Go See a Show!

Listen in as actors Laura Hooper and Jason Alan Carvell of Tracks discuss finding actors, complicated relationships, boots & chops, audience reactions, questioning assumptions, stumbling in on real life experiences, and not letting go.

“Everything in our lives conspires to sort of anchor us in a normalcy. And I think one of the powers of Paula’s art, and art more broadly, is that it offers this opportunity to just stray a little bit away from that anchor…”

Pendragon Theatre and New Light Theater Project presents

Tracks

written by Paula B. Stanic

thru September 28, 2024

59E59, Theater C

tickets: $32, available via 59E59’s website

photos by Matt Lazarus

Listen in as The Ask playwright Matthew Freeman, and director Jessi D. Hill, discuss generational divides, pitching runtimes, writing from what you know in real life, finally getting to work together, what can happen when you see yourself onstage, failing and messing up and misspeaking, seeing both sides from the middle, flawed arguments, and writing for what the play needs.

“Every debate in the show is not some secret argument that’s only happening in the ACLU. Everyone talks about this stuff…”

Theater Accident in association with The Flying Carpet Theatre Company present

The Ask

written by Matthew Freeman

thru September 28, 2024

The Wild Project

tickets: $51, available via OvationTix

photos by Kent Meister

Listen in as In Search of Elaina playwright Kara Ayn Napolitano, along with director Joy Donze, discuss the vibes between them, making things happen, facing the difficult parts of yourself, strong female friendships, finding the right people for your ensemble, strong audience reactions, and why you should write what you know.

“…you said it at opening…this is a play about a lot of peoples’ people. I think that, when you bring your truth to the stage, as a collective humanity, we find that a lot of us can relate to that truth…”

Drift In Act Out, in association with Platt Productions, presents

In Search of Elaina

written by Kara Ayn Napolitano

thru September 22, 2024

The Players Theatre

insearchofelaina.com

tickets: $62 ($87 VIP), available via OvationTix

photos by Al Foote III

Listen in as creator Peter Michael Marino & performer Denisse Estefany Mendoza of SHOW UP, KIDS! discuss awful auditions and why they often don’t matter, working out your show over time, building fairy tales from scratch, how to work with new & inexperienced (very young) improvisers, using what’s given to you by the audience, bringing them back into the show, funny chickens and evil farmers and bad penguin driving, and the sensibilities of New York City kids.

“You just have to say ‘yes, and,’ even to their ‘nos’…you just have to keep going…even the nos can be really funny!”

“It’s always a gift!”

Show Up, Kids!

created by Peter Michael Marino

thru September 28, 2024

Q.E.D.

tickets: $20, available at https://qedastoria.com/

photos by Mikiodo

Listen in as writer/director/performer Sara Fellini, along with fellow actors Nicholas Thomas (co-director) and Adam Belvo (fight choreographer), discuss adding more balloons, doing the research, breast reveals, rowing in the same direction with your crew, the light with all the knowledge, lambs with faces, interesting translations, Tarantino’ing it, earning your rail jump, leaning into the “mistakes,” awesome wigs, and, of course, lady pirates.

“There’s so much value to it…if you’ve made the set yourself, if you’ve sewn your costume, you’re gonna care about it, you’re gonna know it more. You’re gonna love it. There’s nothing better, as an actor, than saying, ‘I made this’…”

Spit & Vigor presents

A Man Among Ye

written by Sara Fellini

thru July 14, 2024

The Players Theatre

tickets: $42–$62, available via OvationTix

Listen in as director 김채송 Chaesong Kim (Alien Play), playwright Alex Beige (Blackpilled, A Blueprint), and director Dante Green (Light + House) of The Makers’ Ensemble’s Short Play Festival, discuss immigration stores, where love stories meet ghost stories, playwrights writing plays about playwrights writing plays, capturing suffering, growth over time, and taking care of your artists.

“…every play felt like it ended too soon, like it was just the beginning of a learning experience…inviting you into an aspect of the playwright’s world, and leaving you with just enough to understand that you’re not alone, in whatever experience you have…”

The Tank and The Makers’ Ensemble presents

Short Play Fest 2024

Alien Play

Light + House

We Go East

Blackpilled, A Blueprint

March 20, 21, 24 at 7pm; March 23 at 3pm

The Tank

Listen in as playwright Kenneth Keng, director Annaporva Green, and actor & projection designer Chisom Awachie of Brought Up discuss lobotomized flesh puppets, encouraging participation and not “screaming and running away,” gratitude for designers, complicity and unthinking loyalty, Capri Suns, finding “a different way to do this shit,” and survival (with kindness) into the future.

“…it is about the visceral appeal of warfare, and all the equipment…the whiz-bang fighters, the big ships, the guns…things which I, for a long time, loved, and loved learning about, and loved imagining. It is also about the urgent, and near-impossible task of ending warfare. Recently, a lot of those things I loved have lost a lot of their appeal to me…”

The Performance Project at University Settlement presents

Brought Up

written by Kenneth Keng

thru May 11, 2024

Speyer Hall

photos by Kelsey Cheng

Listen in as Push Party playwright Nia Akilah Robinson, along with Producing Artistic Director of The Hearth Julia Greer, discuss just what a “push party” is, high school drama, naming characters, showing unspoken love, enmeshment, making peace with what’s passed down to us, showing up, and how friendship remains.

“…something that The Hearth was born out of is, wanting to make plays for people that may be going to school…that maybe don’t see themselves in a play. How could you pick up this play, and do it with your friends, and it would be accessible to you…”

TheaterLab & The Hearth present

Push Party

written by Nia Akilah Robinson

thru June 23, 2024

TheaterLab

tickets: $29 and up, available via OvationTix photos by Travis Emery Hackett

Listen in as performers Sevrin Willinder and Emily Conlon and director Melissa Ingle, of Shakespeare Translate: The Complete Works, discuss translation order, opening up and exploring the box, post-COVID theatre, playing with the audience, the show’s resident ShakesPEER expert, connecting, and why liveness is so integral to being human.

“…it’s such a funny idea…but it proves the fallacy of technology, how it’s letting us down in some ways. But we still get to bring it into the room, and engage with it, and have fun with the miscommunications, which is very Shakespearean…”

Devon Loves ME! and the Down to Clown Festival present

Shakespeare Translate: The Complete Works

written by William Shakespeare

thru June 1, 2024

The Vino

tickets: $15, available via the Sour Grapes website

photos by Melissa Ingle

Listen in as members of the team that devised What Will the Neighbors Say?‘s Third Law—director Coral Cohen, designer Cosette Pin, and performers Sam Hood Adrian and James Clements—discuss their devising process, exploring audience agency, Kandinsky, testing your show with live participants, taking risks, and where theatre meets gaming.

“…it’s unlike any game that you have played. You are controlling physical bodies all around you, like real life VR…like reality, but you’re making a play right in front of you.”

What Will the Neighbors Say? presents

Third Law

devised by the ensemble & designers

thru May 26, 2024

Culture Lab LIC

tickets: from $28.52, available via EventBrite

photos by Paris Marcel