CURRENT & UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS
A Seasonal Press Calendar

Publicity photos for most shows are available for free download.

Closed productions have been removed from this list.
If you need info or photos for a production which has closed, please email us.

LIMITED RUNS

JUNE 9 TO 25
LA MAMA E.T.C.
YARA ARTS GROUP IN "1917-2017: TYCHYNA, ZHADAN & THE DOGS"
This new theatre piece with poetry which examines what individuals do when a society crumbles. The show was conceived and directed by Virlana Tkacz using the poetry of Pavlo Tychyna (Ukraine's greatest 20th century poet), Serhiy Zhadan (Ukraine's greatest 21st century poet) and the songs of Zhadan's rock group Zhadan and the Dogs. The show is introduced by a live installation featuring New York poet Bob Holman performing his own poems inspired by Timothy Snyder's book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century." The show is performed in English, while Zhadan and the Dogs sing in Ukrainian.

In 1917, there was great hope in Kyiv as the Russian Empire disintegrated, but then a series of invasions led to twelve changes of government in three years. Pavlo Tychyna, Ukraine's greatest 20th century poet, watched people in Kyiv struggle with chaos and tyranny and wrote a collection of twelve poems, "Instead of Sonnets or Octaves." That collection, translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, provides the main text of the piece. It is punctuated with songs by Zhadan & the Dogs, a Ukrainian nine-member rock group led by Serhiy Zhadan. Zhadan is famous for his poetry and songs about everyday people caught in today's conflict. The group hails from Kharkiv, a city close to the war zone in eastern Ukraine. Director Virlana Tkacz created the piece with artists in Kyiv using the twelve Tychyna poems as text. She then had Serhiy Zhadan and his band, Zhadan & the Dogs, burst through the scenes, supplying high-energy songs that propelled the piece forward. Reviews from the performances in Kyiv praised the production as wonderful to behold and so relevant to contemporary events as to be painful.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Yara_Tychyna.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/hrdit4cM1CremtwbA

JUNE 11 TO 26
JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH
"FAUST 3: THE TURD COMING, OR THE FART OF THE DEAL"
"Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal" is a political satire of the Trump fiasco, written by Paul David Young and directed by Augustus Heagerty. The play presents a Faustian bargain between the populace, and their chosen king, a deceptive, Mephisophelean clown figure.  Although the clown is offensive, vulgar, and evil, the people agree to sign away their future on the gamble that the clown will improve their lives. They are shat upon instead.  In sermon-like tweets, the clown king communicates his predatory intentions, based on perversions of the Beatitudes and other parts of the Gospels. The sensitive ego of the clown king leads to nuclear war and worldwide devastation. Playwright Paul David Young is author, most recently, of "Kentucky Cantata" (HERE, 2015). His "In the Summer Pavilion," a Backstage Critic's Pick, was a highlight of the 2011 NY International Fringe Festival. It was subsequently produced Off-Broadway at 59e59 Theaters in 2012.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Faust3.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/qFGAhrej35WAsJiW6

JUNE 26
PANGEA RESTAURANT & SUPPER CLUB, 178 SECOND AVE.
"CHAVELA: THINK OF ME"
"Chavela: Think Of Me," written and performed by Stephanie Trudeau, is more than just a musical cabaret based on the songs of legendary Mexican singer Chavela Vargas. It is also a documentary theater project that traces the famed ranchera singer's artistic evolution and the key relationships of her life, including those with her musical mentor, Jose Alfredo Jimenez (the world's greatest composer of ranchera songs), the painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, the great Cuban courtesan Macorina, and the producers, notably Pedro Almodovar, who enabled her comeback at age 74 after a 15 year battle with alcoholism. The show is a refreshing homage and celebration of the arts of Mexico at a time when our southern neighbor is the focus of stereotyping and right-wing disrespect in America today. A return engagement for a show that debuted May 15.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Stephanie_Trudeau_Pangea.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/5mYAGHFDXVUm5KQt5

JULY 6 TO 22
SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT
LA PLAZA@THE CLEMENTE PARKING LOT, 114 NORFOLK STREET
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL"
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, presented by The Drilling Company, opens its 23rd season with "All's Well That Ends Well," directed by Karla Hendrick. It's the first time this play has been presented in a parking lot, ever. Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has never before presented this tricky play and there is no record of it being produced in any other parking lot. The Drilling Company has been producer of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot since 2006 and is also the exclusive producer of Shakespeare plays in Bryant Park. The troupe has been kicking around the idea of doing this challenging play for about four years.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/All's_Well.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/cWjZTVR58qGauDYJ9

JULY 27 TO AUGUST 12
SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT
LA PLAZA@THE CLEMENTE PARKING LOT, 114 NORFOLK STREET
"HENRY THE SIXTH PART THREE"
We can gain insight into our current polarized politics from Shakespeare's plays on the Wars of the Roses. That's why Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, presented by The Drilling Company, will present "Henry VI Part 3" from July 27 to August 12. The play, which is seldom done, lays bare the passions of the Medieval English war between York and Lancaster. In doing so, it illuminates the animosity between today's Republicans and Democrats on one hand and the tenacity of irreconcilable conflicts, including current civil and sectarian wars, on the other. Hamilton Clancy directs.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/HenryVIpt3.htm

AUGUST 5 TO SEPTEMBER 17
CITY STREETS, PARKS & PLAYGROUNDS
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY STREET THEATER TOUR, "CHECKS AND BALANCES, OR BOTTOMS UP"
Theater for the New City's award-winning Street Theater Company will open its 41st annual tour August 5 with "Checks and Balances, or Bottoms Up!," a rip-roaring musical in which a young New York Catholic School girl is galvanized into a community activist. Free performances will tour City streets, parks and playgrounds throughout the five boroughs through September 17. Book, lyrics and direction are by Crystal Field; the musical score is composed and arranged by Joseph Vernon Banks.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/stth17.htm

AUGUST 27 TO SEPTEMBER 17
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
DREAM UP FESTIVAL
Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, Artistic Director, will present its eighth Dream Up Festival, a feast of adventurous theater featuring new works from across the country and abroad. Helmed by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price, the festival offers over 25 plays, almost all of which are world premieres or New York premieres.

SEPTEMBER (TBA)
THEATRE 80 ST. MARKS
NEGRO ENSEMBLE COMPANY IN "A SOLDIER'S PLAY"
The 50th season of Negro Ensemble Company, a year-long retrospective of some of the troupe's signature works, culminates with "A Soldier's Play" by Charles Fuller (original production November 20, 1981), directed by Charles Weldon.

ONGOING SHOWS

PRIVATE PERFORMANCES BY APPOINTMENT
IN LIVING ROOMS, SCHOOLS, WINE BARS AND OTHER INFORMAL SPACES
GEORGE BARTENIEFF IN "I WILL BEAR WITNESS: THE EARLY YEARS OF THE HITLER REGIME"
Schools, wine stores, living rooms--these are the venues where George Bartenieff, one of the most respected actors of his generation, and his Obie-winning playwright/director wife, Karen Malpede, are recreating "I Will Bear Witness: The Early Years of the Hitler Regime" (2002), a play adapted for the stage the diaries from the diaries of of Victor Klemperer. This one-person play, tracing the rise of Hitler, premiered at CSC Rep and played to acclaim in New York, London, Berlin, Washington DC and toured Europe and the U.S. for three years. 

Malpede and Bartenieff have created the 40 minute piece that has been performing in living rooms, and last night in an art gallery in Woodstock, and next week at Thirst Wine Merchants in Fort Greene. The text is focused on the early years of the Nazi regime and its echos with today are powerful and powerfully felt by audiences, who have time for important dialogue after the piece. The piece recounts the time of Hitler’s election through events following Kristallnacht. Klemperer records in minute detail the manifold reactions of Jewish and Christian neighbors and friends, their shock, despair, rage and acts of resistance.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/klemperer.htm
PHOTOS: https://bicyclist.smugmug.com/Theater/I-Will-Bear-Witness--The-Holocau/i-L5dzSfC

EXTENDED THROUGH AUGUST 20
HARLEM REPERTORY THEATRE
TATO LAVIERA THEATRE, 240 E. 123RD STREET
"THE WIZARD OF OZ"
Harlem Repertory Theatre stages "The Wizard of Oz," co-produced by the Yip Harburg Foundation, for young (and young-at-heart) audiences. This production of the classic musical has a multi-racial cast, a jazzy underscore and authoritative dramaturgy by representatives of the Yip Harburg Foundation. Director/choreographer is Keith Lee Grant, Artistic Director of Harlem Rep, who is in the midst of a four-year project of presenting four classic musicals that have lyrics by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who was known in his lifetime as the "social conscience of Broadway."

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/oz.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/8wTzPEq6GHKBPJfC6

OPENED JUNE 7 FOR AN OPEN-ENDED RUN
ST. MAZIE BAR AND SUPPER CLUB, 345 GRAND STREET, BROOKLYN (WILLIAMSBURGH)
"THE COOPING THEORY: WHO KILLED EDGAR ALLAN POE?"
Poseidon Theatre Company, an emerging theater company, is mounting its first original, immersive site-specific show: "The Cooping Theory: Who Killed Edgar Allan Poe?," an intimate theatre event for only 30 guests per night featuring craft cocktails, food (full dinner menu available) and a paranormal experience, all framed by the great words of the master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe. This is a mystery play in the genre of "Then She Fell" (http://www.thenshefell.com) and "Sleep No More" (http://m.sleepnomorenyc.com), with one significant difference: unlike most immersive shows, which are dance-driven, this one is text-based. It is presented Wednesday evenings in the former basement speakeasy of St. Mazie Bar and Supper Club, 345 Grand Street, Williamsburg Brooklyn (between Havemeyer and Marcy).

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/cooping.htm
PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/argTYiAeRQVSz9w8A

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