New York Premiere Production
Previews Begin July 30, 2019
Opening Night August 15, 2019
MAKE BELIEVE will begin previews at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater (305 West 43rd Street) on July 30, 2019, with an opening night set for August 15, 2019. MAKE BELIEVE is the final production of Second Stage’s 40th Anniversary Season.
When does real life collide with make believe? For the four Conlee kids, ages 5 to 10, playing house is no longer a game when their parents inexplicably disappear. Thirty-two years later, their search for answers continues. Bess Wohl returns to Second Stage after her funny and poignant play, American Hero, with a look inside the minds of children, their parents and the mysteries of childhood that haunt us forever.
MAKE BELIEVE tickets are now available by calling the Second Stage Box Office at 212-246-4422, visiting the company’s website, www.2ST.com or at the Tony Kiser Theater Box Office (305 West 43rd Street). A limited number of $30 Under 30 tickets are available in advance to those ages 30 and under with proper identification.
The evening performance on Sunday, August 25, 2019 will have 40 seats for $40 in celebration of the Company’s 40th anniversary. Tickets can be purchased with code 40for40.
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13)News from Richard Hillman
THE DRAMA LEAGUE
PRESENTS
FIRST STAGE FESTIVAL
TAKING THE FIRST STEP
10 DIRECTORS. 10 HOURS. 10 NEW WORKS.
AT THE DRAMA LEAGUE CENTER
JULY 29 – AUGUST 9, 2019
FEATURED DIRECTORS INCLUDE JACLYN BISKUP, NATHANIEL P. CLARIDAD,
TOM COSTELLO, PETE DANELSKI, MELODY ERFANI, ALISHA ESPINOSA,
SARAH HUGHES, RACHEL KARP, ASH MARINACCIO, EMMA ROSA WENT
FEATURED NEW WORKS BY ALISHA ESPINOSA, CARL HOLDER, LILY HOUGHTON,
RACHEL KARP AND JOSEPH AMODEI, ASH MARINACCIO AND DOMINQUE FISHBACK,
WITH DEVISED PIECES BASED ON WORKS BY BECKETT, CHEKHOV AND SHAKESPEARE
The Drama League (Artistic Director, Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) has announced an inaugural event: _First Stage Festiva_l, where new works take their first steps, featuring 10 resident directors who will have 10 hours to focus and manifest a particular moment or element of 10 new works, giving a glimpse into the future of the American Theater. FREE and open to the public, tickets/RSVPs are required and available on a first-come, first-served basis. All performances begin at 8:00 p.m. The Festival officially launches on Monday, July 29, 2019 and continues through Friday, August 9, 2019 at The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.dramaleague.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.
FIRST STAGE FESTIVAL
July 29 - August 9, 2019
at The Drama League Center
(32 Avenue of the Americas)
All performances begin at 8:00 p.m. FREE and open to the public.
Tickets/RSVPs are required and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
MONDAY, JULY 29 AT 8:00 P.M.
Heedless Hungry Lovesick
(Devised Piece)
Directed by Jaclyn Biskup
Heedless Hungry Lovesick is a romantic epic charting 11 years in the lives of 9 characters, as they journey through young adulthood, in an unstable country headed towards revolution. The play explores how youthful passion survives—if at all—the trials of growing up in a perilous world. Heedless Hungry Lovesick is a play meant to showcase the desire and enthusiasm of young performers and places it in a political context.
Jaclyn Biskup is a director and producer working in theatre, television, and film. She is the recipient of an Emmy and Peabody nomination for her work on the digital series "The Secret Life Of Muslims," and currently works as an associate producer at New Ohio Theatre. She assisted Tony Award-winning director Anna Shapiro on the Broadway debut of Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee (Second Stage at the Helen Hayes). Her work in the theatre spans nearly two decades. As the founding artistic director of The Mill, she has directed and produced over 20 productions including the Chicago premieres of Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks and The Private Lives Of Eskimos (Or 16 Words For Snow) by Ken Urban. In NYC, work directed includes Worse Than Tigers by Mark Christler, Nicholas, Maeve, Marianne by Matthew Stephen Smith (one of Indie Theatre Now's 20 Best of NYC Fringe), Hot Steams by Zach Wegner, It's Just Weird Now by Halley Feiffer, and Days Of Rage by Hyeyoung Kim and Shoshana Greenberg. Her work has been seen at New Ohio Theatre, MCC, Rattlestick, Dixon Place, Town Stages, and the NYC International Fringe. She has assisted on productions at Steppenwolf, The Public, and The American Musical Theatre Workshop. She has worked on digital projects for PBS NOVA, Delta Air Lines, Caltech, Harvard, and others, and holds a BA in Theater from Northern Illinois University and an MFA in Directing and Theatrical Production from Northwestern University.
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TUESDAY, JULY 30 AT 8:00 PM
The Untitled Filipino-American Project
(Devised Piece)
Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad
Collaborators: Marissa Carpio, Jasmin Malave
The Untitled Filipino-American Project explores what identity means to the Filipino-American. Caught between the Philippines, a country with rich indigenous history (as well as a history of colonialization) and the United States of America, a country that, for many Filipinos offered a promise of a better future in exchange for assimilation, where do Filipinos find themselves in this tapestry of history and country? By using interviews, found text, song and dance, The Untitled Filipino-American Project seeks to unveil what it means to be the children of immigrants from a country that is as beautiful as it is complicated.
Nathaniel Claridad. NYC: The Trojan Women (Oppressed in Heels), July House (NYC Fringe 2015), Man.Kind (Working Theater), The Breasts of Tiresias (Peculiar Works Project); work with The One Minute Play Festival and ShakesBEER; with Wagon Wheel Arts: Triassic Parq, Dustin Lance Black's "8" featuring Jose Llana and Gavin Creel (Co-producer/A.D., PlayMakers Repertory Company, UNC - Chapel Hill); the annual benefit event Broadway Twisted (Co-producer/Director). Regionally: Our Town (A.D., Two River Theatre), It's A Wonderful Life (A.D., PlayMakers Repertory Company). For UNC: Eurydice, Tender Napalm, Shakespeare's R & J. As actor highlights include: Here Lies Love (The Public Theater), Taylor Mac's 24 Hour Decade History of Popular Music; The Awesome 80’s Prom; with regional work at The Kennedy Center, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Cape Fear, Imagination Stage, Hangar Theatre, Barrington Stage, Florida Studio Theatre. Other: The Civilians Field and Research Team and Drama League Residency, 2016; MFA: UNC, Chapel Hill.
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 AT 8:00 PM
My Brother's Better At Love Than Me
By Lily Houghton
Directed by Tom Costello
Collaborators: Lily Houghton, playwright, Henry Houghton, actor.
My Brother's Better At Love Than Me: The relationship between a woman and her autistic brother are told through the parallel stories of each of their romantic lives. A look at how someone on the autism spectrum, who is ostensibly "bad at empathy," can be better at love than someone more neuro-typical.
Tom Costello is a New York-based director from Ithaca, NY. He is the Associate Artistic Director of Pipeline Theatre Company and administers its PlayLab, a residency for new work of unbridled imagination. He is an Associate Artist at the Flea Theater where he directed the world premieres of Smoke by Kim Davies and The Wundelsteipen (and other difficult roles for young people) by Nick Jones. He is the Artistic Director of the Atlantic Acting School's alumni program, where he is also a faculty member. Tom is a proud graduate of the BFA program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a 2017 Drama League Directing Fellow.
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 AT 8:00 PM
EveryHour/Chekhov in 8
(Devised from the words of Anton Chekhov)
Directed by Pete Danelski
Collaborators: McLean Fletcher, actor, Andrew Goebel, actor.
Over a nine-year span, Anton Chekhov found a humiliating start as a playwright, lived in a penal colony, and watched his brother succumb to tuberculosis—all in the shadow of his own fatal disease. Personal correspondences from these years open a window into Chekhov’s own positive life view and its inextricable relationship with death and creativity. Part verbatim play. Part experiment. EveryHour/Chekhov in 8 uses Chekhov’s words to displace his identity and ideas. What does the title “creative genius” really mean during the 20th century?
Pete Danelski is a DC-based theatre maker, director and writer. He has performed and directed at theatres across Philadelphia, New York and Washington, DC. Recent directing credits include Folger Theatre, Post Shift, Rorschach and Theatre J. Pete’s research and writing has been shared internationally, most recently published in Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association. He has written and developed several new plays with his writing partner Megan Diehl, including an adaptation of the Karel and Josef Čapek’s Adam the Creator, which will receive a reading at the Embassy of the Czech Republic in spring 2019. Additionally, Pete serves as Operations and Business Associate with CulturalDC, managing Source Theatre in Washington, DC. Pete holds degrees from DeSales University and Trinity College Dublin. www.petedanelski.com
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 2 AT 8:00 PM
The Fossett Family (working title)
(Devised Piece)
Directed by Melody Erfani
Collaborators: Andrea Bellamore, Gerrard James, Kevin Cauvun, Melissa Mowry, Nathaniel Johnson, Sasha Hawkins, Sean Michael Welch, Suzanne Darrell
The Fossett Family (working title) is based on the true story of Joseph and Edith Fossett's life. Following Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, Joseph Fossett became a free man, one of five persons freed from slavery by the terms of Jefferson's will. However, his wife Edith and their 10 children were put up for sale with the rest of Jefferson's "belongings" to pay off his sizable debt. The play follows their journey that tests their strength of will, family bond, and what they will risk to reunite.
Melody Erfani is a NYC-based theatre director specializing in creating, new works, and classical adaptations. Originally from Dallas, Texas, raised in an Iranian-American family within a diverse community, her fascination with other people’s cultures and customs was sparked from birth. She founded Lower East Side Shakespeare Co., a non-profit theatre company, in 2014 and has been Artistic Director there for five years. She has an M.F.A in Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School and a participant in the 2013 Lincoln Center Director's Lab. She graduated with a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts during which she procured an internship with Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. Favorite credits: Bee (Creator and Director), Antigone, R+J (LES Shakespeare), 97 Orchard St.(Creator/Director), All an Act (The Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Dying City, Raised in Captivity (ASDS Repertory), Our Town, The Importance of Being Earnest (Stagedoor Manor, NY).
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MONDAY, AUGUST 5 AT 8:00 PM
Prison Tongues
By Alisha Espinosa
Directed by Alisha Espinosa
Principal Collaborator: Nathaniel P. Claridad
Prison Tongues is a feminist, contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothingand Hamlet. Both plays are juxtaposed with contemporary characters in order to expose and reclaim the "minor" female characters, namely Hero and Ophelia. The play circumvents traditional structure by weaving contemporary adaptations with a secondary storyline about how actresses in Shakespeare companies grapple with the baggage of these iconic characters while staying true to themselves and their womanhood.
Alisha Espinosa is an Afro-Boricua storyteller, who specializes in acting and playwriting, and an aerialist in training at The Muse Brooklyn. She recently participated in New York Shakespeare Exchange’s inaugural Diversity Cohort and her pieces have been produced by Step1 Theater Project (NYC). Recent Acting Credits include American Tales (Stage One), Hamlet (KY Shakespeare), Shakespeare: The Remix (Capital Rep), Much Ado About Nothing (KY Shakespeare).
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 AT 8:00PM
Share Location
By Carl Holder
Directed by Sarah Hughes
Collaborators: Carl Holder, Playwright
Share Location uses the language of texts, tweets, status updates, listicles, news videos, clickbait vlogs, app notifications, blog posts, voicemails, emails, phone calls, and chat threads all across many platforms and timelines to create a tapestry of online content quilted together to show the story of a group of people play out over time. The characters' online footprints are never spoken aloud, but they all are speaking from somewhere where they feel alone, reaching out into a void, hoping to connect.
Sarah Hughes is a director and producer of theater and new media. She’s developed new plays, devised works, and immersive installations with Eliza Bent, MJ Kaufman, Julia May Jonas, McFeely Sam Goodman, Sibyl Kempson, Graham Sack, Geoff Sobelle and others. Sarah worked with Elevator Repair Service from 2007-14, assistant directing Gatz, The Select, Arguendo, Shuffle, and Fondly, Collette Richland Off-Broadway and on tour, and was Co-Artistic Producer of Target Margin Theater from 2015-17. Visiting Lecturer at Dartmouth College, New Georges 2018 Audrey Resident, 2016-17 Civilians R&D Lab, 2017-18 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, 2018-2020 WP Theater Directors Lab.
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 AT 8:00PM
Packing and Cracking
By Rachel Karp and Joseph Amodei
Directed by Rachel Karp
Collaborator: Joseph Amodei
Should voters choose their politicians, or should politicians choose their voters? Packing and Cracking is a multimedia mapmaking event that exposes the ubiquity of the latter: politicians using their power to draw district lines in their favor, through a widespread process known as gerrymandering. Set on a theater-sized map of one gerrymandered state with the audience arranged across it, Packing and Cracking draws and redraws maps around audience members in real time, utilizing the software most often used to gerrymander, showing how easy gerrymandering is, and asking what, if anything, we should do about it.
Rachel Karp makes work about politics and public policy. She has developed and directed new work through Ars Nova, Mabou Mines, Incubator Arts Project, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Flea, IRT, Dixon Place, Women Center Stage, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Barn Arts, the Powerhouse and Samuel French Festivals, and Columbia University's graduate and undergraduate schools. Rachel has been a Resident Artist at Mabou Mines, a Resident Director at The Flea, a Directing Intern at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. Currently at Carnegie Mellon University, Rachel is a John Wells Directing Fellow, MFA expected 2019, and a Milton and Cynthia Friedman Fellow, through which she spent Summer 2018 working at a policy research institute in Washington, DC. www.rachelkarp.com
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 AT 8:00PM
Antigone (en la frontera)
By Ash Marinaccio and Dominque Fishback
Directed by Ash Marinaccio
Principal Collaborators: Dominique Fishback, actor, Maria Litvan, dramaturg
Antigone (en la frontera) is a one-woman production of Antigone set in a jail cell on the U.S./Mexican border. While arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents for "harboring undocumented immigrants" after leaving water out in the desert for migrants, an activist channels the spirit and strength of Antigone from her jail cell while facing felony charges.
Ashley "Ash" Marinaccio is a theatre artist and scholar who is dedicated to documenting the socio-political issues that define our times by creating work that challenges the status quo and transforms the way we see the world. Her theatrical work has been seen Off-Broadway (Primary Stages, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, HERE, Joe's Pub, Culture Project), at TED conferences, The White House, The Apollo, United Nations and on tour throughout the United States, Middle East, and Europe. Her work has received critical acclaim from The NY Times, New Yorker, Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine, Ebony, NY Press, Time Out NY, Backstage, and Show Businessand has been featured in segments on Buzzfeed, NBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, MTV, VH1, and NY1.
Ash is a Level II Ph.D. student in Theatre and Performance at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research interests include exploring theatre practices in war zones, applications of theatre in social justice movements, politics and performance in times of crisis, community-based theatre, intersections between anthropology and theatre, and documentary theatre.
She is a League of Professional Theatre Women Lucille Lortel Visionary Award recipient for her artistic direction of Girl Be Heard, an UN-recognized NGO theatre company that brings global issues affecting girls center stage by empowering young women to tell their stories. She is also a co-founder of Co-Op Theatre East. Ash is a TED speaker. In 2018, she was listed as one of Culture Trip's "25 Women in Theatre You Should Know." She's a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, AEA, SAG/AFTRA and alumna of Hemispheric Institute's EMERGENYC and American Theatre Wing's Springboard programs. Currently, Ashley is a 2019-2020 NY Public Humanities Fellow. For more information visit ashley-marinaccio.com.
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 9 AT 8:00PM
The Same Shirt Show Part 2, Beckett Without Beckett: 'An Exploration of Masculinity and Existentialism Inspired by the Themes and Works of Beckett, but Containing No Actual Beckett, We Swear'
(Devised Piece)
Directed by Emma Rosa Went
Collaborators: Emma Rosa Went, Julia Larsen, and Olivia Rose Barresi
The Same Shirt Show Part 2, Beckett Without Beckett: 'An Exploration of Masculinity and Existentialism Inspired by the Themes and Works of Beckett, but Containing No Actual Beckett, We Swear' is part vaudevillian, part existential cry for help, and part genuine exploration of gender, camaraderie, and loneliness. Sequel to The Same Shirt Show: 'An Exploration of Masculinity in the Western Canon, As Performed by Two Women Wearing the Same Shirt,' Beckett Without Beckett is devised by Emma Rosa Went, Julia Larsen, and Olivia Rose Barresi.
Emma Rosa Went is a New-York based theatre director who has developed and presented work at The Tank, The Brick, Playwrights Realm, Dixon Place, Theater Row, the Access Theatre, LPAC Lab, Center at West Park, Trans Lab @ WP, and many other venues. Regional credit include: Scranton Shakespeare Festival, Boise Contemporary Theatre, Barn Arts Collective. Co-founder of The Renovationists, for whom she has directed Old Names for Wildflowers, Three Seconds, Boxcar, and other projects. Co-founder of Easy Leap Theatre Company, for whom she directed Much Ado About Nothing, The Changeling, Hearts of Gold, Othello, and Love's Labors Lost. Off-Broadway and regional assisting includes TFANA, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Atlantic, Rattlestick, Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Emma is an alumna of the OSF FAIR Program and the SDCF Observership Program. SDC Associate Member. Upcoming in 2019: Courage! To the Field!(The Tank); Initiative (Ink'd Festival, Playwrights Realm); Richard III (Scranton Shakespeare Festival). www.emmawent.com
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14) News from Spin Cycle NYC
Site-Specific Look Back at Legendary Artist
Announces 2nd Extension
UNMAKING TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
Now through September 4 at Madame X
Bated Breath Theatre Company announces a second extension of their acclaimed immersive, environmental production UNMAKING TOULOUSE-LAUTREC. Performances will now continue through September 4 at Madame X in Manhattan’s historic Greenwich Village, where performances began on May 8.
UNMAKING TOULOUSE-LAUTREC invites you to rediscover the bohemian world of the Belle Epoque with legendary artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and the women he immortalized. Dive into the underbelly of old Paris and rub shoulders with the dancers, prostitutes and outcasts that inspired the most enticing, elegant and provocative art ever to launch a thousand refrigerator magnets. Through imagery, text and dance UNMAKING TOULOUSE-LAUTREC explores the ecstasy of creativity against the agony of the body in the sexiest art history lesson you'll ever have.
UNMAKING TOULOUSE-LAUTREC runs through September 4, Wednesdays at 7pm & 9pm. Running time is 60 minutes. Madame X is located at 94 West Houston Street, between LaGuardia Place and Thompson Street -- accessible from the B,D,F,M trains at Broadway/Lafayette. Tickets are $35, available at www.unmakinglautrecplay.com.
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And that's the scoop. Tune in tomorrow for this month's Monthly Mashup.
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