THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
ROME NEAL BANANA PUDDIN’ JAZZ
LADY …. JAZZY THESPIANS
Monday, March 25, 2024 at 7 PM – 10 PM
Tickets: $18 General Admission
COMMUNITY SPACE
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
Celebrating Women History Month
Featuring vocalists:
Ria Alexander
Daralyn Jay
Lady Leah
Allison Semmes
Tracey Titus
Musicians:
Melissa Slocum (b)
Wen- Teng Wu (ds)
with complementary banana puddin’ for ALL
And Open Mic / Jam Session
The evening includes actresses who love and sing Jazz music:
Ria Alexander, an AUDELCO award winning actress recently seen giving a sterling performance as lead actress in TNC’s LEAVES by Victor Vauban Junior.
Leah Finnie (aka Lady Leah) who was nominated for a Featured Actress AUDELCO Award in NEC’s production of Charles White’s UNTITLED. She can be seen in National TV & Radio advertisements for Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Colonial Penn Life Insurance, Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoWellcome, Nestle’, AT&T, and many more.
Leah’s professional singing career also began in New York City, performing at the Red Rooster, Lenox Lounge, Sugar Bar, The Metropolitan Room, and the Apollo. She’s always been inspired by Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles; some of her mother’s favorites. Her sultry voice and demeanor have captured audiences everywhere.
Daralyn Jay is vocalist that truly defies categorization—as capable of scatting her way through a swing chorus as tossing a soulful riff. She interprets standards as well as Latin, R&B and pop tunes, incorporating rarely performed verses and using French, Portuguese and Spanish lyrics to tell the story.
Daralyn has appeared on the stages of top New York venues, including The Kitano, Minton’s, Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club, Smoke and Ginny’s. She has also performed as a guest artist in such international locales as France, Italy, Turkey, China, Cuba and Israel.
An accomplished actress, Daralyn has numerous theater, film, television, commercial and voiceover credits, including TV series “Law & Order” and “Blue Bloods.”
Allison Semmes who appeared on Broadway as Diana Ross in Motown the Musical, and The Book of Mormon (2011)…. On February 4, 2024 Allison completed a run on Broadway as Josephine Baker in the musical Harmony with music by Barry Manilow.
Sponsors:
Sonia Sanchez, Ishmael Reed, Woodie King Jr.,
Stephen McKinley Henderson, Carl Clay, Hollis King,
John D. Smith, Askia Davis Jr., Toni Petersen,
Steve Cromity, Barbara Muhammad, Larry Cherry
Perri Gaffney, Sheryl Renee Productions
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
TNC to host memorial for composer Joseph Vernon Banks March 16
NEW YORK — On March 16 at 3:00 PM, Theater for the New City (TNC), 155 First Avenue (at East Tenth Street), will celebrate the life of Joseph Vernon Banks, the long-time composer of its Street Theater productions, who died at age 62 on November 11, 2023.
Banks wrote original music for eighteen of TNC’s free street theater productions between 2003 and 2023 and conducted their five-piece orchestras, touring with the company for two months each summer through parks, playgrounds and closed-off streets throughout the five boroughs. The plays were bouncy joyrides through the undulations of the body politic, with astute commentary couched in satire, song and slapstick. The music of each show varied in style from Jazz to Bossa Nova to Hip Hop to Musical Comedy to classical Cantata. TNC Street Theater productions are delightfully suited for family audiences, with complex social issues often presented through children’s allegories, with children and neighborhood people as the heroes.
“The State of the Union” Theater for the New City Street Theater production Identity confusion causes the neighborhood to be raided by men in black. Photo by Jonathan Slaff, 2003
Banks composed the scores for “Liberty or Just Us: a City Park Story,” “No Brainer or the Solution to Parasites,” “SHAME! Or The Doomsday Machine,” “Checks and Balances, or Bottoms Up!,” “Teach it Right, or Right to Teach,” “EMERGENCY!!! or The World Takes A Selfie,” “99% “Reduced Fat, or, You Can Bank On Us,” “Bamboozled, or the Real Reality Show,” “Tap Dance,” “The State Of The Union,” “The Patients Are Running The Asylum,” “Bio-Tech,” “Code Orange: on the M15,” “Social Insecurity,” “Buckle My Shoe,” “Gone Fission: Alternative Power,” “Critical Care, or Rehearsals for a Nurse,” and “Life on the Third Rail, or A Subway Delay to the Future.” All were written in collaboration with Crystal Field, who penned book and lyrics and directed the pieces.
Banks fought cancer throughout his final years but in spite of numerous setbacks in his health, managed to write a new score and lead the orchestra year after year. Recently, he mentored and supported a successor, Peter Dizozza, an up and coming composer, to take his place as resident composer of TNC’s Street Theater.
Ms Field wrote, “His music for our five-borough tour lent grace and joy to each new musical. His generosity of spirit pervaded the theater during the rehearsals and performances of each new work. His philosophy showed itself in his music and greatly influenced the direction in my writing. His legacy is strong and vibrant and his memory will remain in the hearts of the many performers who graced and will grace the outside stage of each new ‘Operetta for the Street’.”
Banks’ other TNC productions included music and lyrics for “Life’s Too Short To Cry” by Michael Vazquez.
His awards included a Meet The Composer Grant, the ASCAP Special Awards Program, and a fellowship from the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at NYU. His musical “Girlfriends!” premiered at The Goodspeed Opera House. He was a composer–in-residence in The Tribeca Performing Arts Center Work and Show Series and a member of The Dramatists Guild.
The memorial March 16 will feature tributes by Michael Roberts, Elizabeth Barkan, Olive Joseph, Jessie Ortiz, Michael David Gordon, Terry Lee King and TNC’s Street Theater Company with time for speakers at the end.
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Aftershocks
March 28 – April 14, 2024
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets: $18, Seniors $15
Run Time: 90 minutes, no intermission
CINO THEATER
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
A woman with a troubled past and a history of casual relationships falls for the one man she cannot touch, due to his own childhood trauma. Together, they attempt to heal from the lingering effects of their early wounds, but in pushing the boundaries of their comfort zones, they are met with unforeseen challenges and dangerous consequences.
*For ages 15 and up. Show contains sex, violence, sexual violence, profanity, alcohol, talk of sexual abuse and trauma*
CAST
Rori Nogee*
Cameron Cave*
Zoe Laiz*
Andrew Ricci
Jon McHatton
John Stillwaggon*
*Members appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Lissa Moira
Stage Manager: Emma Weiner
Fight Choreographer: Alex Kass
Intimacy Coordinator: Gara Roda
Choreographer: William Bailey
Lighting Designer: Peter Leibold
Set Designer: Evan Frank
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
It is the first time Mr. Pendleton has directed his own work. Theater for the New City encourages authors to direct their own work because it ensures that their philosophy and values are kept intact. TNC is a playground for emerging writers in which they can express divergent views, sometimes unique to themselves, because later productions will allow the director’s view to influence the work.
Ryan Tremont as Laurence Olivier, Natalie Menna as Vivian Leigh. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
“Orson’s Shadow,” based on true events, takes place on the stage of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and later on the stage of the Royal Court Theatre. In his declining years, Orson Welles is directing a production of Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright. Olivier is fresh from his triumphant theatrical portrayal of vaudevillian Archie Rice in John Osborne’s “The Entertainer” and is about to reprise the role in its film adaptation. He and Plowright are in the early stages of a romantic liaison and his tumultuous marriage to Vivien Leigh is all but ended. The noted critic Kenneth Tynan becomes entangled in the conflicts between Welles, Olivier, and Leigh, adding tension and complexity to their relationships and influencing their decisions and perceptions. The play debates the merits of stage versus screen, the internal struggle that theatrical performers endure when contemplating a leap to films, and the ways the studio system frustrated the careers of individual artists. It is also a study of theatrical egos, each of the protagonists living more on the stage than in real life, each one feeling insecure while jockeying for power.
The piece received critical note during its first production at Steppenwolf in 2000 and its New York debut at Barrow Street Theater in 2005. Its sharp writing and engaging performances contributed to its favorable reception, establishing it as a noteworthy work in contemporary theater. Since that time, Mr. Pendleton has worked on the play, making revisions and further developing the script.
Austin Pendleton and cast of “Orson’s Shadow.” Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Austin Pendleton is an actor, a director, a playwright and a teacher of acting at HB Studio in New York, where he studied with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof. His other plays include “Booth” and “Uncle Bob.” All his plays have been published and produced extensively. “Booth” explores the life and relationships of the Booth family, particularly focusing on the famous actor Edwin Booth and his troubled brother, John Wilkes Booth, who infamously assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. “Uncle Bob” revolves around the relationship between a young man named Josh and his eccentric uncle, Bob. It explores themes of family, sexuality, morality, and the complexities of human relationships with humor, depth, and emotional resonance. Pendleton’s first Broadway appearance was as Motel in the original cast of Fiddler on the Roof; his first off-Broadway appearance was in “Oh Dad, Poor Dad…” by Arthur Kopit. Both of these were directed by Jerome Robbins. He is a member of the Ensemble in Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. He has appeared in several hundred movies and on TV in such shows as “Homicide,” “Oz” and “Law and Order.” He has directed Tony-nominated shows on Broadway (“Spoils of War,” “The Little Foxes”) and directed extensively at other theaters, notably the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where he apprenticed and got his start under the guidance of its Artistic Director, Nikos Psacharopoulos.
He writes, “I’ve worked several times over the years at Theater for the New City. Every single one of those times I had a productive, enriching, and exciting time. Crystal provides loving, comprehensive, and productively stern support. It’s wonderful just knowing that her theater is THERE. And I’ve never seen a show there, either, that wasn’t eminently worth seeing.”
CAST
Brad Fryman* as Orson Welles
Patrick Hamilton as Kenneth Tynan
Luke Hofmaier* as Sean
Natalie Menna as Vivien Leigh
Kim Taff* as Joan Plowright
Ryan Tramont* as Laurence Olivier
PRODUCTION
Co-Director: David Schweizer
Stage Manager: Jose Ruiz
Company Manager/ Assistant Director: Mark Karafin
Lighting Design: Alexander Bartenieff
Sound Design: Nick Moore
Costume Design: Billy Little
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
PHARAOH
BY MISHA SHULMAN
Character study of the villain of Exodus is rendered in Kathakali style.
March 15 – 31, 2024
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
No performance Friday, March 22
Tickets: $18
Run Time: 75 minutes, No Intermission
THEATER
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
The piece, which tells the biblical Exodus story from the perspective of the king of Egypt, is a work for two artists: Shulman, dressed in black, gives voice to all the characters, while Kalamandalam John, founder and Director of Kalatharangini Kathakali School in South India, performs the play in movement theater using vibrant traditional Indian dance drama and elaborate makeup. Everything is in English. Michael Posnick directs.
The production was inspired in 2008 when Shulman was in the village of Muzhikulam, Kerala to watch a fifteen-day play called the Asokavanikangam, or the Asoka Tree Garden, performed in the Kudiyatam, Sanskrit theater tradition. This Indian classic, taken from the Ramayana, the holy Hindu book, tells of how The arch-villain Ravana kidnaps the goddess Sita, taking her to his island of Lanka, and trying repeatedly to convince her to succumb to him. Shulman describes the experience as “riveting,” “the slowest thing you’ve ever witnessed,” and “the best thing I had seen in my life.” Longing to make a parallel play of his own, Shulman imagined a staging of the Exodus story in which Jews could watch a play about the inner life of Pharaoh, their greatest enemy, modeled on Ravana and reimagined with Indian influences.
Misha Shulman stands with an art piece by Ghiora Aharoni called The Semicha Ketubah. It’s a statue that Ghiora made for Shulman’s ordination as a rabbi, which took place at Theater for the New City in 2019. Statue includes text of the ordination, verses from Torah, Psalms and the signatures of the rabbinical court (including five rabbis and five artists, including Crystal Field). Photo by Alysia Homminga.
The piece ultimately evolved into a two-man production: a dialogue between a Pharaoh character performed in physical theater by Kalamandalam John, founder and Director of Kalatharangini Kathakali School in South India, and Misha Shulman, clad in black, voicing all the characters of the story including Pharaoh, Moses (stuttering), Pharaoh’s son, wife and father; an Egyptian priest and Death. They are accompanied musically by Galen Passen on Sitar and Tripp Dudley on drums. Kalamandalam John performs with the elaborate costume, colorful makeup, intricate gestures and expressive facial movements of Kathakali.
The piece was initially envisioned to be performed by Shulman as a solo show, influenced by the spirit and style of Kudiyatam. It was workshopped in Toronto, where Shulman was playwright in residence of Crow’s Theater. Later he had a staged reading at the 14th Street Y, where he was a LABA fellow. The project was set to premiere at Theater for the New City in March 2020 but was canceled due to the Covid shutdown.
Misha Shulman was ordained a rabbi in 2019. He is founding director of the School for Creative Judaism, a home for unaffiliated Jews that brings together religion, art and activism under the framework of Jewish tradition, and Rabbi of The New Shul (www.newshul.org). He was raised in Jerusalem, the son of Anglo immigrants; his mother is from Canada and his father, a professor emeritus of Indian studies at Hebrew University, is from Iowa. Their home was filled with Indian culture and Hindu stories. Reflecting on the performance that inspired this play, he writes, “Never before had I seen such a happy marriage between art and religion. When the time came and I was confronted with the possibility of becoming a rabbi, I had a model for a type of religious leadership that I could adapt and emulate.”
Shulman writes that exploring the inner world of Pharaoh “offers both theological and political possibilities that go against the grain of Jewish tradition. The attitude toward Pharaoh is mirrored today in our greatest national anxieties and fears, as well as the defensiveness and self-righteousness those fears often produce. The inability, or perhaps refusal of mainstream Judaism to see the Palestinian experience can, to my mind, be traced back to Pharaoh. The Exodus story is us versus them, with truth on our side and vanity and stubbornness on theirs. ‘Them’ is represented by Pharaoh, who gets beaten down to dust along with the rest of his people. If we can reduce the greatest civilization of the ancient world to ‘false’ and ‘cruel,’ how easy it becomes to do the same to the Palestinian people. Terrorists at best, a non-existent people more likely.”
He continues, “For Jews, the current war has brought to light the terrifying urgency of reworking our relationship with victimhood and blame. Which pieces of our national psyche, we must ask, need be preserved, and which reshaped to fit the twenty-first century? By re-examining the story of our national birth, this play aims to offer a first step in that process. Humanity seems to be at a crossroads: either we continue down this path of vilification of the other, or will we begin to see those we consider to be villains as human beings. In theological terms we ask: does the belief in one god mean that all other gods are false, or that everything and everyone are part of one great oneness?”
This is Shulman’s sixth play produced by Theater for the New City. Before settling in New York, he served in the Israeli army as a Commander in charge of Education. His plays often confront Jewish ethical conundrums like national duty and collective guilt from the viewpoint of a liberal Israeli dissident. These include “Apricots,” “The Fist,” “Desert Sunrise” and “Martyrs Street.” “The Fist” (2004) portrayed the dilemma of Israeli Army refuseniks. “Desert Sunrise” (2005) was deemed “A West Bank Godot” and described as “elegant and affecting” by George Hunka in The New York Times. “Apricots” (2009) was a political Israeli-Palestinian comedy. “Martyrs Street” (2015) told the intertwining stories of two residences in Hebron, a city in the West Bank, that are about to be evacuated by the Israeli authorities. It won two playwriting competitions and received honorable mentions in two others.
In 2008, with “Brunch at the Luthers,” Shulman forsook dramatic realism for Dada to challenge traditional concepts of meaning through the minutia in the lives of an absurd middle-aged couple. His “The Fake History of George the Last” (2010) metaphorically attacked the notion of the inevitability of violence throughout generations in an absurdist style that incorporated iconic imagery from the Book of Ecclesiastes. With “Deathscape” (2011), he employed puppet theater to analyze his dreams through archetypal political and religious symbols. As an actor, Shulman has performed in many plays around the world with the Living Theatre, with DADA New York, and at the Toronto Clown Festival.
Michael Posnick (Director) has helmed theater and musical productions at venues including Yale Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club and NY Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. He has been Artistic Director of Mosaic Theatre, at the 92nd Street Y and Director of the Department of Dance and Theater at Manhattanville College. He has taught at Yale Drama School, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center; National Theatre of the Deaf and Hunter College. He is co-editor with Ellen Schiff, of “Seven Contemporary Jewish Plays” and translator/editor of a number of dramatic works in Hebrew. He was dramaturge of “Davenen,” a production of Pilobolus Dance Theatre which played at the Kennedy Center and Joyce Theatre. He was co-producer of Frank London’s Cuban-Yiddish opera, “Hatuey: Memory of Fire.” He earned his BA and MSEd from Yeshiva University and his MFA from Yale Drama School. He is currently on the faculty of School of Practical Philosophy, New York.
Dr. Kalamandalam John is founder and Director of Kalatharangini Kathakali School. Born in Kerala in 1955, he trained in Kathakali for nine years, eight hours a day at Kerala Kalamandalam under Guru (professor) C. Padmanabhan Nair and Vijayakumar. He studied Sanskrit and Kathakali literature under Prof. Unnikrishnan Elayadu. In 1977 he was awarded the A.D. Bolland Gold medal for the best Kathakali student. In 1978 he was awarded the government of India scholarship. Since completing his course, he has worked as a teacher for both foreign and Indian students in Kerala Kalamandalam. As a member of the Kalamandalam troupe, he has toured all over India and abroad. Dr. John is the first ever Christian Kathakali actor. He includes “Kalamandalam” in his name since graduating from the fames school in 1977.
The Kalamandalam was founded in 1930 to preserve the cultural traditions of Kathakali, the stylized dance drama of Kerala. Kathakali is the classical dance-drama of Kerala, South India, which dates from the 17th century and is rooted in Hindu mythology. It is a unique combination of literature, music, painting, acting and dance performed by actors wearing extensive make up and elaborate costume who perform plays which retell in dance form stories from the Hindu epics.
Misha Shulman writes, “The support and encouragement I’ve received from Theater for the New City has created in me a confidence not only in engaging the world and its wonders and problems theatrically, but also in searching for new ways to express that engagement. With opportunities I received nowhere else, it has shaped me as a playwright and even encouraged me to pursue a non-traditional approach to my rabbinical path, which infuses the faith world with the arts. Crystal Field’s fierce commitment to exploring painful yet crucial truths, through her support for plays on Israel/Palestine and dozens of other issues, is brave, rare and deeply appreciated.”
PRODUCTION
Production coordinator is Susan Meyers.
Costumes and make up are by Dr. Kalatharangini Mary John.
Stage Manager and Assistant Director is Alysia Homminga.
Lighting Designer is Wheeler Moon.
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
Monday, February 26, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Part of New City, New Blood Reading Series
FREE
$5 Suggested Donation
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
How To Break Up a Wedding is a comedy about three sisters – Margaret, Julie, and Tonya – who, despite their differences, get together to carry out every plot, plan, and scheme in attempts to break up their brother’s wedding.
CAST
Danielle Koenig
Gretchen Poole
Kate Gauthier
BIO: Katharine Dreves holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York. Her short film was an official selection in film festivals in Uruguay, Austria, and Germany, and her stage work has been featured in New York City theaters and in the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts.
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
By: Yolanda Rodriguez (from an idea by: Dr. Lloyd Glauberman)
Monday, March 4, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Part of New City, New Blood Reading Series
FREE
$5 Suggested Donation
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th Street)
“Soulman: The Otis Redding Story,” is loosely based on the life and career of rhythm and blues singer/songwriter Otis Redding. The play takes place during the Jim Crow era in the South and is paralleled with the beginnings of the civil rights movement in Macon, Georgia.
Cast (in order of appearance):
1. Tessa Grace, stage directions, young college student, KKK congregant
2. Terry Lee King as Mr. Jimmy and Mr. William P. “Daddy Bill” Randall
3. Yvette Dingwall, older Zelma
4. Tyquanda Johnson, as Sandra, church congregant, and Charlayne Hunter
5. Seine Young, Mrs. Jenkins and young Zelma
6. Calebmichael Williams, an offstage radio announcer, Hamp Swain, church congregant, Johnny Jenkins, Thomas, Hamilton Hunter, and Young Otis
7. Robert Henderson, Little Richard, a D.J., Al Jackson, a Stage Announcer
8. King God, Otis Redding
9. James Beecroft, Phil Walden
10.Johnny Gottsegen, Alan “Red” Walden, young teenager (the son of a KKK member)
11. George Prisco, KKK member Sam Bowers, Joe Galkin
12.Phil Oetiker, KKK member Byron De La Beckwith, Edgar Ray Killen, C.B. Walden, Jim Stewart,, radion announcer (pg 94 and pg 104)
13.Danilo Zepeda, KKK member James Ford Seale, young college student
14.Louis Courage, KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, Steve Cropper
15.Edward Pieczenik, KKK member Thomas Edwin Blanton, Jr., Jerry Wexler, KKK congregant, Lewis Steinberg
16.Lillian Berger, Becky, the KKK nurse, and KKK congregant
17.Nicole Arcieri, Estelle Axton, KKK congregant
18.Gregory Wheeler, Otis Redding, Sr.
19.Back ground music: Joel Diamond
Bio:
Y. Rodriguez is a published, produced and award winning playwright and director. Her book, “Urban Folktales,” a collection of short stories, was released in April 2023. Many of Ms. Rodriguez’s plays were produced and directed by Ms. Crystal Field, co-founder and Artistic Director of the Theater for the New City. Ms. Rodriguez is a professional singer/songwriter and performs with her band AYOKA in venues throughout NYC. music by: Joel Diamond
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Issue #9
Written and Directed by Briana Bartenieff
Music composed by J. H Greenwell
April 4 – 21, 2024
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets:
Thursdays – Pay What You Can
Friday, Saturday, Sunday – General Admission $20
Students & Dramatist Members $15
Run Time: 2 hours with a 10 minute intermission.
COMMUNITY SPACE
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
NEW YORK — From April 4 to 21, Theater for the New City will present the world premiere of “Issue #9,” an original musical written and directed by Briana Bartenieff, composed by J.H. Greenwell. It’s set in an upstate gas station’s convenience store, where adolescent bullying and obsession with unattainable beauty ideals prompt tragedy in teenage girls and revenge by family members who love them.
The piece is a musical with nine pop rock songs and an all female cast. Its story revolves around Natalie and her adolescent daughter Lexi, who move to Germantown, NY (a burgh in Columbia County) in 1995. Natalie takes a job at the local gas station, and is unaware of the struggles of her daughter, Lexi,who deals with toxic friendships and an eating disorder after becoming obsessed with teen magazines. Lexi is eventually overcome by her dieting compulsion, leading to her tragic death. After her death Natalie, initially ignorant of the severity of her daughter’s obsession, takes control and tries to expose the incredibly harmful influence that teen magazines hold over youth. Ultimately, she exacts a terrible revenge on her daughter’s oppressors (which we won’t explain here).
While it’s a horror story, it’s a character-driven narrative of emotional depth, unlike mainstream horror films that more often prioritize scares and spectacle. It grapples with the existential dread associated with teenage bullying and diet culture. It bears out truthfully the growing concern among mental health professionals about the harmful effects of diet culture and beauty magazines on vulnerable adolescents. The play’s title refers to an issue of the mass market fan/beauty mag that the characters are obsessed with; it is found in the racks of the convenience store the play is set in.
The play was originally developed as Bartenieff’s senior project at SUNY Purchase. It was written in the fall of 2022. A staged reading, which she directed, which was produced last Spring at Purchase College. Since that time, Ms. Bartenieff has expanded and developed much of the piece, adding new songs and replacing dialogue with song.
Briana Bartenieff (writer and director) graduated with a BA in Playwriting and Screenwriting from SUNY Purchase. She has written and directed multiple short plays for TNC’s Lower East Side Festival of the Arts and been Assistant Director for TNC’s summer Street Theater musical for four years in a row. She participates in Lissa Moira’s Live Poet’s Society. Her writings have been published in The Villager, The Village Sun, AM New York and Purchase College’s website as part of their Covid series. She is developing another new musical, “Scammed into Love,” to be produced by TNC in April 2025. She is daughter of Lighting Designer/Actor/Puppeteer Alexander Bartenieff and granddaughter of Crystal Field and George Bartenieff, co-founders of TNC.
H. Greenwell (composer and musical director)isa multi-instrumentalist and composer. Originally from Highland Park, Illinois, they are currently studying music and film at Purchase College in New York. Greenwell has been composing music since third grade, beginning on their Nintendo DS with a copy of “WarioWare D.I.Y.”
CAST
Sarah Boess
Grace Bradley
Sandy Melissa Garcia
Amy Herzberg
Audrey Latt
Ada Victoria
Taylor Lynn – Understudy
PRODUCTION
Set design: Mark Marcante
Light and Sound Design: Alexander Bartenieff
Broken mirror costume: Billy Little
Choreographer: Amy Herzberg
Stage Managers: Rose Desidero and Franklyn Rodriguez
Board Operator: Franklyn Rodriguez
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz
Monday, February 26, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Tickets: $18 General Admission
Run Time:
THEATER
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
…Stepping into a Banana Puddin’ Jazz evening you do not know what to expect….except you know it will be fantastic… the well known and the not yet to be known… Samara Joy, Lillias White, Mimi Block, Ethan Hawke, Randy Weston, Mary Wilson, King Solomon Hicks, Lou Myers, Vondie Curtis Hall, Leonieke Scheuble, Dr. Barry Harris, Elijah Shiffer, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Amiri Baraka, are but a few whose music has favored the Rome Neal Banana Puddin’ Jams….
– Rachel deArago, New York Beacon and Philadelphia Observer
Greetings Folks, Join me for the second RBPJ at TNC as I get to bring you a special Black History Month presentation. A celebration/tribute to Patience Higgins and his Sugar Hill Quartet, the Longest Running Harlem Jazz house band.
The evening consists of a live concert performed by the band with Patience Higgins on sax, Dave Gibson on drums and Marcus Persiani on piano and bass playerTBA. Followed by a short film directed by Rome Neal of the group’s “LAST NIGHT AT ST. NICK’S” an historic Jazz spot where the group played and hosted a world renowned Jazz Jam Session where the great and up and coming performed on Monday night’s for ten years! After the film there will be a JAM SESSION and as always; Rome Neal’s complimentary Banana Puddin’ for ALL!
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Rubber
April 4 – 21, 2024
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets: $18, For Educators $15
Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes with a short intermission
JOHNSON THEATER
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
Tucked away in non-descript government buildings across the country you’ll find “rubber rooms,” a purgatory for educators deemed both unable to teach and legally unable to be fired. In Rubber, the rubber room is closing, and Phil from the teacher’s union has arrived to process the cases of the last remaining teachers. Maureen, an old school marm and possible pill abuser, Jerry, a once popular teacher with anger issues, and Lisa (information redacted upon request of union attorneys) are promised a possible return to the classroom. However, after so many years away, with that promise comes the threat of what waits outside the protection of the drab walls and fluorescent lights they’ve become accustomed to.
CAST
Jake Hart*
Amber Jessie
Celeste Mancinelli*
Michael Patrick Sullivan
Chelsea Lee Walker
*Appears courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
COVID Protocol: As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.
