the difference between pixels and flesh? Find out in this daring, honest new comedy.- Cast: Brandt Johnson, Alex Kilgore, Tasha Lawrence, Meghan Miller

Play"

Theater.Play

Young and Old consists of four one act comedies. The first, called “The Club,” focuses on today’s youth and their difficulty with the world their parents created.The second, “Even the Devil Has to Go on Vacation,” is about the problems produced by extraordinary luck. It has electronic music by David Weinstein, one of the founding directors of Roulette (an experimental music organization newly settled in Brooklyn). It will be heard on Arts on Air, the Clocktower Station in May.“The Magic Wand” is a realistic fantasy about the rich and famous.The last “The Whole Megillah” pictures a perfect world (except for global warming). NY Times front page – March 14, 2012: “Sea Level Rise Seen as Threat To 3.7 Million.”

Farce"

Theater.Farce

Theater for the New City(Crystal Field, Executive Director) proudly presents Satan’s Whore, Victoria Woodhull,written by Richard Geha, March 22 – April 8, 2012. Lissa Moira directs this post-Civil War, period drama about the sexual liberationist Victoria Woodhull.  Don Garverickchoreographs, with set design by David "Zen" Mansley&lighting design by William Giraldo.

Satan’s Whore follows the life of Victoria Woodhull as she journeys from sexually abused child, to the most infamous, celebrated, intellectual beauty of 19^th Century New York City. Feminist suffragette & renowned spiritualist, Woodhull was the first female presidential candidate, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. She was also the first female newspaper publisher & Wall Street broker, but was best known as a fearless free-love advocate & practitioner. Woodhull was a woman so far ahead of her time, that time has yet to catch up.

Featured in this AEA Approved Showcase Production areEmily Bayard Blake*, Paulina Brahm, Robert Colpitts, Tim Douglas*, Nora Mundé Gustuson, Robert Homeyer, George Isaacs, David “Zen” Mansley,   Richard O'Brien, Jacob Merrik Storms& Kate Tenetko as Victoria Woodhull.

About the Company: Theater For The New City

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York’s most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC’s Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Ma-Yi Theater Company, which won an OBIE Award for its 1996 TNC production, FLIPZOIDS. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company’s 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 40 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

The 67-year performance project Lovesphere enters its 17th year with BUBBLES: A COMMUNOPHENOMENOLOGICAL MANIFESTO, a heavily improvised, yet structured performance directed by Cassandra Victoria Chopourian at Theater for the New City, 8 pm on March 23 and 24 and 4 pm on March 25th. Tickets are $10, for reservations call 212 254 1109.Heavily influenced by Peter Sloterdijk's Spheres Trilogy, especially Volume I: Bubbles, BUBBLES returns to the Lovesphere roots of improvised theater (Lovespheres 0-4, in the mid 90's, were improvised musicals.) Communophenomenology is an attempt to reverse the damage materialism did to the idea of communism, and the damage fascism did to phenomenology, by using the theater encounter to explore intersubjectivity. BUBBLES will straddle the line between dance, theater, musical improvisation, butoh and group meditation.

Other"

Theater.Other

Set on an isolated farm in eastern Kentucky, Heathens is an unsettling comedy that makes the term “family values” take on new meanings. When a wandering laborer follows a woman home for the night, he finds a lot more than he bargained for in the home she shares with her sister and her Mamaw. The play explores mourning, faith, and the dangers of isolation as the characters do battle with themselves and each other.

Play"

SCRATCH NIGHT AT TNC Crystal Field and Theater for the New City (TNC) will present a varied schedule "Scratch Night” performance program, which offers the opportunity for artists to present work in progress to an audience for one night. Scratch Night started in the United Kingdom in 2000 as a way to show work in progress in an evolution of performances. At TNC, we will put our own spin on the idea to best serve our own theatre community and New York area audiences. Scratch Night is looking for a variety of the most daring artists to try out their most cool thoughts on stage and the audience will help in the development by way of TNC’s scratch ballot. Scratch Nights will take place throughout the year on a varied schedule. All theatrical forms are welcome. All stages of development are welcome.

Reading"

Theater.Reading

The all-girl Japanese Dance and Drum Group has been in residence at Theater for the New City since 2010. This will be the first full-evening concert of this spectacular group. Their movement, dance and drum are international and supersede language. You will be thrilled!

You are cordially invited to attend one of the performances of COBU – Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing, at Theater for the New City (TNC), from March 1st through March 4th, Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm.

COBU was founded in 2000 by YAKO MIYAMOTO, Veteran of the hit show STOMP, and has served as the inspiration to the Hollywood movie “COBU 3D,” which is currently being directed by Duane Adler, starring Derek Hough, BoA and Wesley Jonathan. COBU was the winner of the Wella International Trend New York Talent Award in 2011, and won the Audience Favorite Award at the 2011 New York Fringe Festival. They will be performing an excerpt from their TNC concert as part of TNC’s Annual Gala, LOVE N’ COURAGE, at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramcery Park South, on Monday, February 13th, 2012.
This all-girl “TAIKO” drum group mixes traditional with funk and hip-hop for performances like you’ve never seen before. Come feel their girl power and heart beat!!!

Modern"

Emily is Love Sick. Her husband has left her for a younger woman. She's killed one man who's crossed her. And worse, she's started smoking again. Family and friends offer no help. And group therapy ends up disappointing her. Can a mysterious Man be the answer to rekindling her lost passion? Or will her husband finally realize the love he's thrown away? And how many men have to die before she finds the answer?

 

Featuring: Cara Akselrad, Maggie Burke, Elizabeth
Canavan, J. Eric Cook, Charles Goforth, Michael Puzzo and Justin Reinsilber

Set design: Raul Abrego

Costume design: Meghan E. Healey

Lighting design: Burke Brown

Composer: Andre Fratto

*there will be limited rush tickets available at all performances*

Play"

 “Does an underground mafia of Viet Nam vets really exist hoboing around on the rails and is it as large and powerful as it is portrayed by journalists - or is it a media creation drawing the heat for every murder on the rail from Arizona to California? And has the leader of this group become a changed man - and dedicated to his ninetee year old pregnant girlfriend? Or is he an unrepentant racist criminal bent on plotting to murder a rival over a deal that went sour. When he visits a black man -  is it to buy a dog or to kill him?   These are the things that come up in John Steppling’s dark and controversial play ‘Dogmouth’. The fact that he also deftly manages to place ruminations on death and dying, the brutality of existence and the survival of the fittest on the streets of Phoenix, not to mention  the breeding of dogs - in the middle of it -  is what makes this play dark and riveting, and as John Steppling often proclaims "Art is not your friend'....”  

Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director, proudly announces the world premiere of The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams, a historical drama written and directed by Barbara Kahn. Featuring Michelle Cohen, Jon Dalin, Jimmy Heyworth, Micha Lazare, Martha Lee, Marisa Petsakos, Anna Podolak and  Steph Van Vlack. Set design by Mark Marcante. Lighting design by Alexander Bartenieff. Costume design by Deanna R Frieman. April 15 - May 2, 2010. Thurs - Sat at 8 P.M., Sun at 3 P.M.  Tickets are $12. 212-254-1109. 155 1st Ave@ 10th St. Subway: L to 1st Ave, 6 to Astor Place. www.theaterforthenewcity.net

The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams recounts the true story of an extraordinary woman who was a victim of homophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria that ultimately led to her death. In 1926 Eve Adams, a Jewish lesbian from Poland, was proprietor of “Eve’s Hangout”, a tearoom at 129 Macdougal Street, where local poets, musicians and actors congregated and shared their work in salon evenings. Eve’s haven of artistic and sexual freedom was soon threatened by religious and governmental authorities, leading to her arrest, imprisonment and deportation. The conflict between progressive and reactionary forces provides the drama in the play as the characters attempt to live and love free from discrimination. The play conveys not only a long forgotten moment in New York history but sheds light on current threats by holding a mirror to the past.

Barbara Kahn’s plays have been produced in the U.S. and Europe. She has directed in New York, Paris, and at the National Theatre in London. Theater for the New City has been the primary home for Barbara’s plays since 1994. She received the 1995 TORCH OF HOPE AWARD for lifetime achievement in non-profit theatre, previously awarded to Terrence McNally, John Guare, August Wilson, Horton Foote and A.R. Gurney. With Jackie Freeman, she co-authored the lyrics to “Actions are the Music of the Free,” music by Jennifer Giering, inspired by Bella Abzug and performed at the United Nations Tribute to Dame Nita Barrow. A “short list of prominent post-1970’s playwrights who identify as Jewish and who have written about Jews includes Jon Robin Baitz, Richard Greenburg, Alan Havis, Barbara Kahn, Tony Kushner, Barbara Lebow, Jennifer Maisel, Karen Malpede, David Mamet, Emily Mann, Donald Margulies, Elizabeth Swados, Jeffrey Sweet, Alfred Uhry, and Wendy Wasserstein.” (You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture. Vincent Brook. Rutgers Univ. Press.)

“And Ya Don’t Stop” a hip hop play finds a trio at the crossroads when they discover that a record label only wants one of them – Supreme, the emcee. Unknown to him the label plans to pervert his image. Embittered, under contract and estranged from his crew, Supreme unwillingly goes on a journey guided by the messenger and the four elements of hip hop to help him regain his self and return to his hip hop roots.

New York based Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre (www.czechmarionettes.org) in collaboration with AGENTURA DELL’ARTE (from Prague) probes revolution with stilts and strings in "Revolution!?," a theater spectacle that examines revolutions throughout the history of mankind as a backdrop for the extraordinary peaceful 1989 Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia.  "Revolution!?," the brainchild of Pavel Dobruský and Vit Horejš, has been brewing over the last 18 months, including script development and a rehearsal period in Brno, Czech Republic last August. The work has been rehearsed and further developed in the Czech Republic during a final one-month residency, for which the U.S. team traveled to Prague from January 26 to February 26, 2010.

The piece is performed in the tradition of Central European medieval street and traveling circus shows, using commedia dell' Arte, puppetry, object theater and circus arts. Czech and Czech-American theater artists have collaborated to offer an overview of the very notion of revolution based on their particular perspectives on the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Dobruský and Horejš began with script scenarios on the subjects of the Titanomachy (when the Olympian gods overthrew the Titans), the Agrarian Revolution (when organized agriculture started and animals were domesticated), the Spartacus Rebellion, the 15th century Hussite movement of peasants in Czech lands, the American, French, Industrial and Russian Revolutions; the Counterculture, the Computer Revolution and the Czech Velvet Revolution. The performance was developed primarily through improvisation in a month of workshops in Prague this February. The result is a collection of "acts," one for each topic, that range in style from dance theater to pure commedia to rhythm dances to narrated scenes and dialogue scenes, all containing a great deal of acrobatics. Much of the evening is performed on stilts. The puppets are primarily marionettes made from wood blocks whose "clop clop clop" against the stage floor allows them to double as rhythm instruments.

"Revolution!?" is written and directed by Pavel Dobruský and Vít Horejš. Set, costumes and lighting are by Dobruský. The performers are Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre members Theresa Linnihan, Ronny Wasserstrom and Vít Horejš, together with three guests from the Czech Republic: stilt walkers/performers Adela Jiracková and Sergej Sanza, and acrobatic dancer Hana Kalousková.

Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre made an auspicious Theater for the New City debut last season with "The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spyes, and about Their Untymelie End while Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining New York." The company is excited to return to Crystal Field's theater, a venue which embraces new work and enables socially-engaged performances like "Revolution!?" to reach receptive audiences at affordable prices.

A yuppie woman from Massachusetts, accompanied by her adoring but crude boyfriend, moves to Brooklyn and gets a job at HBO. The woman is humiliated in a leading edge Yoga class that is taught by her close girlfriend. The Yoga Teacher, filled with the power of her own kundalini, seduces the boyfriend. The Yuppie Girl gets even by usurping the Yogi girl in the divine graces of an elderly, powerful Hundu saint. Successful betrayal and revenge, it seems, comes from learning to manage the tension between effort and release, as any Yogi can tell you.

The play is primarily the story of the the young NYC professional, Beth, as she sacrifices her television career and relationship to follow an elderly female Yoga guru. The fallout leaves Beth’s boyfriend, Charlie, and her best friend, Jennie (the yoga teacher), struggling to reconcile Beth’s choice with their own lives. "Lotus Feet" asks whether the freedom and mysticism of the East has a place within the goal oriented pragmatism of the West. It also depicts the consequences of spirituality in the modern world.

Playwright Michael Domitrovich has a keen eye for the discontents of New York's trendy thirtysomethings. In 2007, TNC presented his "breakthrough" play, "Artfuckers," directed by Eduardo Machado, which shone a revealing light at the habitués of New York's gentrified Art community as they struggle to balance their new-fangled elitism with old-fashioned if trendier bohemianism. The play subsequently had an off-Broadway run at the DR2 Theatre in Union Square in the winter of 2008. According to Domitrovich, "Theater for the New City allows its artists to do the dangerous and daring, which is very freeing as a playwright."

Domitrovich's one act, "On Island," premiered at "Summer Shorts 2" at 59E59 in August 2008, before traveling to Martha’s Vineyard. His short play "Real World Experience" was part of the first "Summer Shorts" at 59E59 in August 2007. His plays "Dirtfag," "Caregivers," "Goatgod" and "Godbrothers" have been presented in BlueBox Productions’ "Sticky" at Galapagos in Williamsburg and at the Bowery Poetry Club and La MaMa. His play "Women with a Purpose" was performed at Dixon Place. "In Other News..." was read as part of the Ensemble Studio Theater Octoberfest. Domitrovich is co-author of Eduardo Machado’s food memoir, "Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile’s Hunger for Home," which was published in October 2007 by Gotham Press. "Dirtfag" was published in the 2009 New York Theatre Review. Domitrovich has been a guest columnist for "Paper" Magazine. He received a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

The actors of "Lotus Feet" are Christina Pumariega ("Catch 22" at the Lortel, "All Eyes and Ears" at Theatre Row) as Beth, Quinlan Corbett (The Intiman production of "Little Dog Laughed") as Charlie, and Lori McNally ("Reservoir Garfunkel" at EST) as Jennie, with Mary Dana Abbott, Cheri Paige, April Martucci, and Haley Roth as the ensemble of Yogis.

The creative team for Lotus Feet includes Stefanie Sertich (choreography), Nathaniel Deverich and Hunter Hebert (scenic design), Maruti Evans (lighting design), and Brian McCorkle (sound design).

 

 Belle of the Ball Bearings is putting a new spin on musicals! The fastest way across town is by bicycle. Peddle over to the neighborhood bike shop that takes pride in fixing those bikes. Each brake pad, each sprocket, has it's own story!

Belle Of The Ball Bearings is a one-woman musical with book by Elizabeth Battersby, lyrics by Caroline Murphy, and music by Youn Young Park. They set the musical in 1995, when computers were just coming in and New York was a little more interesting. It's inspired by Ms. Battersby's life experience as a bike shop owner, a bike racer, bike messenger, spinning instructor, and soulmate to everyone who lives life on two wheels. For every bike you fix – there is another one that's broken. It all comes down to having the right tools, and knowing how to use them.

This show is a collection of family members in this 75 year old bike shop, all played by Battersby. Like a western saloon, a roadhouse diner or a bar at a train station, a bike shop can be a place for unique and memorable personalities. The show includes messengers, moms, bike mechanics, a rabbi and a rich variety of other neighborhood types.

Now you can ride your bike to the theater and not worry about locking it outside. In fact, you can keep your eye on it during the show. It'll be parked onstage and made part of the set.

Dramatizing the healing process from child abuse is a daring task that Mexican-American playwright Mario Golden undertakes in his new tragedy, "The Love of Brothers." Theater for the New City will present the play's world premiere run March 5 to 29, directed by Andreas Robertz. The work ventures into dangerous and uncharted waters, depicting two gay siblings who reproduce scenarios of their childhood traumas in order to heal each other psychically. This leads them to incestuous acts. The play is shocking, but it is also an object lesson in love and sacrifice that we would all do well to heed.

The tragedy is the story of Rogelio and Sergio, siblings who live together in San Francisco. They were born in Mexico City to old money and brought to the U.S. in their childhood by their now-deceased parents. Sergio, the younger brother and a budding novelist, was abused as a child. Rogelio, his older brother and a successful painter living with AIDS, was unable to intervene and stop the crime. Weakened by fulminating cryptococcal meningitis, he seeks to atone for this before he dies.

As the play opens, Rogelio informs Sergio that he's decided to both stop painting and discontinue the use of the medication that's preserving his life. Terrified by the implications of this, Sergio tries to dissuade him, and when he fails, resorts to seducing him. The brothers slowly and unwittingly shut out the outside world, sepulchering themselves in their apartment. Their new arrangement delivers initial comfort, but soon the doors of their past fly open. The brothers' childhood traumas are revealed to be driving both of them to risky self-sacrifice.
 

For the 37th year, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater will return to Theater for the New City December 4 to 21, 2008 with two new works, one for adults and one for children. For the grownups, it'll be "The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle and Circus," a play which was developed out of the company's 2008 summer work. For kids of all ages, there will be matinee (3:00 pm) shows of "The Sourdough Philosophy Circus" on Saturdays and Sundays.

"The Sourdough Philosophy Spectacle and Circus" is about the need for human fermentation. It takes a lesson from how apple cider is made. Our republic teases us with the possibility of democracy, but citizens are raised like military apple orchards, pruned down to their predictable minimums, yielding controlled fruits that lack the ecstasy of nature. However, human fermentation occurs in parts of the human body that are not governed by the government, like the guts and the gutsy parts of the brain. Fermented citizens are corrupted by the ecstasy of nature and from that corruption, derive strength to corrupt military-orchard citizens. The show is run by a bunch of cooks, specialists in cooking the various stews and pancakes of our everyday first world existence.

Both shows will be performed by the Bread & Puppet Company and a large number of local volunteers, who will also be part of The Brass Band. The theater will be decorated with the unique Bread and Puppet collection of powerful black-line posters, banners, masks, curtains, programs and set-props. Once again, all pieces will be created by Schumann with input from the company. Both plays will be accompanied by a brass band, singing and miscellaneous gongs and horns. Schumann will sculpt and paint all of the major masks and puppets.

In conjunction with these two productions, Theater for the New City is presenting a free panel discussion entitled "Puppetry With A Social Conscience" on Thursday, December 11 at 9:30 pm (after both puppet shows come down).

The theme will be how our world is reflected in the eyes of the Puppet. The panelists (now in formation) will include Peter Schumann, head of Bread and Puppet Theater; Vit Horejs, head of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater; Jane Catherine Shaw, co-artistic director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival; John Bell, theater journalist and puppet theater artist; and Eileen Blumenthal, author of "Puppetry: A World History," the latest authoritative book on puppet theater.

The panel will be moderated by Crystal Field, Executive Director of Theater for the New City.

The Audience will be invited to participate with questions for the panel. Admission is free.

Please consider attending what I hope will be an exciting and informative evening.

The characters are rap musicians. The prototype is "Waiting For Godot." The author is from South India. The cast kicks ass. 25 to Life Productions, LLC will present "For Flow," a hip-hop Vladimir-and-Estragon play, at Theater for the New City from November 6 to 23. This new play by Kesav M. Wable borrows Beckett's existential landscape and transplants two "Beckettian" clownsrappers to be exact--to a lonely street corner in the Bronx where they wait for a record producer. They're later joined by a woman DJ and a Delta Blues guitarist who also meet at this crossroads in search of their own destinies. The characters share a soulful journey colored by live DJ sets, rap battles and blues guitar as they explore the philosophical genesis of rapping as an art form and hip-hop as a cultural movement. Jonathan Solari directs.

Each character in "For Flow" is a musician and during the course of the play, when egos clash and stories are told, freestyle battles, live DJ sets, and blues riffs color the soulful journey that these characters share. The play adopts a structure and themes that are parallel to "Waiting for Godot," but not its characters. "Their relationships are not actually Beckettian," says author Kesav M. Wable. "They're not as eccentric, but they are quire literary."

The story of the Dawn of Man undergoes some comical revisions in "Adam of the Apes" when human twins are born into a community of chimpanzees. This farcical satire--which isn't for the kiddies--takes on topical debates such as Creationism, Evolution, and Women's Lib while the twins, Adam & Eve, grow up in a chimp society and actually introduce thinking into the previously "thought-less" rainforest.

Originally written at The Crucible for American Theater Workshop and making its Off-Off-Broadway debut at The Theater for the New City, "Adam of the Apes" is sure to leave audiences laughing in spite of themselves, with much to discuss and debate after the show.

The Ghosts of 14th Street is set in New York City in 1908, when 14th St. was the entertainment capital of the city. In the Biograph Film Studio, the actors film scenes of a primitive one-reeler, while between takes they reveal their dreams, fall in love and rehearse routines they hope will take them to live theatre. A husband and wife acting team are forced by scandal to work in the "flickers," an immigrant housekeeper leaves her gangster husband from an arranged marriage, a dancer finds love at the gay hangout, his sister laments her unrequited love for the housekeeper, an African-American dancer refuses to perform in blackface, and two stagehands are determined to win the New York Times Limerick Contest. In the Olympic Theatre, the play replicates a typical evening of Vaudeville, including dance, comedy skits, female mimickry (cross dressing), and the song "Yiddishe Yankee Doodle Boy" (lyrics by Barbara Kahn, music by Allison Tartalia), as well as the finished film.

IN THE SCHOOLYARD tells the story of Larry, Jerry, Dave, Eddie and Manny, who all grew up in Brooklyn. They played stoopball and stickball on the streets and basketball in the schoolyard of P.S. 8. They all worked in or stole from the grocery store owned by Manny's mother, Mrs. Rivera. Years ago they married, started their careers and moved away. But they still come back to Brooklyn on the last Saturday of September to play basketball, have a few drinks at O'Leary's bar and talk about old times and new. But this time things are a little different. Larry is going through a major crisis that's causing him to reevaluate the some of the decisions he's made in his life. And Dave is in trouble once again. As the guys look back to the past, they figure out how they are going to face the future.

War in the Middle East! Right-wing Christians! Arab terrorists! Global warming and Britney Spears' vagina! All signs of the impending Apocalypse? We think so. Our solution? Let's put on a show! Back after rave reviews, sold-out houses and 25 years,"VOIDEVILLE: The Last Show on Earth"returns for three weeks only! First presented to critical acclaim and packed audiences in 1979, VOIDEVILLE is more innapropriate and sicker than ever. Consisting of every kind of entertainment, from a spastic Lion Tamer to Dildo The Clown, it features elaborate and hilarious production numbers that underline the theme of a post-apocalyptic world in which this is the last vestige of entertainment. For information and tickets, please go to http://www.voideville.com

What happens when, in the wake of a corporate scandal, you're fired from company you've worked with for 25 years, leaving you with no pension, and few prospects – and all the while, those who let you go are still getting rich? A hard-hitting, sexually charged drama about the failure of corporate America and the corruption of basic values in our society.

In the bubblegum ‘70s, Jesus is on a collision course with depression. His only hope: Mandy, the self-proclaimed "sickest little girl in the world", a recently deceased pre-teen determined to circumvent her fate and stay on Earth as a Funky Girl-Ghost by proving that quick thinking, ingenuity, and kickin' dance moves will be enough to keep the Messiah from skulking off into oblivion.

A black comedy that proves that the afterlife can be a super-cool place - think Christopher Durang meets Saturday morning cartoon!

THE 11th ANNUAL LOWER EAST SIDE (LES) FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS will bring together under one roof in just three days over 100 performing arts organizations, local and international celebrities, independent artists, poets, puppeteers, film makers and many others -- all of whom reside, work or have their roots in the culturally diverse, willfully anarchistic Lower East Side

The complete lineup and schedule will be posted online at www.theaterforthenewcity.net on or after May 18.

Long Time Passing is a fable set in the ruins of Central Park during an endless war. There are no "sides" in the play and no politics, only the story of war's devastation on all living things, both human and animal. And in keeping with the human (and animal) spirit, the play contains endless hope in this endless war.

Music by Alicia Svigals
Puppet design by Harry Rainbow

Hollywood's Ivar Theater was an infamous dive— and by 1978, the last standing Burlesk House in the United States. Lewd and notorious in its day, the Ivar inspired lyrics in the songs of Tom Waites, and photographer Garry Winogrand's images of the Ivar strippers have been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Playwright Ross MacLean was the Ivar's stage manager and spotlight operator for two years.

"Follies of Grandeur" resurrects the Ivar theater, the strippers who performed there and the men who loved them, as it follows the career path of a young drifter who finds a home on the Ivar stage.

February 2 – 19 Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., Sunday at 3:00

Reservations Advised: 212 254 1109 or buy direct at TheaterMania.com

A biographical play on the banned Roman poet, Ovid.

The story of Ancient Rome's greatest writer, who run afoul of the emperor Augustus, who forced him into exile without his family, books or any of his wealth, to die years later in a little fishing village near the Black Sea

Theater for the New City will present Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater from December 8 to 23 in a passion play for adults and a circus for children.

For the grownups, it'll be "National Circus and Passion of the Correct Moment" December 8-23.

For kids of all ages, it'll be matinee shows of "Cardboard Celebration Circus" December 10-11 and 17-18. The theater will be decorated with the unique Bread and Puppet collection of powerful black-line posters, banners, masks, curtains, programs and set-props.

"National Circus and Passion of the Correct Moment" is a two-part evening, beginning with a circus. It's a prologue, with half a dozen little acts including The Rotten Idea Theater Company (populated with "Kaspers" -- fresh, insurrectionist, Punch-type characters), a "Russian Computer Dance," and a tongue-in-cheek playlet on what makes a protest. Schumann borrows the structure of the Passion Play for the second--and longer--part. The idea is to dramatize the mind of post-9/11 America, with its yearning for retaliation, as a puppet epic.

"Cardboard Celebration Circus," the kids' show, brings back many of Bread and Puppet's favorite kid-acts: Pinky the big elephant, The Rotten Idea Theater Company (with Kaspers); birds (black and white), a Tiger Act, a Stilt Act, and even some acts that are spectacular but not necessarily for kids.

BEYOND THE MIRROR is a journey through three decades of war and occupation in Afghanistan and a search for cultural identity. Woven through myths and memories, family histories and first-hand accounts, traditional dances and live music, story-telling and filmed montages, BEYOND THE MIRROR weaves an intricate tapestry of events, both desperate and hopeful.

directed by Mahmoud Shah Salimi and Joanna Sherman

Searching follows a single, Jewish woman in New York City on her journey to find the perfect match, but along the way she discovers much more than just her soul-mate, she discovers her own soul.

Brenda (played by Shelley Dague) is beautiful, intelligent with a successful career, but wonders why she is still alone. Her married friends set her up with various men within the Jewish community, however each one seems to carry a message of isolation. Although she wants to share her life with someone, she also wants to share her life with an accepting community of people.

Music & Lyrics: Avi Kunstler
Book & Additional Music/Lyrics: Matt Okin
Assistant Director: Eytan Bayme
Musical Director: Yitzy Glicksman

This play within a play spoofs the Agatha Christie type whodunit by contrasting reality and illusion with clever wit and humor. A performer's disability will be incorporated as part of the character, bringing an added dimension to this satirical murder mystery without affecting its plot and giving disabled performers the opportunity to express themselves in roles that are not "written as disabled".

A Chamber Opera in Two Acts
Freely based on Henrik Ibsen's play The Master Builder

In a plot packed with psychological and moral ambiguities, a famous aging architect is confronted by a mysterious young woman out of his past. Their encounter builds through a series of emotional twists and turns to a climax in which he is rejuvenated, but at the cost of his life. Over all the action hovers the question: has she come to save him, to destroy him, or both at the same time?

Based novel by Dai HouYing, about the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Even those who lived through China's Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) could not have anticipated what would come next. The Great Leap Forward was an extraordinary scheme conceived by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong to accelerate dramatically China's economic development. It led to an estimated 30 million deaths by starvation.

Using a handful of fictional characters based on her own experience, Ms. Dai (1938-1996) allowed a glimpse into the harrowing journey of the privileged class (the intellectuals) from youthful conviction and unquestioning commitment to Mao's vision of the utopia, through, in the author's own words, "the painful groaning of a twisted soul, and the sparkle of a living spirit in darkness," to a terrifying awakening to their own humanity."

The play views the Cultural Revolution through the eyes of three people in a love triangle: two men, Ho and Zhao, and a woman, Sun. Although they have the bonds of love and friendship and are united in the struggle for a new China, the Maoist system forces them into positions against each other in a sequence of horrible betrayals.

In West Texas--in a town called Godsburg--there live, according to August Schulenberg's "Riding the Bull," a couple of awkward young people, a pet cow and a one-horned bull named Suerte. A celibate rodeo clown named G.L. has succumbed to his sexual fantasies (in private, of course) and has gotten excommunicated from the Church (to his continual regret and pain). His irreverent girlfriend, Lyza, is a husky, plus-sized roundheel with a saucy outlook, an acute business sense, and a pet cow named Cyndi. Their worlds seem far apart, yet somehow they fall in love.

Liza's gawky charm and G.L.'s zany obeisance to religious symbols make these two people seem preciouosly mismatched. As they declaim together upon their world, there is a rare theatrical joy in their acute dialect and the overriding imagery of the cow culture, in which Lyza's similarity to Cyndi is not missed. G.L. and Lyza have never spoken until Lyza decides one day to desecrate the town's nativity scene. Once they are acquainted, she begins to exert an almost magical power over him. There unfold sessions of prophetic sex, bull riding scams, a search for the true Elvis, and cows that rise from the dead.

Lyza turns G.L. into a millionaire in Act Two and there is a dramatic changing of places: the zaftig one becomes thin, the sinner becomes devout, the self-less becomes selfish, the unbeliever believes--they exchange each other's relationship with God. G.L. is eventually gored by the one-horned bull, but Lyza becomes so emotionally close to her pet cow, Cyndi, that they become nearly one and the same. This ultimately drives G.L. to an act of desperation that is a striking denouement. The play ends up as a comic tragedy that affects us all.

A new play from the Emmy-nominated writer of Sex Feet Under

An intimate tour of American entertainment. Paying homage to the evolution of live performance in America, the troupe travel through the variety stages of the 1960s, to the Rat Pack-era lounges of the 1950s, to the razzle-dazzle circus spectacles of today. This new production features novelty songs, choreographed routines and musical comedy which has its roots in the "illegitimate theatre" of variety houses and burlesque.

BALLAD OF BAXTER STREET recreates the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in 1855, steeped in diversity and full of the same prejudices that exist in today's volatile climate -- the place where "slumming" was invented. Street vendors sold everything from sand (yes, sand!) to hot corn to hand-sewn shirts; an Irishman and free-born African-American woman crossed a social and racial divide to marry; an orphan who was tricked into marriage to a much older widowed policeman fell in love with her husband's daughter; and the real life French actress Rachel Felix helped the two women while on her New York tour. The play also portrays the incredibly rich theatrical life on Broadway (below 14th St.) including a magician, musicians and a melodrama.

The troupe's appearances benefit college funds for needy Native American students. The troupe's Pow-Wows have been presented annually as a two-week event by TNC since 1976, with the entire box-office donated to these funds. There will be dances, stories and traditional music from the Iroquois and Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast, the Southwest, the Plains, and the Arctic regions. Between 25 and 30 dancers will assemble for the event.

Highlights of this year's celebration will include a Hoop Dance performed by Raymond Two Feathers (Cherokee) and "Dancing Wolf" Michael Taylor (Choctaw/French). For the third time, the Pow Wow will include a dance from the Inuit people of Alaska, called The Caribou Dance. Highlights will also include a Butterfly Dance (a Hopi custom which gives thanks for the beauty of nature), a Grass Dance and Jingle Dress Dance (from the Northern Plains people) and a Shawl Dance (from the Oklahoma tribes). Featured performers will also include the Heyna Second Son Singers (various tribes) and Mitoka Eagle (Santo Domingo/Pueblo). There will be a new modern dance work put to modern American music (flute music and drumming) by Tom Pearson (Creek/Cherokee).