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