THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Enough! Plays to End Gun Violence
Directed by Sarah Germain Lilly
Monday, October 6, 2025
Tickets: $20
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Every hour in America, a child is shot. Gun violence silences voices — but in New York City, teens are taking the stage to speak out.
On October 6, Theater for the New City joins over 50 communities nationwide for ENOUGH!, presenting six urgent new plays by teen writers confronting gun violence.
Learn more: enoughplays.com/reading
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and young people in America and has stayed #1 since 2019. On October 6, 2025, young people from across the country will have a platform to
speak, and communities will have the space to listen and act on reducing the deaths and injuries from gun violence.
ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence is a nationwide initiative where teens write short plays confronting gun violence.
This Year’s Plays:
o Holding Space by Abby Dougherty (Georgia)
o Oh Look, Another School Shooting! by Matias Finley (Wisconsin)
o Nobody Cares About Death by Ian Hodges (Florida)
o The Perfect Victim by Payton Aurora Jones (California)
o We Didn’t Have to Meet Here by Pace Rundlett (Mississippi)
o Under Wraps by Olivia Stanley (Texas)
They are six new works by teen writers ages 13–19, tackling themes like school shootings, suicide, officer-involved shootings, and domestic violence. They were submitted by young people all across
America and vetted by a distinguished team that includes playwrights Kate Hamill, James Ijames, Karen Zacarías, Broadway dramaturg Ken Cerniglia, author Jason Reynolds, and Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
Our actors include Nia Weeks, T Scott Lilly, Skye Carrington, Eddie Moore, Phillip Gagliano. They bring their artistry, activism and experience to this project.
Director Sarah Germain Lilly has long been part of the Theater for the New City tribe and is inspired by this opportunity to spread peace and end gun violence. Sarah thanks Crystal Field and the Theater for the New City community for making this reading possible, and Gays Against Guns NY for supporting the readings and community talk back.
Led by its creator Michael Cotey and Joaquin Oliver Artistic Producer, the ENOUGH! initiative calls on teens to confront gun violence by creating new works of theatre that will spark critical conversations and inspire meaningful action in communities across the country.
“Produced by special arrangement with Enough! Plays to End Gun Violence, Michael Cotey, Joaquin Oliver Artistic Producer An anthology of the plays may be purchased from Playscripts at Playscripts.com“.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Tilted Axes: Circle With No Center
Music for Mobile Electric Guitars
October 2 – October 5, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run Time: 75 minutes
JOHNSON THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Circle With No Center transforms the stage into a dynamic landscape where musicians playing mobile electric guitars and percussion move in choreographed formations, weaving intricate sonic textures that blur the lines between concert, dance, and immersive theater. Created by composer and performer Patrick Grant, the work invites audiences to experience music as a living, breathing environment — part ritual, part procession, and entirely unlike anything else currently on the New York stage.
Produced by: Peppergreen Media Music by: Patrick Grant & Tilted Axes composers Choreography by: Christopher Caines Recorded & sequenced elements produced by: Jeremy Nesse & Patrick Grant Performed by: Angela Babin, Elisa Corona Aguilar, Gene Ardor, Jeremy Nesse, Jim Lee, John Ferrari, Patrick Grant, John Halo, and Vince Caiafa
About Tilted Axes
Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is an innovative performance ensemble that takes music off the stage and into unexpected places — streets, galleries, museums, and theaters. With amplified sound, choreography, and public engagement, Tilted Axes turns each performance into a unique, site-specific event.
Patrick Grant is a composer, performer, and producer living in New York City and creates audio for a wide range media and live performance. A native of Detroit, MI, he moved to NYC where he studied at the Juilliard School, worked on the production team for composer John Cage, and produced his first recordings in the studios of Philip Glass. For the stage he has created scores for theatrical visionaries The Living Theatre, Robert Wilson, and produced opening night spectacles for Obama portraitist Kehinde Wiley. He traveled to Bali three times to study the gamelan, work which manifested itself in his use of alternative tunings, ensembles with multiple keyboards, as Composer-in-Residence at Cornell University, and in his work with Robert Fripp & The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists. He is the creator of International Strange Music Day (August 24) since 1998 and the mobile electric guitar procession (Tilted Axes) since 2011. He is a 2021 and 2023 recipient of a Composer Commissions Award from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), a two-time recipient (2020 & 2021) of a Creative Engagement Award from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and a multiple nominee of the Detroit Music Awards (2017-2019). He is a Post Production professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Film & TV and helps produce the “How To Be A Better Human” podcast for TED & PRX. In 2023 he was a composer/judge for ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.
TNC Street Theater Summer Tour – HOME SWEET HOME or A LIFE IN NEW YORK
August 2 – September 14, 2025
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
8/2 • 2pm • Manhattan • TNC at E. 10th St. & First Ave.
8/3 • 2pm • Bronx • St. Mary’s Park at 147th St. & St. Ann’s Ave.
8/9 • 2pm • Staten Island • Tappen Park btw. Canal & Water Streets
8/10 • 2pm • Manhattan • Central Park Bandshell, 72nd Street Crosswalk
8/15 • 5pm • Brooklyn • Coney Island Boardwalk at W. 10st St.
8/16 • 2pm • Manhattan • St. Marks Church at E. 10th St. & Second Ave.
8/17 • 2pm • Manhattan • Jackie Robinson Park at W. 147th St. & Bradhurst Ave.
8/23 • 2pm • Manhattan • Washington Square Park
8/24 • 2pm • Queens • Travers Park at 34th Ave. btw. 77th & 78th Streets
9/6 • 2pm • Brooklyn • Sunset Park at 6th Ave. & 44th St.
9/7 • 2pm • Brooklyn • Fort Greene Park, Myrtle Avenue & St. Edwards Street
9/13 • 2pm • Manhattan • Sol Bloom Playground, W 91st Street btw. Columbus Ave & Central Park West
9/14 • 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 2025 annual tour Saturday, August 2 with “Home Sweet Home, or A Life In New York,” a rip-roaring original musical which tells a story of a young orphan, born in America but longing to understand his roots, as deportations shake the lives of his immigrant friends. 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 14.
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. This year’s play is a story of a young man, an orphan seeking his family roots, at a time when many of his friends are being deported. He was born in America but he knows in his heart that he has a kinship to his fellow young New Yorkers who are suffering greatly and whose sense of security is greatly threatened. He dreams of his desire to become a teacher. In his dream, the Statue of Liberty rises up and embraces him. She reaches out to call out to his friends who hang onto her skirt as the waters of the ocean pull them away.
The owner of the local bodega, where the young man works, is an emigre from Guyana who had proudly obtained his citizenship 20 years ago. Every Sunday morning he plays chess with his friend, the local Firefighter from the Firehouse next door. Together, the two men take the Young Man under their wing and help him find his roots. They sing of fighting fires throughout history (Slavery! Fascism! Atomic War!). Now our beloved Nation suffers immigrant deportation. They summon Lady Liberty and plead for her aid. Lady Liberty appears surrounded by native New Yorkers who support her and guide her new-found children to safety. The musical score includes bold songs like “Pilgrims to the Present” and “We Fight Fire,” culminating in “Together at Last,” a hopeful finale that celebrates unity, diversity, and the dream of a just future.
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 Bodega Owner. 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 paid 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 2022 Street Theater tour, “Teacher! Teacher! or PS I Love You.” 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 Director, Crystal Field
Presents
A House Full of Flies
a tragic drama by WillieAnn Gissendanner.
Emotionally resonant exploration of intergenerational trauma, spirituality and the ties that both bind and break.
June 19 – July 6, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
There will be a performance July 4th
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes plus 10 minute intermission
THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Set in a small town in Georgia across two turbulent eras, 1937 and the early 1990s, “A House Full of Flies” weaves a haunting narrative of misunderstanding, delusion, deceit, and ego–fueled by religious dogma and racist mythology– that have heartbreaking consequences.
At the heart of the story is Savannah Holster, a Black American Christian woman who is a widow. She lives by her wits and presents her grown children as siblings, possibly to obscure her age. She is emotionally scarred by racist humiliations her family suffered in her childhood. From her kitchen table, she runs a faith-based healing practice, finding meaning and control in her strict religiosity. Her fraught relationship with her daughter, Deirdre, simmers with unresolved tension. She shares her home with her adult son, named Prayer, who is devoted to his controlling mother and defends their home fiercely.
When Savannah becomes involved with her lawyer, a rising white conservative politician named Jackson Vance, her world begins to unravel. Her adult daughter Deirdre, while seeking help with a legal matter of her own, inadvertently reveals to Vance that Savannah is her mother. That realization shatters Vance’s ego, triggering a night of confrontation that ends in tragedy. In the aftermath, visions, guilt, and grief descend upon Savannah in the form of a prophetic dream that warns of doom for her young grandson. When that vision comes true it is devastating, but through it all, the bonds of kinship remain strong and hope endures. Even as shadows gather, the light of faith and fierce maternal love refuses to go out.
The play is resonant with the folklore, atmosphere and dialect of 20th century central Georgia. The flies referred to in the title are, symbolically (and literally), evils. Playwright Gissendanner explains, “When somebody has sent a spell, it could be manifested by flies and this is one of Savannah’s deep beliefs.” The spells symbolize the collective anxieties weighing on southern Black women of her generation.
“A House Full of Flies” is a production of Theater for the New City’s Emerging Playwrights Program. This program is integral to the theater’s mission, which includes being a center for new and innovative theater arts, discovering relevant new writing and nurturing new playwrights.
WillieAnn Gissendanner, born and raised in Gordon, Georgia, is a graduate of Paine College (Augusta, GA) and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NYC). Her theatrical acting resume includes Euripides’ “Medea” (Workshop Theater Company) and the solo plays “BO” by G. C. Sullivan (Workshop Theater Company, John Houseman Theater and Staten Island Armory) and “Woman” by Lawrence Holder (Paul Robeson Theatre, Brooklyn). She created, produced, and directed the NAACP ACT-SO Evening of Theater. She is author of “Pearls and Swine/This Body Is Mine,” which premiered at Theater for the New City in 2023 and was praised for its bold, unapologetic take on women’s bodily autonomy. Her plays “Pearls and Swine/This Body is Mine” and “A Houseful of Flies” were selected for Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning’s Meet the Playwright Festival and scenes from both plays were presented there. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA.
Gissendanner writes, “Theater For The New City is a theater community where dreams can be realized. Its arms are open to artistic souls seeking expression as playwrights, poets and actors. I am privileged and thankful to be welcomed into this community and to have my work presented on its stages. So grateful to Ms. Crystal Field and the founders of TNC for bringing into existence this vital community for performing artists.”
CAST
WillieAnn Gissendanner – Savannah
Kai Brown
Marcia Hopson
Sania Hyatt
Lola Lukas
Obinna Nwako
Aubrey Smith
Bill Tatum
Douglas Walker
Scott Williams
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Four Evangelists Walk into a Fog
by Douglas Lackey
Founding of a major new world religion is an occasion for intellectual dark comedy.
May 1 – May 18, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20 tickets, $15 Students and Seniors
Run Time: 1 hour 15 minutes plus intermission
JOHNSON THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote four differing gospels and created Christianity. These four evangelists actually never met, but they do–as members of a comedic literary synod –in “Four Evangelists Walk into a Fog” by Douglas Lackey. The results are hilarious and profound. Theater for the New City (TNC), which has been Lackey’s theatrical home since 2003, will present the work’s premiere run May 1 to 18, directed by Mark Harborth.
Playwright Douglas Lackey has two lives, as a playwright and a philosophy professional. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale and is a Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College, CUNY, where he has taught since 1972. As a playwright, he specializes in serious portraits of historical/intellectual figures in moral dilemmas, including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Giulio Caesare Vanini (a free-thinking physician-philosopher of 17th century Italy), Bertrand Russell, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and General Heywood Hansell (who advocated for a strategy of daylight precision bombing over saturation bombing in WWII). All of Lackey’s previous plays at TNC have been praised for their deft mixtures of philosophy, romance and politics. He has also written several other historical plays that he calls “comedies of ideas.” This is one of them.
It was inevitable, perhaps, that Mr. Lackey would take up the subject of contradictions among the Gospels, which is quite popular in theological, academic, and secular circles. It has been widely discussed for centuries and remains an active topic in biblical studies, apologetics, and skeptical critiques of Christianity. The four Gospels differ on key details, which include Jesus’ genealogy, his final words on the cross and the timing of the resurrection appearances. Mark and John omit the virgin birth. Paul’s letters, written earlier than these four accounts, rarely mention Jesus’ earthly life and contradict Gospel accounts on the resurrection’s witnesses and Jesus’ teachings on the Law.
These various disagreements provide food for fun and amicable debate in the play, with the contradictions providing natural comedic tension. It could be mistaken for a debate between philosophy professors in the faculty lounge of an American college. The foursome are aware that their writings will become the foundation of a major world religion, so their tone is collegial and good-natured. If there is any intellectual critique, it is based on logic. Comedic anachronisms heighten the satire as the evangelists struggle with the weight of shaping a new faith, bickering over details while Mary Magdalene, their “reality check,” cuts through their abstractions with raw lived experience. It’s done with rapid-fire dialogue, shifting alliances and moments of deep introspection. Think “No Exit” meets “The West Wing” with a theological twist.
Lackey even manages to inject some backstage humor, as in this argument:
John: The psalms say the Messiah’s bones shall not be broken. No broken legs. Let’s move on to the Resurrection.
Matthew: We have problems with the resurrection. Lots of skepticism. Many Jews say the body was stolen from the tomb. Some even say that the followers of Jesus hired an actor to go around Judea pretending to be Jesus. The actor put holes in his hands to make it real.
Mark: Who would believe that? No actor will put holes through his hands just to get paid.
Luke: Apparently you don’t know many actors.
Douglas Lackey has a 22 year relationship with Theater for the New City, which has presented all his plays to-date. His first play, “Kaddish in East Jerusalem” (2003), dealt with issues of the Second Intifada. His “Daylight Precision” (2014) was a historical drama examining “just war” theories through an unsung hero of World War II, Gen. Haywood Hansell. Lackey’s “Arendt-Heidegger: A Love Story” (2018) dramatized the unlikely romance between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. His “Ludwig and Bertie” (2019) charted the forty-year love/hate relationship between Bertrand Russell and his most famous student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. His “The Wayward Daughter of Judah the Prince” (2021) was a sort of a philosopher’s “Thelma and Louise” in which the daughter of Judah the Prince (compiler of The Mishnah–the core section of The Talmud) runs off with her Christian slave girl lover to measure herself against the conflicting philosophies of the period. His “Spies for the Pope” (2023) charted the tragic career of Giulio Caesare Vanini (1585-1619), an Italian philosopher recruited by the Vatican (in Lackey’s telling) for an impossible mission: averting the Thirty Years War by reconciling the Catholic and Protestant antagonisms in key European countries. All these plays have been critically praised as explosive dramas of ideas, romance and politics.
Lackey writes, “I am grateful to Crystal Field and Theater for the New City for encouraging me to present this story. TNC is willing to take on my ‘comedies of ideas’ and these are quite different from the contemporary obsession with plays of jumbled identities and failed relationships. Kudos to a theater that will buck the mainstream.”
Director Mark Harborth was Producing Artistic Director of Gallery Players in Brooklyn, where he has staged “Ragtime,” “Dreamgirls,” “Gypsy,” “Evita,” “Rent,” “It Shoulda Been You,” “A Few Good Men,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Chess” and “Run For Your Wife,” among others. His regional credits include “Hello Dolly,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “High Spirits,” “Chicago,” “Children of a Lesser God,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Pirates of Penzance.” He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
CAST
Zephyr Caulfield (Matthew)
John Gionis (Mark)
Nick Freedson (Luke)
Matthew Foley (John)
Andy English (Paul)
Barbara McCulloh (Mary Magdalene)
PRODUCTION
Set design is by Jerry Mittelhauser
Lighting design is by Scott Cally
Costume design is by Joey Haws
Stage manager is Cassidy Byron
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Executive Director, Crystal Field, with
The LES Committee, Presents:
The 30TH Annual LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS
FREE!!!
Memorial Day Weekend
MAY 23, 24, 25, 2025 – Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (btw E 9th and E 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003
212-254-1109 Directions
Listen to our LES promo on 1010 WINS!
Theater for the New City has currently scheduled over 200 performing arts organizations, independent artists, poets, puppeteers and film makers for its 30th annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts.
Admission is free but donations will be gratefully accepted.
Indoor performances will take stage from 6:00 PM to midnight each day, utilizing two of TNC’s four theaters. From 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Saturday, vendors and food sellers, including booths from nearby restaurants, will set up in the closed-off block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues.
The festival has been presented annually since 1996, although in 2020 it was produced online due to pandemic concerns. A cohort of theater, dance, performance, music, film, literary and visual artists are participating on all three days. Multidisciplinary indoor performances will take stage from 6:00 PM to midnight each evening, utilizing two of TNC’s four theaters. From 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM Saturday, vendors and food sellers, including booths from nearby restaurants, will line the closed-off block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues. On Saturday afternoon inside in the Johnson Theater, there will be performances by and for children, curated by T. Scott Lilly, Danielle Hauser and Miguel Loyola, emceed by John Grimaldi. A fine art show, curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe, will be hanging throughout the fest in the theater’s lobby gallery. A film program will be presented Saturday from noon to 10:00 PM in the Cabaret Theater, featuring works by auteurs from the Lower East Side/East Village along with works that reflect the essence of the neighborhood. Over 25 films curated by Burak Tatar will be screened, accompanied by talkbacks with a number of the film makers. On Saturday from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, an Outdoor Stage adjoining the theater will offer music and multi-discipline performances curated by Richard West, assisted by Didi Champagne. On Sunday from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM in TNC’s Community Theater, there will be a “Poetry Jam with Prose on the Side” curated by Lissa Moira.
This year, the festival is mounted with the theme “We will not be silenced, speak up for democracy.” The subject will be addressed in some of the playlets and acts written for the festival.
As of this writing, the performers’ roster includes such luminaries as David Amram, Austin Pendleton and Penny Arcade. City council member Carlina Rivera will speak on Saturday, May 24 at 6:30 PM.
Performing ensembles participating will include Bond Street Theater, Chinese Theatre Works, Cobu, The Drilling Company, Ego Actus, Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, Kinding Sindaw, Le Squeezebox Cabaret, New Yiddish Rep, Textile Theater Company, Wise Guise, Tilted Axes, Oyu Oro and many more.
There will be original writings (many penned exclusively for the festival) by Anne Lucas, Barbara Kahn, David Willinger, Douglas Lackey, Eduardo Machado, Elizabeth Ruf, Ishmael Reed, Lissa Moira, Larry Littany Litt, Miguel Loyola, Pamela Enz, Toby Armour, Tom Diriwachter, and Victor Vauban Jr.
Excerpts of plays performed will include works by Toby Armour, Briana Bartenieff, Stephan Morrow; Peter Welch, and Roman Primitivo, Stephan Morrow, projects of Mary Tierney’s TNC Theater Workshop, and songs from TNC’s 2024 Street Theater.
Individual performers appearing will include Austin Pendleton, Bryce Payne, Jeff Davis, John Grimaldi, Lei Zhou, Stan Baker, Terry Lee King (Amazin’ Grace), Thomas Baker, Tym Moss, Zero Boy, Ed Malin and JC Augustin.
Dance performances will include works by Ashley Liang Dance Company, Carol Tandava, Charly Wenzel, Infinity Dance Theater, Rastro Dance Company (Julieta Valero), Rod Rodgers Dance Company and Thunderbird American Indian Dancers. Aerial dance will be performed by Constellation Moving Co.
Musical performers appearing will include Alessandra Belloni, Art Lillard Quartet, Citizens United Protest Band, David Amram, Ejyp Johnson, Joe Bendik, Judy Gorman, Louisa Bradshaw, Maude Lardner Burke, Michael A Green, Michael David Gordon, Mimi Block, Mister Pablo, Noam Finegold: Burning City Orchestra, Peter Dizozza, Rew Starr, Richard West, Robert Gonzales Jr. and Yip Harburg Rainbow Troupe.
Comedy performers will include Hollie Harper, Joan Reinmuth and others TBA.
“Poetry Jam with Prose on the Side,” curated and hosted by Lissa Moira, will take stage Sunday, May 26 from 4-7pm in TNC’s Community Space Theater. Wordslingers are TBA. An open mic will follow as time permits.
Throughout the festival, an art show curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe will grace the TNC lobby spaces. This art show will have its own free, special opening Wednesday, May 21 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
Curtis Widem, who’ll be performing as the “Free Art Dude” in the lobby and in front of TNC this Friday 5/23 from 6pm- 8pm.
Emcees will be Crystal Field, Robert Gonzales Jr., Danielle Aziza, Melanie Goodreaux and Sabura Rashid (in the Johnson Theater) and David F. Slone Esq. and Joan Kane (in the Cabaret Theater). The film program will be emceed by Burak Tatar.
Specialty curators of the festival include Lissa Moira (poetry), Burak Tatar (film), T. Scott Lilly and Danielle Hauser (kids’ performances), Carolyn Ratcliffe (visual art) and Richard West and Didi Champagne (outdoor theater-dance-music). The whole festival is run by the LES committee (see below) and chaired by Crystal Field.
Lower East Side Festival of the Arts Exhibit
LES: We Will Not Be Silent-Speak Up For Democracy
FRIDAY EVENING IN THE JOHNSON – MAY 23
6:00 PM – COBU
6:22 PM – A Play by Richard Ploetz
6:34 PM – CONSTELLATION MOVING COMPANY
6:46 PM – Thunderbird American Indian Dancers
6:58 PM – PENNY ARCADE
7:20 PM – Glitter Kitty
7:32 PM – Rita Constanzi (Harp)
7:44 PM – Rod Rodgers Dance Company
8:06 PM – Folksbiene
8:18 PM – The Shine Challenge by Ishmael Reed
8:30 PM – Julieta Valero (Dance)
8:42 PM – Scammed Into Love by Briana Bartenieff
8:54 PM – KT Sullivan
9:06 PM – A Play by Anne Lucas
9:18 PM – Mister Pablo (Music)
9:30 PM – Inma Heredia (Dance)
9:42 PM – Jose Francisco Ruiz
9:54 PM – Sylvain Leroux (Flute)
10:06 PM – Austin Pendleton
10:18 PM – Boxcutter Collective
10:30 PM – Louisa Bradshaw
10:42 PM – Ejyp Johnson
10:54 PM – Hollie Harper
11:06 PM – Drilling Company
11:18 PM – Gravity
11:30 PM – Bryce Payne
11:42 PM – Rocco George
11:54 PM – Terry Lee King w/ Billy Little
FRIDAY EVENING IN THE CABARET – MAY 23
6:30 PM – Star ’69 (Rob Varkony)
6:52 PM – Catalina Beltran
7:04 PM – Hija de la Tierra by Yenny Sanchez
7:16 PM – Devorah Shubowitz
7:28 PM – Viktoriya Papayani
7:40 PM – Miguel Loyola
7:52 PM – Stan Baker
8:04 PM – Textile Theater Collective (Claude Solnik)
8:16 PM – Clara (Ego Actus)
8:28 PM – David Jacobsen
8:40 PM – Anita Daswani
8:52 PM – Stefan Harris
9:04 PM – Michael A. Green
9:16 PM – Evan Laurence
9:28 PM – Larry Litt
9:40 PM – Ed Malin (Monologue)
9:52 PM – William Electric Black
10:04 PM – Wendy Stuart
10:16 PM – Elisa Blynn
10:28 PM – Dana II by Jasmine Hyman
10:40 PM – Luke Grande
10:52 PM – Loretta Auditorium
11:04 PM – Ellen Steir
11:16 PM – Lady Clover Honey
SATURDAY AFTERNOON YOUTH PERFORMANCES
JOHNSON THEATER
Coordinators: Danielle Aziza & T. Scott Lilly
Hosted by John Grimaldi
2-5 PM
2:00 PM JOHN GRIMALDI
2:15 PM MOVE. MAKE. BLOOM
2:30 PM MARTIAL ARTS FAMILY STUDIO
2:45 PM TNC ARTS IN EDUCATION
3:00 PM THE ZYLIK BROTHERS
3:15 PM COBU “NEXT GENERATION”
3:30 PM THE YIP HARBURG RAINBOW TROUPE
3:45 PM SOCIETY OF AMERICAN MAGICIANS YOUTH, MILES WEINBERG
4:00 PM EAST SIDE DANCE COMPANY
4:15 PM PS 166 AMAZING ATHLETE’S CIRCUS
4:30 PM FAIRY TALE MARIONETTES
SATURDAY FILM PROGRAM 12 PM – 10 PM
The Cabaret Theater (downstairs) seats about 65
Curator: Burak Tatar
Technical Director: Roy Chang
Hosted by Burak Tatar and Eva Dorrepaal Q&A After each block.
4:30 – 5:30 PM : FILMMAKER NETWORKING PARTY
5:30 PM – (block of 6 films)
[1-6 / #15] Lovearthcam
[2-6 / #16] Clock Shop
[3-6 / #17] Brooklyn
[4-6 / #18] Not So American
[5-6 / #19] The Bad Daughter
[6-6 / #20] PRIME REAL ESTATE
6:58 PM – (block of 4 films)
[1-4 / #21] The Gender Symphony
[2-4 / #22] The Price of Gum
[3-4 / #23] Moonlight in the Bronx
[4-4 / #24] The Voyage Back – Lovers scene
7:45 PM [#25] A Phantom Song
8:45 PM – (block of 4 films)
[1-4 / #26] Stalled
[2-4 / #27] Launch at Paradise
[3-4 / #28] Don’t Forget You Are A Boy
[4-4 / #29] Out to Run: A Tale of Blood Velvet
SATURDAY EVENING IN THE JOHNSON – MAY 24
6:00 PM – Tilted Axes (Procession in)
6:22 PM – John Grimaldi (Juggler)
6:34 PM – A Play by Douglas Lackey
6:45 PM – Councilmember Carlina Rivera
6:51 PM – Councilmember Gale Brewer
6:58 PM – Infinity Dance Theater
7:10 PM – Yara Arts (Ukranian Theater)
7:22 PM – A Meeting of Minds by Crystal Field
7:34 PM – Sunscreen by Amy Coleman
7:45 PM – Judy Gorman
8:02 PM – Mimi Block
8:14 PM – Ego Actus
8:26 PM – Carol Tandava (Belly Dance)
8:38 PM – Rainbow Troupe
8:50 PM – Ashley Liang (Dance)
9:12 PM – Chinese Theater Works
9:24 PM – A Play by Tortas Y Tacones (JC Augustin)
9:36 PM – Zylik Brothers
9:48 PM – Artichoke Dance Company
10:00 PM – David Amram
10:22 PM – A Play by Victor Vauban
10:34 PM – TNC Street Theater
10:46 PM – Peter Dizozza
10:58 PM – Tym Moss
11:10 PM – Bennet Pologe (Opera)
11:22 PM – The Wise Guise
11:34 PM – A Play by Eduardo Machado
11:46 PM – The Prior 55 by Andrea Fulton
11:58 PM – Ms. Phillip
SUNDAY EVENING IN THE JOHNSON – MAY 25
6:00 PM – Oyu Oro
6:22 PM – Joan Reinmuth (Comedienne)
6:34 PM – Here I Am by Toby Armour
6:46 PM – Zero Boy
6:58 PM – A Play by Tom Diriwachter
7:10 PM – Lex and the Cult of Spirits
7:22 PM – Charles Krezzel
7:34 PM – Alessandra Belloni
7:46 PM – Barbara Kahn (Excerpt from The Road Ahead)
7:58 PM – Charly Wenzel
8:10 PM – WillieAnn Gissendanner
8:22 PM – Melange
8:34 PM – Kinding Sindaw
8:46 PM – David Mandelbaum – New Yiddish Rep
8:58 PM – Kanpai
9:20 PM – Toni Renee Taylor (Dance)
9:34 PM – The India Center
9:46 PM – Art Lillard Quartet
9:58 PM – A Play by Barbara Kahn
10:20 PM – Rori Nogee
10:32 PM – Zen Mansley
10:44 PM – Lily James Roberts
10:56 PM – Robert Gonzales Jr. (Music)
11:08 PM – A Play by Stephan Morrow
11:20 PM – Valery Oisteanu (Poet)
11:32 PM – Darling Toby
11:44 PM – Le Squeezebox Cabaret (David Slone)
SUNDAY EVENING IN THE CABARET – MAY 25
6:30 PM – Burning City Orchestra
6:52 PM – Maude Lardner Burke
7:04 PM – LES Performing Arts
7:16 PM – Anwar Suleiman
7:28 PM – J Dolan Byrnes
7:40 PM – Richard Weber
7:52 PM – Joe Bendik
8:04 PM – Peter Welch
8:16 PM – Roman Primitivo
8:28 PM – The Head Peddlers (Elizabeth Ruf and Karl Bateman)
8:40 PM – Rew Starr
8:52 PM – Michael Sanders
9:04 PM – Beth Griffith
9:16 PM – Sarah Lilly
9:28 PM – Dante Jayce
9:40 PM – Thomas Goggans
9:52 PM – Randy Mchaney
10:04 PM – Justine Hall
10:16 PM – Christine Stoddard
10:28 PM – Levi Frazier
10:40 PM – Dada NY
10:52 PM – Thomas Baker
BACKGROUND
The first festival, presented June 14 to 16, 1996, was a three-day, indoor and outdoor multi-arts festival, organized by TNC and a coalition of civic, cultural and business leaders. The aim was to demonstrate the creative explosion of the Lower East Side and the area’s importance to culture and tourism for New York City. It employed two theater spaces at TNC plus the block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues, featured over 100 attractions, drew favorable press and attracted crowds from all around the City. Its success prompted TNC to continue the festival annually on Memorial Day Weekend. For 28 years it has been presented free each year to an average attendance of 4,000. (In 2020 it was held online due to pandemic concerns).
The concept of the festival was developed by Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director of TNC and Esther Cartegena (d. 2006), President of Loisaida, Inc., to portray the Lower East Side (LES) as a haven for artists and artistic creation. The region is a unique multi-ethnic community with an unusually high level of artistic vitality. Large populations with differing languages and cultures coexist there successfully and a large artistic population helps glue the neighborhood together. Its theaters are also an unprecedented source of tourism. Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Buried Child,” was commissioned and first produced by TNC. The committee envisioned an event that would demonstrate the region’s cultural fervor, its large artistic population and its multiplicity of ethnic influences to contradict the neighborhood’s stereotype as a dangerous refuge for drug dealers and criminal activity.
Disciplines presented have always included theater, music, dance, poetry, puppetry, cabaret, visual art, film and children’s programming.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
THE ROAD AHEAD
April 10 – April 27, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20 tickets, $15 Students and Seniors, TDF accepted
Run Time: 75 minutes
CINO THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
THE ROAD AHEAD was inspired by Rod Serling’s classic television series “The Twilight Zone.” A married couple on a nighttime journey is transported by a GPS gone amok to a mysterious destination in place and time. They are welcomed by a guide, who presents three vignettes, performed by her and her assistants. The vignettes, like traditional fables, portray a moral and a lesson for living life with courage while attempting to right a wrong in the world. And each contains hope for a better life.
Photo by Victor Vauben Jr.Photo by Victor Vauben Jr.Photo by Victor Vauben Jr.
CAST
Kristen Gabrielle
Sania Hyatt
Jenna Levere
Lisa Monde
Steph Van Vlack
and the voice of Samuel Williams
PRODUCTION
Set and Light Design by Jason Sturm
Costume Design by Billy Little
Sound Design by Joy Linscheid
Props by Lytza Colon
Photo and Video by Victor Vauban Jr.
Graphic Design by Virginia Asman, illuminage studio
Stage manager/board operator Geoffrey Kinsey
BARBARA KAHN received the 2024 Village Preservation Award. Excerpts from the presentation at the historic Cooper Union Great Hall: “Barbara Kahn is a pivotal figure in the New York City theater scene. Her plays have been produced since 1994 by that great platform for new drama, Theater for the New City, and her works have been a cornerstone of the theater’s seasons ever since. Theater for the New City has a rich history deeply intertwined with the cultural fabric of New York City, and Barbara’s plays have been a leading force in its mission to embody the vision of a cultural center for new and innovative theater arts that is truly accessible to the community and its experimental theater artists.
Barbara Kahn is a playwright who has produced dozens of works rooted in history, especially the history of New York and marginalized or oppressed people, with a frequent focus on the experience of women, LGBTQ+ people, and personal trauma. Her award-winning plays have been produced at the Theater for the New City since 1994, though she has produced plays throughout New York, Paris, and London, and her career as a playwright stretches back decades.
BARBARA is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Honor Roll! advocacy for women playwrights over 50, SAG-AFTRA, The Jewish Theater Circle, and The Entertainment Community Fund (aka The Actors Fund) Performing Arts Legacy Project. https://performingartslegacy.org/kahn/
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
REMEMBRANCE
A PLAY ABOUT THE VICTIMIZATION OF THE CAREGIVER.
“My mother has Alzheimer’s so therefore so do I.”
March 20 – April 6, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
There will be a “Talk Back” session from a representative of The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America on April 3rd @ 8 PM. (Jennifer Reeder)
Tickets: $20, Students & Seniors $15
Run Time: 70 minutes
CABARET THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
Plays and movies about Alzheimer’s Disease tend to focus on the patient. However “Remembrance,” a new play by Patricia Goodson, centers on their caregivers. A product of Theater for the New City’s Emerging Playwrights Program, it’s Ms. Goodson’s second produced play and her second one to be inspired by her mom’s twelve-year journey with the disease. Her first play, “Aging is Not a Fairy Tale,” debuted last season at TNC. It was a delightful rumination on aging, told with once-young fairy tale characters who have ripened into their dotage. “Remembrance” is a drama meant to educate and inspire the caregivers of the world, whether they are fighting for a person with Alzheimer’s or any other chronic or fatal disease.
Top (L-R): Kkuumba Siegell, David Odukoya. Bottom (L-R): Zane Julia, Beth Griffith, Bryn Eva O’Connor. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
The story traces a daughter’s long and arduous journey with her mom who has Alzheimer’s. It follows the mom’s deterioration and shows their physical and mental effects on her daughter through the latter’s sessions with a psychiatrist. The play aims to reveal the victimization of the caregiver, as exemplified by a statement in the play’s opening dialogue which says, “my mother has Alzheimer’s so therefore do I.” Five actors play six characters: the patient (Mom), her daughter (present and past), two doctors (a Geriatrician and an Alzheimer’s specialist), and a brilliant middle-aged Caribbean woman who is a professional caregiver, Lincoln Center usher, dancer and deeply religious woman. The play is staged in three playing areas: the doctors’ offices, the patients’ room and the family’s living room. The play tells us that a caregiver is not alone in this world: that there are people and forces that will help them through their difficult task and that positive things can come out of a seemingly helpless situation. As her Mom declines, she inspires her daughter with a proverb about butterflies as symbols of hope. She says, “when you see butterflies, you see Angel wings and it means God is looking after you.” While dealing with serious issues like survivor’s guilt, “Remembrance” is also filled with hope. Goodson writes, “We all have our stories of frustration, our feelings of loneliness and helplessness. We feel we have no control, no defense, but we do. Our caring is our control and our bonds of love and the appreciation of the patient for our efforts are our weapons of defense.”
CAST
David Odukoya
Zane Julia
Beth Griffith
Bryn Eva O’Connor
Kkuumba Siegell
PRODUCTION
Playwright – Patricia Goodson
Director – Joan Kane
Set Designer – Jonas Harrison
Lighting Designer – Bruce A! Kraemer
Sound Designer – Joy Linscheid
Prop Designer – Lytza Colon
Costume Designer – Billy Little
Stage Manager – Dana Vincent-Robbins
Playwright Patricia Goodson made an auspicious playwriting debut at TNC last season with “Aging is Not a Fairy Tale.” A heavy subject treated with a light heart, directed by Robert Liebowitz, it was also inspired by her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. Goodson realized that no one is ever prepared for their end-of-life crisis. So she wrote a fairy tale comedy to answer the question of what would happen to characters of our bedtime stories (Cinderella, Snow White, Three Little Pigs, etc.) as they get older. Edward A Kliszus,wrote in Front Row Center, “The play is a delightful, charming, humorous admixture of favorite fairy tales and characters. Repartee was well crafted and sophisticated, and the cast masterfully executed the many subtle and less subtle jabs with splendid, natural timing and assurance.”
Ms. Goodson made her living for the past 25 years as a retail manager at Macy’s, JFK Airport and The Smithsonian. She has been a writer and story teller since grade school and has always been an avid theatergoer, which nurtured her desire to work behind-the-scenes. For the past four years, she has volunteered at Theater for the New City, assisting Executive Artistic Director Crystal Field. Her experiences there led to her participation in TNC’s Emerging Playwrights Program, fusing her passion for writing with her love for the theater. This program is integral to the theater’s mission, which includes being a center for new and innovative theater arts, discovering relevant new writing and nurturing new playwrights. Ms. Goodson writes, “Theater for the New City is an extremely important vehicle for keeping real theater alive. It is about theater as an art form. Crystal Field enables artists, be they scenic or costume designers or budding playwrights like myself, to collaborate and create theatrical magic. Her support, with her vast experience, gives a newbie a strong foundation upon which to build their art.”
Director Joan Kane has recently helmed four plays by Toby Armour at TNC, “Susan B.” (2022), “Aunt Susan and her Tennesee Waltz” (2022), “Freedom Summer” (2023) and “Meltdown” (2024). She is also a playwright, dramaturg, actor, educator and Founding Artistic Director of Ego Actus (https://egoactus.com/). Her varied directing resume includes “Sycorax, Cyber Queen of Qamara” by Fengar Gael at HERE, “Play Nice!” by Robin Rice at 59E59 Theaters, “I Know What Boys Want” by Penny Jackson on Theatre Row, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” in Oslo, Norway and “Kafka’s Belinda” in Prague. She was awarded Best Director in the 2016 United Solo Festival and was named to the Indie Theatre Hall of Fame by nytheatre.com. In the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, she received a five star review for her solo show, “Almost 13,” and four star reviews for her productions of “Safe” and “What Do You Mean.” She graduated from the High School of Performing Arts, studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner and earned an MFA in Directing from The New School and an MS in Museum Education from Bank Street College. She is a member of SDC, DG, NYWITF and LPTW. She thanks Crystal Field and Mark Marcante for their support and their passion for keeping theater alive during the maddening days we are living in. (JoanKane.us)
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Alison Cook Beatty Dance: An Evening of Modern Dance
April 4 – April 5, 2025
Friday & Saturday at 8:00 PM
Tickets: $20, Students & Seniors $18
Run Time: 1 hour 20 minutes including intermission
THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003 Directions
PROGRAM A: Performance on April 4th at 8 PM
(25 min) WORLD PREMIERE
(3 min ) “Bist du bei Mir, Through The Panes”
Intermission
(20 min) “Heroic Departure”
Pause
20 “Central Park Field #4”
Q&A session, 10-15 minutes
PROGRAM B: Performance on April 5th at 8 PM
(30 min) WATER NYC Premiere & FIRE World Premiere
Intermission
(20 min) “Heroic Departure”
Pause
(3 min ) “Bist du bei Mir, Through The Panes”
(16 min) “Whale”
Q&A session, 10-15 minutes
*Please note there is a Silent Auction set up in the lobby before, during intermission and after the shows. Silent Auction will include artworks from collaborating artists such as resident visual art Carol Davis, award winning photographer Sam DeRosa-Farag and more.
CAST
Ava Trochiano
Gion Treichler
Hannah Dillenbeck
Ioanna Ioannides
Maddelaine Burnett
Plus additional guest artists
Check out the Gallery Guide here: 
