APRIL 10 TO 27
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"CAFÉ RESISTANCE" BY ROBERTO MONTICELLO, DIRECTED BY LISSA MOIRA
With authoritarianism rising around the world, "Café Resistance," a new play by Roberto Monticello, directed by Lissa Moira, offers a harrowing and heroic story of the WWII French Resistance intended to highlight the power of defiance in the face of oppression. A drama with period music, it is set in a mythical café/bordello in 1939 Paris in which the staff uses creativity to undermine the Nazi occupation.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/cafe_resistance.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jhkxWvftJMBfmdTX7

APRIL 26 TO MAY 17
THEATRE ROW, THEATRE ONE, 410 W 42ND STREET
"MYSTIC CONVERSATIONS"
What if your child saw what you couldn't? With "Mystic Conversations," a play based on real events, playwright Julia Barry Bell hopes to spark discussions on faith, family, and the need for understanding the phenomenon of psychic children. The play is a mystery exploring spirituality and family dynamics with humor and insight, promising a fresh perspective on life's deeper meanings while taking the audience on a paranormal journey.  New Light Theater Project Spotlight Series will present the world premiere of this suspenseful new work, directed by Joey Brenneman.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Mystic_Conversations.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WSmToSKoydSENyRM9

APRIL 25 TO 27
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"THAT'S (NOT) ALL SHE WROTE..."
From April 25 to 27, Theater for the New City will present "THAT'S (NOT) ALL SHE WROTE...because after 50, she's got A LOT to say." The evening is a showcase of "She Speaks, She Talks," a unique new theatrical genre pioneered at Westchester Collaborative Theater of Ossining by a team led by Lori M. Myers, producer, and Carol Mark, director. The audience imagines itself as present in a playwriting workshop for women over 50 who are reading and acting their own work. The goal is to reveal what women "of a certain age" are thinking about in these times by putting a face on the playwrights and putting them face-to face with the audience. It's a play-within-a-play in which the playwrights and the audience connect with each other, breaking the fourth wall. The audience becomes part of a gathering of writers--like participants in a writers' group.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/all_she_wrote.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iq4x54wE1DCc9oaX7

MAY 1 TO 18
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"FOUR EVANGELISTS WALK INTO A FOG" BY DOUGLAS LACKEY
In this play, the founding of a major new world religion is an occasion for intellectual dark comedy. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote four differing gospels and created Christianity. These four evangelists actually never met, but they do here--as members of a comedic literary synod. The results are hilarious and profound.

Playwright Douglas Lackey holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale and is a Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College, CUNY. He specializes in serious portraits of historical/intellectual figures in moral dilemmas. Previous subjects have been 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). He has also written several other historical plays that he calls “comedies of ideas.” This is one of them. Directed by Mark Harborth

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/evangelists.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DLH9fW23N4CWRFpD8

MAY 16
CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE, 1047 AMSTERDAM AVE.
ALESSANDRA BELLONI, JOHN T. LA BARBERA & I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA IN
"MYSTIC RHYTHMS & SACRED CHANTS FOR SEVEN BLACK MADONNAS"
I Giullari di Piazza performance troupe, led by Alessandra Belloni (Founder) and John T. La Barbera (Musical Director/Co-Founder), will return to Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street), May 16 with "Mystic Rhythms & Sacred Chants for Seven Black Madonnas from Italy to Spain." The event is a retrospective concert of healing chants, ritual drumming and trance dance ceremonies that honor the different faces of the Seven Black Madonnas. Beside a dynamic mixture of musical, dance and drumming performances, the evening features guest artist Giovannangelo de Gennaro, a leading expert in medieval and early music, performing medieval sacred chants taken from Livre Vermelleis (The Red book).

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Belloni25.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LR5pKQzKdGeLxJLG8

MAY 23 TO 25
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS
In Theater for the New City's 30th Lower East Side Festival of the arts, the artistic output of this fabled neighborhood will be showcased in three days of free showings for live audiences. Over 200 performing arts organizations, independent artists, poets, puppeteers and film makers will be represented. Admission is free but donations will be gratefully accepted.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/LES25.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZJr7E9TYzd615RPv8

MAY 30 TO JUNE 29
WP THEATER, 2162 BROADWAY @ 76TH STREET
WOODIE KING, JR.'S NEW FEDERAL THEATRE PRESENTS "THE WASH"
In 1881, Black laundresses in Atlanta led a strike weeks before the International Cotton Exposition came to town, demanding $1/week. The Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike of 1881 became one of the largest, successful interracial labor strikes of the post-Civil War era. "The Wash" by Kelundra Smith offers an intimate and often funny look at ordinary women who initiated and led the strike, transforming themselves from workers to fighters. Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre will present the play's New York premiere May 29 to June 29, directed by Awoye Timpo.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/The_Wash.htm
HISTORICAL PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/9j5XxNjzSH5LQD1o8

JULY 2 TO 5
THE CHAIN, 312 W. 36TH STREET
"MEASURE FOR MEASURE" AND "THE TEMPEST"
Renaissance Now Theatre & Film presents two Shakespeare plays, "Measure for Measure" and "The Tempest," featuring “Now speak,” the company’s traditional integration of contemporary monologues into the classical text. Characters come to life, utilizing modern text, to clarify and express the relevant modern themes in the classic Shakespeare text. Directed by Kathy Curtiss.

AUGUST 24 TO SEPTEMBER 14
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"DREAM UP FESTIVAL"
Theater for the New City will present its thirteenth Dream Up Festival,  an ultimate new works festival dedicated to the joy of discovering talented authors of all backgrounds and original, innovative performances.

The Festival is helmed by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price.  It plans to offer about 20 plays, a mix of world premieres, American premieres and New York premieres. Audiences will savor the excitement, awe, passion, challenge and intrigue of new plays from around the globe. Applications are being accepted from interested performance groups and individuals through May 28.

The motto of the festival is “Dream Up: Invent, Concoct.” Plays, dance theater, solo works and interdisciplinary material are welcome.

The festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way. It selects works that push new ideas to the forefront, challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of how art illuminates the world around us.

VIDEO ON DEMAND

"USED AND BORROWED TIME" BY SOPHIA ROMMA
"Used and Borrowed Time," written and directed by Sophia Romma, is now available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Roku and the Vyre Network. This experimental avant-garde film, a psychological drama phantasma, has amassed over 45 festival awards and 26 festival film selections. An interracial couple's idyllic love rises above the hatred of a vengeful white supremacist family in segregationist Alabama during the 1960s. The film pays homage to the French New Wave films of Goddard, Truffaut and Agnès Varda. It has been translated from its original English into Greek, Spanish and Italian.

COMPLETE INFO: www.usedandborrowedtime.com

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY & NEW YIDDISH REP PRODUCTION OF "THE DYBBUK"
"The Dybbuk" is arguably the most well-known play in the Yiddish theater lexicon. It was premiered on December 9, 1920 by the Vilna Troupe at the Eizeum theater in Warsaw. Its success catapulted that company onto the International stage. It has since been translated into 27 languages and performed worldwide. From December 9-13, New Yiddish Rep celebrated the play's 100th birthday with a live performance streamed from Theater For The New City. A recording of the production has now been released for the general public to view on Vimeo.

MORE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Dybbuk.htm

"Feathers of Fire" is the most elaborate shadow theater experience ever created, and this recording, captured on an actual theater stage, transforms it into a video-on-demand production for all ages. The story is adapted from Shahnameh (the Persian Book of Kings) and tells the action-packed tale of two star-crossed lovers of old Persia. Zaul, an outcast albino boy, is brought up by a bird-goddess and grows up into a wise ruler. He enters into a forbidden love with Rudabeh, a princess who is the granddaughter of the dreaded Serpent King. Their young, impetuous romance survives many precarious adventures before they finally receive blessings for their union. When they ultimately have a child, it is Rostam, "the Hercules of Iran." Aspects of the story are reminiscent of "Romeo and Juliet," "Rapunzel," "The Firebird" and "Jungle Book."

The piece is created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker/visual artist living in Brooklyn. It is endorsed by Francis Ford Coppola, who called the production "Fantastic! One of the greatest epics of all time and my favorite Shahnameh brought to life in a spectacular fashion by Hamid Rahmanian with shadow puppets design and cinematic wizardry."

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