AUGUST 6 TO SEPTEMBER 18
IN CITY STREETS, PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY's 2022 STREET THEATER MUSICAL
Theater for the New City's award-winning Street Theater Company will open its 2022 annual tour Saturday, August 6 with "Teacher! Teacher! or PS I Love You," an original musical which tells the story of struggling teachers and a principal in an underserved neighborhood who put their lives on the line for their kids. Free performances will tour parks, playgrounds and closed-off streets throughout the five boroughs through September 18. Book, lyrics and direction are by Crystal Field; the musical score is composed and arranged by Peter Dizozza.

These productions are always a bouncy joyride through the undulations of the body politic, with astute commentary couched in satire, song and slapstick. Performances are 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 includes 30 actors, ten crew members, two stage managers, three assistant directors and five live musicians (led by the composer at the keyboard). All share the challenge of performing outside and holding a large, non-captive audience. Music varies in style from Bossa Nova to Hip Hop to Musical Comedy to classical Cantata. Performances are free and delightfully suited for family audiences, since complex social issues are often presented through children's allegories, with children and neighborhood people as the heroes.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/teacher.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CRnVRWxkrKx6EaQZA

AUGUST 17 TO 20
THEATRE ONE (THE LION) ON THEATRE ROW
RENAISSSANCE NOW THEATRE & FILM IN "MACBETH-REDUX"
Renaissance Now Theatre and Film will present New York audiences with a novel adaptation of "Macbeth" titled "Macbeth-Redux" that focuses on the moral questions of transfer of power. Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss, the production adds brief modern language "off-text" passages that are performed in the style of a "Greek chorus" including thanes and other characters to illuminate unpredictable and confusing events they witness but are unable to change. Directed by Kathy Curtiss. The company workshopped the piece in June, 2022 at Castle Theatre in Utah.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/macbeth-redux.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/9DS6j6e35Jv4QtBE7

AUGUST 28 TO SEPTEMBER 18
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
ELEVENTH ANNUAL DREAM UP FESTIVAL
From August 28 to September 18, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, Artistic Director, will present its eleventh annual Dream Up Festival, a feast of adventurous theater mixing world premieres and American premieres.. It's an ultimate new work festival dedicated to the joy of discovering new authors and edgy, innovative performances.

Helmed by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price, the festival offers 23 plays. Audiences will savor the excitement, awe, passion, challenge and intrigue of new plays from around the country. 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. Festival tickets are $12-$20 for the participating productions.

The festival had been suspended in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/dreamup2022.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2ZcMkQty2PfkzmxK9

SEPTEMBER 1 TO 4
BOHEMIAN HALL, 321 E. 73rd STREET
CZECHOSLOVAK-AMERICAN MARIONETTE THEATRE IN
"AUDIENCE" BY VACLAV HAVEL
Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre returns to Bohemian National Hall with "Audience" by Vaclav Havel, translated and directed by Vit Horejs, The production celebrates Havel's legacy as The Czech Republic assumes the European Union presidency in the second half of 2022.

The play, a dark comedy of spying in a brewery, is staged with projected closeups of puppets from security cameras in order to suggest surveillance. In the last decade, such use of video has been employed to adapt marionette theater for large houses. The production's concept is by Vit Horejs and Theresa Linnihan, who will act the play together. The play reflects on the time when Havel had to work in a brewery as penance for writing critically of the Czechoslovak communist government. He ultimately went from prison to the castle, becoming president of Czechoslovakia.

COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/Vit_Audience.htm
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/rvNkkwB4kdUj98Hp9

SEPTEMBER 16 TO OCTOBER 16, 2022
FIRST ANNUAL PHOENIX LIVE ARTS FESTIVAL IN NYACK, NY
The award-winning Phoenix Theatre Ensemble presents the First Annual Phoenix Live Arts Festival in Nyack, NY, featuring three professional theater productions, a Shakespeare performance by and for kids, the premiere of a song cycle inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper, prizes from 25 sponsoring businesses, and bus excursions from Manhattan.

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble is an Audelco, IRNE, Elliot Norton, NYIT Award-winning nonprofit committed to presenting great stories of the classical canon and innovative stagings of new adaptations of language-rich texts that speak to and serve contemporary audiences. It nurtures a diverse resident company of classically trained and highly skilled theatre artists. Founded in New York City in 2004, the Ensemble makes Rockland County its second home. Ensemble artistic directors Elise Stone and Craig Smith lead thefestival's creative team, engaging local, county and New York State institutions, educational organizations, businesses and non-profits in support of this exciting event.

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

SEPTEMBER 22 TO OCTOBER 9, 2022
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
AUGUST STRINDBERG REP IN "HEDDA GABLER"
New adaptation/translation by Robert Greer updates Ibsen's tragic drama of the "new woman" to our current year, with Covid rampant and fentanyl added to the danger of pistols.

OCTOBER 19 TO NOVEMBER 6
CHERRY LANE THEATRE
NEGRO ENSEMBLE COMPANY IN "OUR VOICES, OUR TIME " ONE-ACT PLAY FESTIVAL
The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (NEC) presents an evening of one-acts that have been developed through the company's 22/23 Brownstein Residency for Artistic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania's Penn Live Arts. Three plays were selected from a worldwide pool of submitted scripts for their ability to stimulate meaningful and thought-provoking conversations on the monumental role of Black artists in shaping art and culture in our country. The evening includes: "Clipper Cut Nation" by Cris Eli Blak, directed by Ralph McCain; "What If" by Cynthia Grace Robinson, directed by Daniel Carlton and "I Don't Do That" by Mona R. Washington, directed by Petronia Paley. The evening will take stage October 8, 2022 in a world premiere at UPenn's Harold Prince Theatre at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts before moving to the Cherry Lane Theatre, where NEC is now a company-in-residence, for its New York premiere.

NOVEMBER 4 TO 20
GURAL THEATRE OF ART/NY THEATRES, 502 W. 53RD STREET
"L'AMOUR `A PASSY" BY G.W. REED
France's support of the nascent United States in 1778 is one of the great diplomatic triumphs of history, credited to the ambassadorial team of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. An exciting backstory to this miracle of statecraft is the platonic affair between Franklin and the flamboyant, beautiful Madame Brillon (Anne-Louise Harancourt Brillon de Jouy). Spoiled by her wealthy, elderly husband and livid at having to coexist with his mistress (their children's governess), Madame Brillon made an open show of her affection for the "good doctor," flirtatiously calling him "Cher Papa" while perched on his lap and playing chess with him while in her bath. While inspiring the old man's libido, she did not reward him with sex, but with something far better in the eyes of history: an audience with the Queen of France that led to the Franco-American alliance. This two-character play, then, is the story of their relationship, performed by author G.W. Reed as Franklin and Zoe Anastassiou as Madame Brillon, directed by Manfred Bormann.

NOVEMBER 10 TO 27
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"I JUST WANT TO TELL SOMEBODY" BY RONALD "SMOKEY "STEVENS
Return engagement of a solo show by one of Broadway's great musical comedy performers, who has adapted his autobiographical novel, "I Just Want to Tell Somebody: The Autobiography of Ronald Smokey Stevens," into a one-man, two character theater production. The play dramatizes Stevens' lifelong battle with drugs in which he, at long last, prevailed. "Smokey" plays both himself and his nemesis, a sarcastic doppelganger called "D MAN." The play ushers us through modern moments of theater history that were Smokey's triumphs and the journey through drug usage that was nearly his undoing. This tour de force performance earned critical plaudits last January.

DATES & VENUE TBA
THE NEGRO ENSEMBLE COMPANY, INC.
"THE ROOTWOMAN" BY MICHAEL BRADFORD
The Negro Ensemble Company Inc. is preparing to mount "The Rootwoman," a contemporary play by Michael Bradford with accompanying music and vocals. In a small rural community on the outskirts of New Orleans, Cleveland Temple hasn’t been able to keep a morsel of food in his stomach for weeks. His wife, Wanda Temple, is finally pregnant. His best friend, Lucias Steady can’t seem to shake a twenty year old dream. His former mistress, Cecelia Shacklefoot, is drowning in the river flowing in her own back and Ms. Janie, the Rootwoman, has a secret for which even she cannot find the cure. At the end of the day, it is the whistle of a coming train that sounds the final blue note of this syncopation. This is a play about the seduction of love, the bitter taste of regret and the necessity of redemption.

2023-24 SEASON (DATES TBA)
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
"COMMITTED" BY NATALIE MENNA
A work of historical fiction about the last two days of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's life. When his highly controversial and vulgar documentary causes a tremendous uproar in Amsterdam and abroad, Theo spirals downward. The play explores the collision of an artist's radical temperament and unyielding vision with modern political realities and the inevitable tragedy when uncompromising values clash. Can friendship, family, or love save Theo from his biggest threat - himself?

MARCH 16 TO APRIL 2, 2023
THETER FOR THE NEW CITY
"KATY AND JENNIFER AND THE FLASHER ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 2001" (WORKING TITLE) BY MATT MORILLO
With the heat crapped out in their East Village apartment on New Year's Eve 2001, Katy and Jennifer, two recent college graduates, try to get to Jennifer's grandmother's place. But every attempt to leave is thwarted by a creepy flasher whom they seem to have accidentally let into the building. Written and directed by Matt Morillo (author of "Angry Young Women in Low Rise Jeans with High Class Issues).

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