THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
BREAD + PUPPET
The Upside Down World Circus
-and-
Woyzeck
December 2 – 13, 2026
Tickets $20, Students, Seniors, Children $15
Run Time: Both shows are about 1 hour
JOHNSON THEATER
No one turned away for lack of funds. We mean it. If you need assistance with a ticket, please email tickets@breadandpuppet.org.
The Upside Down World Circus
Wednesday, December 2 @ 8pm Thursday, December 3 @ 8pm Friday, December 4 @ 8pm Saturday, December 5 @ 3pm & 8pm Sunday, December 6 @ 3pm
Get ready for a paper mache spectacle featuring puppets big and small, acts serious and silly, and performances slapstick and sublime. Stilt dancers, paper maché beasts, and a riotous brass band make a raucous, colorful circus of protest and celebration.
In this year’s circus, director Peter Schumann asks “Is it or is it not? Am I asleep or am I awake? Am I a cockroach or am I a me?” He further urges us Possibilitarians to “demonstrate humanity’s upside-down situation in the face of the government’s depraved falsehoods. Luxury silence and despair must be replaced by revolt orchestras that radically oppose the radically wrong system. It is time to unforget the revolution-in-progress!”
Woyzeck
Thursday, December 10 @ 8pm Friday, December 11 @ 8pm Saturday, December 12 @ 3pm & 8pm Sunday, December 13 @ 3pm
Nearly 200 years after Georg Büchner wrote his searing social critique and 50 years after Peter Schumann adapted it for a tour of Germany, Bread & Puppet presents an urgent revival of Woyzeck. “When the whole world seems to be going up in flames I’ve heard a terrible voice talking to me” cries Woyzeck. The script remains “unfortunately more than relevant” notes Schumann, who says of Büchner, “I don’t know how he does it, but what he does is totally real, it’s the language of the proletariat, of poverty, of deprivation. Obligatory viewing for all citizens and migrants to this country.”
As always, the shows will include puppets large and small, music, up-to-the-minute politics, and spectacles not to be missed. After the show Bread & Puppet will serve its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli, and Bread & Puppet’s “Cheap Art” – books, posters, postcards, pamphlets and banners from the Bread & Puppet Press – will be for sale.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
212-254-1109
JOIN US FOR THE STAGED READING PREMIERE (in New York City) OF THIS NEW DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY DRAMEDY with a cast culled from stage, screen and film including Mitch Poulos, Marilyn Chris and Liz Keifer.
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Outdoor attractions (Free) 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Indoor attractions ($20) 7:00 PM to Midnight Costume or Formal Wear are requested.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Halloween spot from 1010 WINS:
NEW YORK — Fifty Halloweens after it began, Theater for the New City’s Village Halloween Costume Ball is still conjuring up the unexpected. On October 31, TNC will celebrate the 50th incarnation of its famously eccentric East Village tradition with an extravaganza of theater, music, dance, aerial performance, cabaret, food and flamboyant costumes. A large outdoor festivity will be held from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM outside the Theater on East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues (or if it rains, in a big tent), featuring performances and a costume competition for kids. The celebration moves inside into TNC’s four-theater complex from 7:00 PM to midnight . There will be nonstop performances (by Austin Pendleton and over 40 others), ballroom dancing (to Art Lillard’s Heavenly Swing Band and MisterPablo, a Latin Dance band), an aerial dance concert (by Caytha Jentis), and dining in a pop-up restaurant (The Witch’s Cauldron) where for $5, guests can savor a complete dinner donated by local restaurants. The evening culminates in a costume judging with prizes at midnight. Admission is free for the outdoor program and $20 for the indoor festivities. Costumes or formal wear are required.
On every Halloween since 1974, TNC has transformed its theater complex and surrounding streets into a carnival of the unexpected, where neighborhood families, artists, and revelers come together for an evening of spirited fun, live music, and avant-garde theater. This extravaganza has been a point of origin for many of the City’s most original entertainers. Six full-length plays have grown out of playlets written for the fest and it is probable that the theatrical movement in Performance Art began there. It has been a launching pad for such formative artists as Paul Zaloom, Alice Farley, Bloolips, The Red Mole, Penny Arcade, Basil Twist, Alien Comic Tom Murrin, Zero Boy, Charles Busch, Eduardo Machado, Moises Kaufman, Maria Irene Fornes and Phoebe Legere. Each year, many acts, skits, sketches, and skadoodles go on to become the basis of larger theater works.
The world-famous Village Halloween Parade began in 1974 as a production of Theater For The New City in collaboration with block associations of the West Village. The procession wound its way through the Village from TNC’s second home at the corner of Jane and West Streets to Washington Square Park. In the Parade’s second year, 1975, TNC won an Obie for the production. When organization of the parade was formally handed to the local block association in 1976, the event had forked into two parts: an informal parade of puppets for Greenwich Village children and a late-night dress-up ball for grownup villagers. Crystal Field wrote in 2001 in New York Theatre Wire, “We had planned to have a later night Ball for adults (Gretel Cummings’ idea, as I recall) — a Village Halloween Costume Ball– so that when the little ones slept, the adults could go dancing and partying in an indoor, more sophisticated set up. The ball has endured. We now serve a thousand to two thousand people with our four-theater ‘Village Halloween Costume Ball.'”
In 2020, due to the Covid shutdown, TNC maintained its Halloween tradition by presenting the entire event virtually. In 2021, it was mounted entirely outdoors. In 2022 TNC recaptured the event’s intensity and traditional magic by bringing it back inside. The decision was made to count 2020 as a “year uncounted” and to celebrate 2026 as the festival’s fiftieth incarnation.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (as of October 1)
PART 1 – OUTDOOR EVENTS
3:00 – 7:00 PM
ADMISSION FREE
Attractions will include:
Variety performances by Carol Tandava, Arley Trice, George Belleci, Joe Bendik, and musical group Star ’69.
Child Costume and others. Emceed by T. Scott Lily.
Children’s Costume Contest judged by Crystal Field, T. Scott Lilly and Terry Lee King. Winners will receive prizes.
The Red and Black Masque: an annual Medieval ritual ensemble theater piece which is performed by torchlight with audience participation. (7:00)
At 7:00, the celebration goes inside the four-theater complex for food, fun, and exciting new theater works, culminating with a costume contest at 12:00 AM midnight, whose winners will each receive a bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne and a year’s free pass to TNC.
PART 2 – INDOOR EVENTS
7:00 – 12:00
ADMISSION $20
CABARET PERFORMANCES (7:00 PM to 12:00 PM)
A succession of live, 10-minute performances staged in the Community Theater. Performing artists will be, among others: Austin Pendleton, Richard West, Yip Harburg Rainbow Troupe, Stephan Morrow, John Grimaldi, Carol Tandava (Belly Dance), Michael Christian, TNC Street Theater Enemble, Inma Heredia, Peter Dizzoza, Alessandra Belloni, Emilio Garcia, Asher Cohen (“Egg Eats Chicken”), JC Augustin, Fairy Tale Marionette and Wise Guise.
Scream contest hosted by Didi Champagne. (10:24 PM)
Emceed by Melanie Maria Goodreaux.
BALLROOM DANCING:
Art Lillard’s Heavenly Big Band, a 17 piece swing orchestra performing an extensive repertoire of songs from swing to samba to jazz ballad to Bossa Nova with a swinging singing soloist (8:00 – 10:00)
Aerial Dance with Caytha Jentis, performing high over our heads in exciting new challenges to eye and ear (10:00 – 10:30)
Mr. Pablo’s Latin Dance Band, a five-piece fusion band with vocalist, mixing Salsa, Samba and Flamenco with Rock, Reggae and Funk (10:30 – 12:00)
DINING IN THE WITCHES’ CAULDRON
Downtown’s most sensational Halloween cafe, featuring a variety of American and international delicacies at peoples’ prices ($5 for a full dinner). Holiday dishes are contributed by neighboring East Village restaurants, some with celebrity chefs. You can gobble couscous from a coffin lid beginning at 8:00 pm while enjoying spine-tingling performances by performance artists, songwriters, poets and variety artists including: Rome Neal, Smokey Stevens, Lei Zhou, Zero Boy, Sylvain Leroux, George Belleci, Sarah Lilly, Ellen Steir, The Head Peddlers, Stefan Morrow (8:00 – 11:20).
MONSTERS AND MIRACLES COSTUME PARADE
The annual costume contest hosted by Crystal Field. All costumed attendees are invited to march past a panel of celebrity judges. Winners receive one-year passes to TNC and a bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne. Attendees will be judged in such categories as “Most Politically Relevant,” “Most Gluten Free,” “Most Uncompromised,” Most Non-AI,” “Most Visionary,” “Most Presidentially Honest,” “Most Oxygenated” and “Most Likely to be Extinct.” Judged by Melanie Maria Goodreaux, John Gilman, Sabura Rashid, Joe Battista, Crystal Field, Phillip Hackett and others.
THE WOMB ROOM
Vaudeville in The Womb Room (Basement Cabaret Theater). Performers include Star ’69 (band), WillieAnn Gissendanner, Pamela Enz, Joe Bendik, Claude Solnik, Lei Zhou, Rocco Nicholas, Terry Lee King/ Billie Little and Danielle Aziza (8:00 – 10:00).
LOBBY EVENTS
Performances by Cobu (all-women Taiko drum group), Hellsouls, flute-playing goblin Kahley Mitchell, tap dance with Laraine Goodman and The Mad Tappers, Fish Pond (casting for giveaway gifts), Fortune Teller Penny Diora (free readings), Champagne Bar served over a coffin with a live vampire inside.
HALLOWEEN DECOR
Murals painted by Olga Castillo, Gilma Diaz, Sean Finnerty and many others.
Theater for the New City (www.theaterforthenewcity.net) is located at 155 First Avenue, at the corner of East Tenth Street. Reservations are optional. The TNC box office number is (212) 254-1109.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond
November 5, 2026 – November 22, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $25, Students & Seniors $15
Sundays: Pay-what-you-can
Run time: 2 hours
COMMUNITY SPACE THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Playwright and director, Melanie Maria Goodreaux returns to her longtime creative home, Theater for the New City (TNC), with the world premiere of HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM THE CRAWFISH POND, a darkly comic Louisiana love story about death, desire, family, faith, and the possibility of redemption.
The production marks a milestone for Goodreaux: 2026 is her 25th year of writing and directing plays. HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM THE CRAWFISH POND follows her recent TNC productions, including The Popes of Farragut Street, The White Blacks, and the AUDELCO-nominated Rita Is the Goat.
Crawfish farmer Earl Roussel has been dead for ten years when he suddenly wakes up in a “Purgatory” that happens to be his front yard. He longs for his beloved wife, Ruth, who is on her deathbed but escapes at night to see him so they can make love. Meanwhile, their estranged sons and daughter are at odds over money ‘stolen’ from the family, and a pair of nuns, who may be more con artists than women of God.
Set in Louisiana and infused with Goodreaux’s blend of magical realism, surreal comedy, spirituality, and poetry, HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM THE CRAWFISH POND asks what we owe the people we love before, and perhaps even after, death. As Earl and Ruth refuse to let something as inconvenient as mortality separate them, their children must confront old wounds, family secrets, and the question of whether reconciliation is still possible when time is running out.
The new play continues Goodreaux’s exploration of New Orleans and Louisiana culture, Black life, spirituality, family, and the complicated ways people search for love and redemption.
Written by Melanie Maria Goodreaux
Directed by Melanie Maria Goodreaux with Christopher Bello
CAST
Arlene A. McGruder
Alan Walls
Jasmyn Unique Tilford
Javán Robinson
Riyadh Rollins
Tabitha Bradley
Mary-Linda Greene
PRODUCTION
Set & Props: Lytza Colón, Gregory Paul
Lighting Design: Alex Bartenieff
Sound Design: Luke Santy, Boston Fielder/Urb Alt, Anthony Harper, Christopher Bello
Visuals/Projections: Anthony Harper/Christopher Bello
Casting: Mary-Linda Greene
Costumes: Billy Little
Graphics: Diane Sullivan, Christopher Bello
Producers: Mark Holloway, David Kahl, Anthony Harper, Bruce Morrow, Norah Lawlor
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
The Flowers of Forest Hills
November 5, 2026 – November 22, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
CABARET THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Set after World War II, “The Flowers of Forest Hills” follows a family who emigrates from Austria to Queens. We see three generations of women, including a girl, a mother and a grandmother (as part of a cast of seven characters) as they adapt to life in the United States. Family secrets come out into the open, as they cope with a new life in the United States.
CAST
Gail Merzer Behrens*……….Ida
Mike Cesarano*………………..Ernst
Noah Frankenfield……………Jacques
Karen Freer………………………Gert
Jon Lonoff*……………………..Alfred
Doriana Schoner……………….Sylvie
Carolyn Seiff*…………………..Helen
*appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
PRODUCTION
Written by Claude Solnik
Directed by Patricia Magno
Assistant Director – Cameron Reilly-Steele
Lights/Sound – Marsh Shugart
Set Design – Reuben Speed
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds
October 8, 2026 – October 25, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run Time: 75 minutes
CABARET THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
“Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds” written and directed by Bina Sharif is one of the Ten Best Plays of 2025 (https://theaterscene.org/2025/12/a-2025-10-best-list/ ) See REVIEW here (https://theaterscene.org/2025/05/stream-of-consciousness-of-singing-birds)
“Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds” was seen at a performed staged reading at Nazar Café in the East Village and chosen by Drama Desk member Darryl Reilly (chief editor of theaterscene.org). It is a poem play about the loneliness of injured birds and their songs regarding the exile of birds who are injured and cannot fly anymore and thus are in cages. The injured birds have been turned into poems or prose poems, monologues, and a song. “Stream of Consciousness of Singing Birds” is a metaphorical play of birds in exile.
Read 2026 review of the show here https://theaterscene.org/2026/10/stream-of-consciousness-of-singing-birds-2/
CAST
Kevin Mitchell Martin
Bina Sharif
Eric Blitz
Singing birds is Bina Sharif‘s 36 play. She is a Joseph Jefferson award nominee from Chicago’s Godman Theater, ten-time award winner, Jerome Foundation and NYSCA award twice as a playwright.
Her plays have been produced in NYC at TNC and in Pakistan, Canada, England and in many universities in the U.S.A.
Her play, my ancestor’s house is published in an anthology by Rutledge press and being taught in many universities. Her one woman show, Afghan woman was performed in more than 20 universities in the U.S.A.
She is a poet, performance artist and a visual artist. She is also a medical doctor and has an MPH degree from John Hopkins University.
Kevin Mitchell Martin is a trained, classical actor who has done Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe and many other roles off Broadway.
Eric Blitz (Musician) is a career drummer/performer and activist who has worked in the music and art scene in NYC and California.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
A Rome Neal Banana Puddin’ Jazz Production
“TIME FLIES”
Rome’s Birthday Bash
Monday, September 28, 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
*Limited seating — don’t sleep on this one!*
Now in its more than two-decade run, Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz has become a beloved fixture of the downtown New York jazz scene — a series that pairs top-tier live jazz with Neal’s homemade banana pudding, served to the whole house. What began at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe as an outgrowth of Neal’s acclaimed one-man show “Monk” has grown into one of the city’s longest-running and most community-minded jazz showcases, having presented hundreds of musicians over the years. “TIME FLIES” continues that tradition as a joyful birthday celebration featuring an all-star band and, following the concert, an open jam session inviting musicians and guests in the audience to sit in.
Rome Neal will take the stage in concert alongside a celebrated lineup of jazz musicians:
Following the concert, the evening continues with an open jam session, inviting musicians and guests to join in the celebration.
About the Artists Rome Neal is a veteran actor, director, producer, and jazz vocalist who has been a driving force in New York’s jazz and Black theater communities for decades. He first became immersed in jazz while researching his acclaimed one-man play “Monk” (by Laurence Holder), in which he portrays Thelonious Monk — a role that earned him and Holder an AUDELCO Award. That experience inspired Neal to found Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz, a jazz concert series distinguished by his signature complimentary homemade banana pudding, which he has hosted for more than 20 years, presenting hundreds of artists along the way. Over the years the series has featured jazz greats including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Randy Weston, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Amiri Baraka, Barry Harris, and Samara Joy, among many others. Neal received the 2022 AUDELCO Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to Black theater.
As a jazz vocalist, Neal has performed at Town Hall on Broadway, The Metropolitan Room, The Museum of the City of New York, Lenox Lounge, Joe’s Pub, St. Nick’s Pub, Minton’s Playhouse, Showman’s, 966 Jazz, Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, Barclays Center, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and The Jazz Spot, and he has performed around town as lead vocalist for the Bill Lee Mo’ Better Quintet (led by Spike Lee’s father). He is the artist behind the CD “A Brighter Crooner,” and his live concert “All in the Puddin'” was recently released on DVD along with “Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz Jam… A Night to Remember.”
André Chez Lewis is a Grammy Award-winning pianist, music director, arranger, orchestrator, and instructor. He currently serves as music director and pianist for Dionne Warwick and is the keyboardist/organist for the Grammy-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, with whom he shared in the 2026 Grammy Award for the album “I Will Not Be Moved.” A protégé of the late pianist Dr. Barry Harris, Lewis has worked on Broadway and off-Broadway productions and has appeared on screen as a pianist, including portraying Bob Dylan’s pianist Paul Griffin in the film “A Complete Unknown” and as a jazz pianist in the television series “Godfather of Harlem.” He holds a BFA in Jazz and Contemporary Music from The New School.
Lonnie Plaxico is a Chicago-born jazz double bassist and one of the most versatile sidemen of his generation. He turned professional at fourteen and moved to New York at twenty, quickly working alongside Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, and Hank Jones. Plaxico came to wider prominence through Wynton Marsalis’s group before joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (1983–86), recording twelve albums with the band, including the Grammy-winning “New York Scene.” He was a member of the M-Base collective alongside Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, and Greg Osby, and has long served as musical director and bassist for Cassandra Wilson. His extensive credits also include Dizzy Gillespie, Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, David Murray, Branford Marsalis, and Alice Coltrane.
Dwayne “Cook” Broadnax is a Philadelphia-born drummer who has been a mainstay of the New York jazz scene for nearly four decades. Known for his powerful, in-the-pocket sound, he has performed with artists including Johnny Copeland, Little Jimmy Scott, and Bill Doggett, and leads his own groups at NYC jazz venues in addition to his extensive work as a sideman.
Patience Higgins is a New York-based saxophonist, flutist, and multi-reed specialist whose career spans jazz, gospel, R&B, and Broadway. He has performed and recorded with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Dee Dee Bridgewater (including her double Grammy-winning album “Dear Ella”), Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, and Sam and Dave, among many others. His Broadway credits include “The Wiz,” “Chicago,” “Dreamgirls,” “Avenue Q,” and “Motown: The Musical.” Higgins leads the long-running Sugar Hill Quartet, formerly the house band at Harlem’s Lenox Lounge and St. Nick’s Pub, and teaches at the New School and Jazzmobile.
Community Support
This performance is supported by a community of sponsors and partners, including John D. Smith, Stephen McKinley Henderson, the Jazz Foundation of America, Tracy Appleton, Dr. Mona Vaughn Scott, Sheryl Renee Productions, Malaika M. Scott MD, Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman, Leila Lewis, Stephen Kornstein, Black Repertory Group Berkeley, Coombs Brooklyn Printing, and the Black Theatre Project (Documentary).
Those interested in becoming a Rome Neal Banana Puddin’ Jazz sponsor can learn more at **romeneal.com**.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
A Rome Neal Banana Puddin’ Jazz Production
“JAZZY THESPIANS NIGHT”
Dedicated to AUDELCO
Monday, October 26, 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
Theatre Folk Get Their Jazz on as we celebrate AUDELCO with a Jazz Concert & Jam at Theater for the New City
AUDELCO-nominated actors Hollie Harper, Ria Alexander and C. Kelly Wright join the bill. Monday, October 26. – 7:30 PM – 10:30 PM
NEW YORK, NY – Theater for the New City, led by Executive Director Crystal Field, presents Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz, an evening of live jazz and celebration on Monday, October 26, 2026, honoring AUDELCO (the Audience Development Committee, Inc.), which has championed Black excellence in theatre for more than five decades. The concert and jam session takes place just weeks before AUDELCO’s [annual awards ceremony] on November 16 at the Alhambra Ballroom.
Guest vocalist Vondie Curtis Hall, the actor and director known for *Chicago Hope*, *Daredevil*, and *Gridlock’d* and an original cast member of Broadway’s *Dreamgirls*, will sing a couple of jazz standards.
Joining the evening are three artists with 2026 AUDELCO nominations:
Hollie Harper, actress and comedian, nominated for Featured Actress in Melanie Maria Goodreaux’s *Popes of Farragut Street* (TNC)
Ria Alexander, actress and costume designer, nominated for Costume Design for Felix Omozusi’s “Watch The Throne” (BST)
C. Kelly Wright, actress and vocalist, nominated for Supporting Actress in Anthony Mapp’s “Skin Folks” (NEC), will perform vocal selections. Along with past AUDELCO “VIV” Awardee Mr. Taptastic (Brian Davis), who will tap and sing!
Other JAZZY THESPIANS include: Aziza Miller ( Hell’s Kitchen), Lee Summers (Dreamgirls), Perri Gaffney, Daralyn Jay, and Rob Fulton
Musicians: Marcus Persiani (piano), Melissa Slocum (bass), Dwayne Cook Broadnax (drums), Patience Higgins (sax)
My Banana Puddin’ JAZZY THESPIANS NIGHT has always been my way of showing love to AUDELCO which has celebrated my work over the years.” said Rome Neal, multi-AUDELCO Award-winning actor, director and lighting designer, and creator of the long-running series Banana Puddin’ Jazz.
EVENT DETAILS
When: Monday, October 26, 2026. Doors 7 PM; music 7:30–10:30 PM
Where: Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (at 10th Street), New York, NY
Tickets: $20
Box office: 212-254-1109 | theaterforthenewcity.net
Early reservations: Rome Neal, 718-288-8048
About AUDELCO (Audience Development Committee, Inc.)
AUDELCO acknowledges and honors Black theatre and its artists in New York City. It was established and incorporated in 1973 by Vivian Robinson (1926–1996) to stimulate interest in and support of the performing arts in Black communities.
About Theater for the New City
Founded in 1971, Theater for the New City (TNC) is an award-winning community cultural center dedicated to producing innovative theatre and fostering diverse artistic voices. Under Crystal Field’s direction, TNC remains a vital East Village institution where art and activism meet.
About Rome Neal
Rome Neal is a multi-AUDELCO Award-winning actor, director and lighting designer. He is known for his Banana Puddin’ Jazz series, which brings together jazz artists, poets and actors, and he directed the jazz plays Laurence Holder’s MONK, about Thelonious Monk, and Samuel Harp’s Don’t Explain, about Lee Morgan.
Media Contact: Rome Neal, romeneal25@gmail.com, 718-288-8048
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Boy Santos
November 5, 2026 – November 29, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
No show November 26, Thanksgiving
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: Approx. 90-110 minutes, not including 10 min intermission.
JOHNSON THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
An older Puerto Rican man, Charlie Santos, forced to walk home after a train malfunction, encounters a dangling red door, hanging precipitously from the entrance of an abandoned building, that immediately reawakens memories of his impoverished childhood in Spanish Harlem, 1962. The memories are brought into focus by a Narrator and revolve around Charlie’s quest to discover the cause of his infant brother’s death. Tracing events that unfold about him on the stage, he relives the quaint, curious, downtrodden and sometimes tragic circumstances in which he and his older brother, Daniel, were abandoned by their heroin-addicted father, Hector, and raised by their single mother, Maria, who tried to make a decent life for them. Convinced that one particularly traumatizing incident experienced by his pregnant mother may have caused the death of his baby brother, Charlie is forced to retrace a series of events, backwards and forwards, all circumscribed by extreme poverty and dysfunction, that seem to blend innocence, guilt and crucial necessity into a fateful concoction of unavoidable reality. In the process of recovering his suppressed past, a poignant picture is painted of life in the worn-down tenements of Spanish Harlem of the early 60’s. The ways children played, the ways grownups interacted, the ways junkies insinuated themselves into every aspect of street and home life, are enacted on the stage in both general and stark detail. Charlie must come to terms with what his memories reveal and somehow make peace with a period in his life that answers old questions as it raises new ones.
CAST
Janelle Fuentes
Victoria Nieves
Daniel Lugo
Inma Heredia
Christina Andrea Ramsey
Allison Patrick
Jeancarlos Aponte
Alex Burns
Lenin Alevante
Robert Saenz
Juan Villegas
JC Augustin
PRODUCTION
Playwright – Juan Villegas
Director – Ian Gordon
Set Design – Lytza Colón
Scenic Artist – Mary Blanchard
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Artistic Director, Crystal Field
Presents
ASTORIA
November 5, 2026 – November 22, 2026
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets – $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run time: 90 minutes
CINO THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
NEW YORK, NY — Theater for the New City presents the World Premiere of ASTORIA, a play by Richard Ploetz about one multi-generational family confronting the end of an era. During weekly dinners at his grandmother Helen’s longtime apartment, Michael, a writer, chronicles his family history in the form of a play. When Helen takes a fall, Michael must face the possibility of moving her into a nursing home. As he prepares for this transition, his estranged father, Walter, arrives, reopening old wounds and exposing competing versions of the family’s history.
“ASTORIA is a ghost, a memory play,” says David Leeper, who plays the protagonist, Michael. The plot weaves time, as Michael recalls and reimagines the past, confronts an unknown future, and tries to manage the reality of the present.
As family secrets surface, some members want to keep digging while others would rather bury the past. Michael’s girlfriend, Venus, presses him for commitment; Otto, Helen’s lifelong neighbor and a Greek waiter, brings comic relief. The apartment building also includes Mr. Kodura, a Polish man experiencing a midlife crisis, and a young blind cellist who practices across the courtyard. Playwright, Richard Ploetz, has created a world where personal upheavals intersect with the everyday rhythms of life in Astoria, Queens.
“This play explores the need to understand our past in order to move forward while deciding how much we carry with us and what we push aside,” says Ploetz. “It’s an emotional journey we all experience or will experience as generations before us are lost and we consider what we’re leaving behind.”
As Michael attempts to transform family history into art, he must confront a central dilemma: Can he recreate the past faithfully enough to understand it when memory is unreliable, family members disagree, and the present demands his attention?
CAST
*David Leeper (Michael)
Mary Ruth Baggott (Venus/Blind Cellist)
ReW Starr (Helen)
*Steve Hauck (Walter)
Gary Ray Bugarcic (Otto/Mr. Kodura)
*AEA
PRODUCTION
Playwright: Richard Ploetz
Director: Mark Finley
Assistant Director: Sydney Anderson
Production Manager: Devorah Shubowitz
Stage Manager: Mathew Seepersad
Sound and Light Design: Joshua J. Groth
Set Design: Lytza Colón
