THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Pleasant Dreams
30 years ago: The director of a Jewish Festival in Berlin uses my café (The Cornelia Street Café in the West Village) to scout talent for his Eleventh Annual Jewish Days of Culture; he buys a copy of my book (Last Dance at the Hotel Kempinski . . . ) and invites me to come to Berlin to perform and give a lecture; on the way I stop in Amsterdam with my sister from London to unveil a stone at the grave of our uncle Georg, philanthropist, refugee advocate, Auschwitz survivor. In Berlin we discover the graves of our grandparents, whom we had never known: both our parents had managed to escape; both our grandfathers had died before Hitler; both our grandmothers had lived to die in concentration camps. On my last night I perform in the ruins of the synagogue at which my parents worshiped, in front of a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge, and invite the audience to follow me over the bridge for a nightcap at the Cornelia Street Café.
Bio (Robin Hirsch, writer/performer):
Robin Hirsch was born in London during the Blitz to German Jews who had escaped Hitler. This complex inheritance informs much of his work both as a writer (LAST DANCE AT THE HOTEL KEMPINSKI–“one of the best books ever written on the long arm of the Holocaust” according to Jewish Book News, and perhaps the only Holocaust-related memoir to have been called “very funny” by the New York Times) and as a performer (MOSAIC: FRAGMENTS OF A JEWISH LIFE, a seven-part solo performance cycle, called “completely glorious” by the Village Voice, with which he has toured all over the US and several times in Europe).
He is a former Oxford, Fulbright, and English Speaking Union Scholar, a two-time NYFA Fellow and the recipient of numerous other awards, but the titles of which he is proudest were self-bestowed: Minister of Culture/Wine Czar/Dean of Faculty at the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, which he started with two other artists as one room with a toaster-oven, but which grew over its 41-year existence to include three rooms upstairs, two bars, two kitchens, and a performance space downstairs in which he curated some 700 shows a year in every conceivable genre (and quite a few inconceivable ones). In 1987, on her tenth anniversary, Mayor Koch of blessed memory proclaimed Cornelia “a culinary as well as a cultural landmark.”
Every word of both KEMPINSKI and MOSAIC was written to be first uttered chez Cornelia. Robin currently has a book of café stories, THE WHOLE WORLD PASSES THROUGH: STORIES FROM THE CORNELIA STREET CAFÉ, scheduled to be published (in England!). PLEASANT DREAMS was originally written for that collection. This is the first time that it will be performed in its entirety.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY SETS ITS 14th DREAM UP FESTIVAL
23 Productions, 18 World Premieres
All events at THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
August 23 to September 13, 2026
ABOUT DREAM UP – TNC’s Summer Showcase
The motto of the festival is “Dream Up: Invent, Concoct.” The festival is dedicated to new works. The question of the artist’s vision to free or attack the material will be asked in each application. The festival does not want traditional theater which is presented in a traditional way. Theater for the New City wants to use this festival as a way to push ideas to the forefront with the hope of revealing roads less traveled or undiscovered. Presentation of a straightforward play must be imaginative in some way.
TNC Street Theater Summer Tour – THE ROOT OF IT ALL, A DENTIST’S TALE
August 1 – September 13, 2026
Free! In The Streets!
Saturdays and Sundays @ 2 PM; Friday Performance in Coney Island @ 5:00 PM (full schedule below)
Writer and Director – Crystal Field Composer – Peter Dizozza
8/1 • 2pm • Manhattan • TNC at E. 10th St. & First Ave.
8/2 • 2pm • Bronx • St. Mary’s Park at 147th St. & St. Ann’s Ave.
8/8 • 2pm • Staten Island • Tappen Park btw. Canal & Water Streets
8/9 • 2pm • Manhattan • Central Park Bandshell, 72nd Street Crosswalk
8/14 • 5pm • Brooklyn • Coney Island Boardwalk at W. 10st St.
8/15 • 2pm • Manhattan • St. Marks Church at E. 10th St. & Second Ave.
8/16 • 2pm • Manhattan • Jackie Robinson Park at W. 147th St. & Bradhurst Ave.
8/22 • 2pm • Manhattan • Washington Square Park
8/23 • 2pm • Queens • Travers Park at 34th Ave. btw. 77th & 78th Streets
8/29 • 2pm • Brooklyn • Sunset Park at 6th Ave. & 44th St.
8/30 • 2pm • Brooklyn • Fort Greene Park, Myrtle Avenue & St. Edwards Street
9/12 • 2pm • Manhattan • Sol Bloom Playground, W 91st Street btw. Columbus Ave & Central Park West
9/13 • 2pm • Manhattan • Tompkins Square Park at E. 7th St. & Ave. A
NEW YORK – Theater for the New City’s award-winning Street Theater Company will open its 2026 annual tour Saturday, August 1 with “The Root of it all: A Dentist’s Tale,” a comic musical in which a neighborhood dentist and a brigade of unlikely heroes battle cavities of fear, hatred, and injustice after an ICE raid. Book, lyrics and direction are by Crystal Field, Artistic Director of Theater for the New City (TNC). The musical score is composed and arranged by Peter Dizozza. Free performances will tour parks, playgrounds and closed-off streets throughout the five boroughs through September 13.
TNC’s Street Theater has impacted generations of audiences, encouraging the younger generation to make a difference in their own neighborhoods. Productions have celebrated the diversity of our heritage, the strength of our citizens, and the optimistic hope for a successful road to their future. In this year’s play, a neighborhood dentist operates a free weekend clinic that serves children from immigrant families. When several young patients suddenly stop coming for their checkups, he fears something is terribly wrong. His suspicions are confirmed when an ICE agent storms into the clinic to seize a child in the middle of an appointment. Mistaking the dentist’s dental drill for a weapon, the agent shouts, “Drop the gun!” The bewildered dentist protests, “The gum! The gum!” before being knocked unconscious.
A neighborhood dentist and a chorus of very “patient” patients battle the moral decay threatening America’s ideals in Theater for the New City’s 2026 Street Theater production, “The Root of It All, A Dentist’s Tale,” written and directed by Crystal Field with score composed by Peter Dizozza. With ICE agents emerging from giant cavities as symbols of fear and division, the dentist envisions a quest to “root out” hatred instead of people. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
In a fantastical dream, the dentist enters a surreal world where dancing teeth, an activist Tooth Fairy, and a chorus of very “patient” patients battle the moral decay threatening America’s ideals. With ICE agents emerging from giant cavities as symbols of fear and division, the dentist envisions a quest to “root out” hatred instead of people. A brigade of unlikely heroes invokes the nation’s immigrant heritage–from its earliest settlers to generations of newcomers–celebrating America’s diversity, compassion, and shared humanity. The historic wisdom of the United States promises a future in which the cavities of war are filled with hope and the promise of cooperation and peace. The community awakens from its nightmare inspired and unites to protect its neighbors and secure the child’s release, reminding us that healing a nation, like caring for a smile, begins by getting to the root of it all.
The production will be staged with an elaborate assemblage of trap doors, giant puppets, smoke machines, masks, original choreography and a huge (9′ x 12′) running screen or “cranky” providing continuous moving scenery behind the actors. The company of 22 actors, ten crew members, two stage managers, three assistant directors and five live musicians (led by the composer at the keyboard) will share the challenge of performing outside and holding a large, non-captive audience. The music will vary in style from Bossa Nova to Hip Hop to Musical Comedy to classical Cantata. The play is a bouncy joyride through the undulations of the body politic, with astute commentary couched in satire, song and slapstick.
TNC’s free Street Theater productions are delightfully suited for family audiences, since complex social issues are often presented through children’s allegories, with children and neighborhood people as the heroes.
Michael David Gordon heads the cast of 22 as the Dentist. The five-piece band is led by composer Peter Dizozza.
Theater for the New City has mounted a new musical for a five borough tour each year since 1976. In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 lockdown, TNC’s Street Theater production, “Liberty or Just Us: a City Park Story,” was an oratorio that live streamed for an eight week, 14 performance run. Each performance payed tribute to the park or other location it had been originally scheduled for. The popular tradition returned to live, in-person performances the following year.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Author/director Crystal Field began writing street theater in 1968 as a member of Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia. She wrote and performed her own outdoor theater pieces against the Vietnam War and also curated and performed many poetry programs for the Philadelphia Public Schools. There she found tremendous enthusiasm and comprehension on the part of poor and minority students for both modern and classical poetry when presented in a context of relevancy to current issues. She realized that for poetry to find its true audience, the bonds of authoritarian criticism must and can be transcended. Her earliest New York street productions were playlets written in Philadelphia and performed on the flatbed truck of Bread and Puppet Theater in Central Park. Peter Schumann, director of that troupe, was her first NY artistic supporter.
In 1971, Ms. Field became a protégé of Robert Nichols, founder of the Judson Poets Theater in Manhattan, and of Peter Schuman, founder of Bread and Puppet Theater. It is an interesting historic note that “The Expressway” by Robert Nichols, directed by Crystal Field (a Street theater satire about Robert Moses’ plan for a throughway to run across Little Italy from the West Side Highway to the FDR Drive) was actually the first production of Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. Nichols wrote street theater plays for TNC in its early years, but as time went on, wrote scenarios and only the first lines of songs, leaving Field to “fill in the blanks.” When Nichols announced his retirement to Vermont in 1975, he urged Field to “write your own.” The undertaking, while stressful at first, became the impetus for her to express her own topical political philosophy and to immerse her plays in that special brand of humor referred to often as “that brainy slapstick.” Her first complete work was “Mama Liberty’s Bicentennial Party” (1976), in honor of the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution.
Field has an associate’s degree in Dance from Juilliard and a BA in Philosophy from Hunter College.
Field has written and directed a completely new opera for the TNC Street Theater company each successive year. She collaborated for eleven years with composer Mark Hardwick, whose “Pump Boys and Dinettes” and “Oil City Symphony” were inspired by his street theater work with Ms. Field. At the time of his death from AIDS in 1994, he was writing a clown musical with Field called “On the Road,” which was never finished. One long-running actor in TNC street theater was Tim Robbins, who was a member of the company for six years in the 1980s, from age twelve to 18.
The Village Halloween Parade, which TNC produced single-handedly for the Parade’s first two years, grew out of the procession which preceded each Street Theater production. Ralph Lee, who created the Parade with Ms. Field, was chief designer for TNC’s Street Theater for four years before the Village Halloween Parade began.
Field has also written for TNC’s annual Halloween Ball and for an annual Yuletime pageant that was performed outdoors for 2,000 children on the Saturday before Christmas. She has written two full-length indoor plays, “Upstate” and “One Director Against His Cast.” She is co-founder and Artistic Director of TNC.
Composer Peter Dizozza was composer/musical director of TNC’s Street Theater tours “Teacher! Teacher! or PS I Love You” (2022), “The Socialization of a Social Worker or The Fight for Social Justice” (2024) and “Home Sweet Home, or a Life In New York” (2025). He appeared frequently in 2020-2021 in TNC’s weekly “Open ‘Tho Shut” walk-by theater productions, which demonstrated the theater’s ability to serve its neighborhood culturally during the lockdown. He is known for his simple, cheerful music with a Gershwinesque flair. He began writing plays with music for La Mama’s Experimenta Series in 1997 and became a regular composer for productions directed by George Ferencz. Among his TNC credits are his scores for Toby Armour’s plays “Aunt Susan and Her Tennessee Waltz” (2022) and “155 Thru the Roof” (2014). His song settings include poems and texts by Shakespeare, T.S.Eliot and Thomas Hardy. He is a member of the Dramatist Guild, The Lambs Club and The New York Composers Circle.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
A Rome Neal Banana Puddin’ Jazz Production
Celebrating 23 years
Banana Puddin’ Jazz!
Monday, June 29, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Tickets: $20 General Admission
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Special Treat:
Complimentary Banana Puddin’ for all attendees 🍌
Featured Musicians:
Andre Chez Lewis, (2026 Grammy Award-winning pianist/Music director and pianist for the legendary Dionne Warwick/Protégé of the renowned pianist, the late Dr. Barry Harris), Kim Clarke (bass), Dwayne Cook Broadnax (drums), Patience Higgins (sax)
Special Guest Performers:
TC THE 3RD, Antoinette Montague, Dr. Eric Frazier, Theresa Phillips, Kat Rei, Kay Lewis, Brian Davis, Steve Cromity, and Angelo and Aero Lewis
Sponsors:
John D. Smith, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Jazz Foundation Of America, Tracy Appleton, Dr. Mona Vaughn Scott, Sean V. Scott, Basir Mchawi, Sheryl Renee Productions, Malaika M.Scott MD, Dr. Brenda Greene, Black Repertory Group Berkeley, Commbs Brooklyn Printing, Black Theatre Project (Documentary)
Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz is a long-running, award-winning, critically acclaimed New York City performance series that blends live jazz, community spirit, and audience interaction with the rich legacy of Black theater. Founded in 2003, each event features top-tier musicians and vocalists, an open mic session, a collaborative audience poem, and a serving of Rome Neal’s famous, complimentary homemade banana pudding.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
THEATER
Songs of Love and Madness is a postmodern romantic comedy that consists of a duet, a love triangle, and a quartet, in which the romantic tropes popularized by contemporary love songs collide with delusions listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Illnesses): Is love truly a madness to be desired. All three of the scenes/songs have been produced separately in play festivals, two receiving awards at those festivals.
CAST
Song #1: Could Forever Have Only Ever Meant
Husband: Noah Yager
Wife: Kaley Bender
Song #2: Just Like You
Patient: Isabel Lagana
Therapist: Dan Mauro
Fregoli: Noah Yager
Song #3: Blind For You
Prof. Aurora: Isabel Lagana
Man: Dan Mauro
Woman/Alice: Kaley Bender
About the Crew Mark Tjarks (Author/Composer) teaches scriptwriting, film, and literature at Hawaii Pacific University. His Buskers, the Musical, based on the real lives and performance of New York subway musicians) was presented by the Theater for the New City as part of a pre-COVID New Blood Reading series and Dream Up! Festival. He has had 5 plays staged in Manhattan, including The Unsalable Thing (winner of First Place in the William Faulkner Literary Competition Best Play Contest) and Houseless in Paradise (Po’okela Award winner for Best Overall Play and a Festival Best Bet at the NY International Fringe Fest—“one of the most powerful pieces of documentary theatre I’ve seen” – Ran Xia’s Theatre is Easy). Tjarks is also a recipient of three WIT Best Comedy Awards, Aloha Theatre’s Opie for Best Play, PlayBuilders’ judges and audience awards for Best Play, and Kumu Kahua Theatre’s Playwriting Resident Award. Overall, he has had 32 productions and staged readings of 15 plays.
Nick Hrutkay (Director) is an award-winning director based in Pittsburgh. He has spent ten seasons on the artistic staff at Stagedoor Manor where he is the Director of Education and Assistant Artistic Director. His work has been seen across the country at Theatre Row, The Kennedy Center, The Brick, Actors Temple Theatre, Axelrod Performing Arts Center, Bell Theater, Hippodrome Theatre, Central Square Theater, The Media Theatre, Cumberland Theatre, The Huron Playhouse, Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks, Alchemical Studios, Playwrights Local, Keystone Repertory Theater, Stagedoor Manor, Carnegie Mellon University, and Point Park University. Nick is the recipient of an ArtWorks Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region II / Stage Directors and Choreographers Society Fellowship, and a BroadwayWorld Award for Best Director of a Musical. nickhrutkay.com
Cecilia Bracey (Assistant Director) is a director based in NYC. She strives to facilitate stories that are, at their core, honest portrayals of the human experience. Recent NYC Directing Credits Include: UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS, -IN-CHIEF, DRY LAND, SORRY! WE’RE CLOSED! THE SQUIRREL WATCHERS, OUT/Play Regional: SIX by Timothy Mason, and WHAT I WANT TO SAY BUT NEVER WILL. She’s worked at Law and Order: SVU, as Broadway at Music Circus, Powerhouse Theater, and Roundabout Theatre Company and currently is the a producer for OUT/PLAY. Bachelor of Music from CUA. @cecilia_bracey
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
CINO THEATER
Three best friends—each from a different background—find their lives turned upside down to the point where they almost lose their minds. However, their spiritual avatars awaken each of them from the chaos of heartbreak, betrayal, and the madness of modern life. Caught between laughter and tears, they seek clarity and self-identity through the most unexpected remedies.
Cast
John secret
Hisa Viscovich
Laura Cardone
Brandie Honor
Jenna Sofia
Siobhan Brandan
Vaibhav Taparia
Breanne Hakes
Manny Weathers
Sherrima Queen (Writer, Director, Actor, Producer) Sartre and Simone, Asst. Director, Theater for the New City. “Green Tea By Day Ganja By Night” Vino Theatre. “Pieces”, winner of NAACP Hollywood Chapter Playwright Competition.”Summer Cafe” , Black Spectrum Theatre Co. “Bury Secrets”
TV Pilot, Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. Temple University -B .A., NYU Graduate Studies. www.SherrimaQueen.com. I’m excited to be working again with the iconic Theater for the New City.
John Secret (Assistant Director, Writer, producer, Actor) Produced for the following brands, David Yurman, Hilfiger, Macy and Bloomingdales. My roots are in Film & Theatre Production. I am currently a production Coordinator at Jack Studios. I’m excited to be a part of Green Tea by Day Ganja By Night.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
VILLAGE PLAYWRIGHTS ONE-ACT PRIDE FESTIVAL 2026
June 18, 2026 – June 21, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 80 minutes, No Intermission
CABARET THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Village Playwright’s Three One-Acts celebrating LGQTB Playwrights!
*** Special thanks to John Gilman for his assistance and guidance throughout the production!
“THE BED” By Robert Heide
Jack, Brian Uceta
Jim, Dakota Scarborough
Two men on a bed when ‘sex is dead’ and ‘God is dead’ is what the play is about. It is the ultimate hang-up, psychologically and metaphysically and the playwright clearly establishes that what we are witnessing here is the anguish of existence. Heide’s most performed play, The Bed was filmed by Andy Warhol who declared it “a work of genius.”
“INCREASED OCCUPANCY” By Robert Heide
Wilcox I, Uni Coglioni
Wicox II, Brian Uceta
Mr. Moneypenny, Mike J. Mills
Exterminator, Leah Temple Lang
Two artists, attempting to live out a bohemian lifestyle, are threatened by a greedy landlord who precipitates an apocalyptic response. As the drama escalates and caution is thrown to the wind , all logic ceases to exist.
“BUTTERCUP’S NON GUCCI MAKEOVER” By Ned Eckhardt
Buttercup, Cassaundra Reed
Cliff, Dakota Scarborough
Bruno, Mike J. Mills
Alice, Leah Temple Lang
“Buttercup’s Non Gucci Makeover” is a campy comedy set in the back of a Gentleman’s Club specializing in drag shows.
A young accountant loses a poker game, and he must perform one song at “Buttercup’s Club”.
The play highlights how “straight” men can really enjoy dressing up like women!
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Uni Coglioni
Stage Manager Beruk Teshome
Light/Sound. Dakota Silvey
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Odyssey and the flowers of the sun
June 18, 2026 – July 5, 2026
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
No Show JULY 4th
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 70 minutes
CINO THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Set in a world shattered by war, Odyssey and the Flowers of the Sun follows a young girl’s mythic journey through grief, memory, and the land of the dead after she is separated from her mother during the destruction of Ithaca. Guided by the blind soothsayer Tiresias, Odyssey travels across distant lands inspired by the traditions, music, and folklore of the Huasteca region of Mexico in search of the mysterious Flowers of the Sun, encountering wandering spirits, roadside memorials, mischievous ravens, and souls longing for peace. Blending movement, ritual, live music, and poetic storytelling, the play reimagines Homer’s Odyssey through the lens of migration, Día de los Muertos, and remembrance, becoming a powerful story about loss, resilience, and the enduring bond between the living and the dead.
Artistic Director Miguel Loyola
Directed by Mia Jurkunas and Miguel Loyola
Assistant Director Olivia Talian
Written by Miguel Loyola
Writing Consultant Mia Jurkunas
CAST
Odyssey — Brooke Baerga
Laundry Washer / Raven / Chorus — Christina Ramsey
Yara / Mom / Laundry Washer / Chorus — Charlotte Key
Juan Manuel / Raven / Chorus — David Carrasco
The Hen / Laundry Washer / Chorus — July Choi
Tiresias / Sister/ Chorus — Mia Jurkunas
Laundry Washer / Raven / Chorus — Mathew Seepersad
The Bard / Sister / Saxophone — Audrey Shon
Understudy / Light Board Operator — Arley Trice
PRODUCTION TEAM
Executive Producer — Miguel Loyola
Production and Stage Manager — Olivia Talian
Production Manager — Mia Jurkunas
Production Coordinator — Charlotte Key
DESIGN TEAM
Set Design — Miguel Loyola
The Two Crosses Created by — Lola Sáenz
Costume Design — Charlotte Key
Lighting Design — Andrew LaPointe
Sound Design — Miguel Loyola
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Miss Universe
June 25, 2026 – July 5, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
EXTENDED TO JULY 11
FINAL PERFORMANCES THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 1 Hour, No intermission
CABARET THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
One Earthling. One Alien. Zero boundaries. Abel will commit crimes, dodge his parents, enlist his unwilling friends and derail their dreams, all in the name of contacting his mysterious, hot, sexy, alien girlfriend. When staunch conviction, cryptids and questionable life choices compete – can these terrestrials withstand the cosmic unbinding of their identities?
Recently Searched:
How to extinguish fire quick
am i gag
am i gay?
Life on other planets real? Asal Azari – Director yellow pages
Does my butt look big?
r/amitheasshole
who should i vote for? Emilio Garcia – Abel criminal record
Farah Fawcett age
Betty + Barney Hill encounter legit? Josie Hawley – Mandy lesbian confirmed?
bong water poison when ingested?
thc overdose symptoms
is it gay to wear a hat?
urgent care near me Nora O’Donnell – Trinity net worth
Challenger explosion footage
therapist near me
girlsgogames Maryann Mboche – Joy single?
Bettie Page death
how to build radio receiver
holistic parasite cleanse Grace Wilkerson – Ginny hoax?
resume template
easy resume template
CIA leaked documents uncensored Liv – Stage Manager availability
Miss Universe psyop?
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
A Girl Lives Alone
May 28, 2026 – May 31, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 105 minutes, No intermission
COMMUNITY SPACE
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Theater for the New City and MLC Studio brings A Girl Lives Alone, a play by Toronto-based playwright Jessica Moss to TNC for a limited engagement May 28th – 31st.
Marion has uprooted her life and moved to New York in the wake of a break-up, only to find a girl has been found dead in her walk-up apartment building. Soon after, the events in the building begin to mirror the mystery podcast she can’t pull away from, and her life begins to feel like she’s trapped in a Hitchcock film. The lives of the other tenants– and the mysterious noises upstairs– start to close in on her, blurring the line between what is real and what lives only in her imagination. Does living close to others keep us safe, or put us in danger?
Using live sound effects to underscore this uniquely theatrical play, A Girl Lives Alone is an ensemble dark comedy about whether our fears are to be trusted or overcome.
Developed and workshopped at The Juilliard School, the play has received dramaturgical support from playwrights Marsha Norman, Christopher Durang, and David Lindsay-Abaire. A Girl Lives Alone premiered at the 2018 Toronto Summerworks festival, directed by Moss.
Jessica Moss’s plays have previously been called ‘glorious’ (National Post) and ‘pure joy’ (NOW) and have sold out at Fringe and Next Stage festivals. Her plays include Instagirl (2023 Neukom Prize Winner), Funnie: The Most Lamentable Comedie of Jane the Foole (2022 Leah Ryan’s FEWW Prize winner, O’Neill finalist), Our Play (2023 Lanford Wilson award winner), Cam Baby (Toronto Fringe New Play Winner, Weissberger finalist), Polly Polly (Ed Mirvish Award for Entrepreneurship), and more. Training: Juilliard.
