The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:

“ ‘Sincerity of emotion, feelings that seem true in given circumstances—that is what we ask of a dramatist.’

“I add from myself that that is exactly what we ask of an actor.”

(via Jonathan Slaff)

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY SETS ITS THIRTEENTH DREAM UP FESTIVAL

WHERE AND WHEN:
August 24 to September 14, 2025
Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (at E. 10th Street)
Presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director
$15-$20, buy tickets: http://dreamupfestival.org
Photos of selected shows: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ErxKEPb1Br74VEEp7
Festival’s website: http://dreamupfestival.org
Critics are invited to all performances of all plays, except where noted.

NEW YORK — From August 24 to September 14, 2025, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, will present its thirteenth  Dream Up Festival, a feast of adventurous theater.  The annual event is an ultimate new works festival, dedicated to the joy of discovering new authors and edgy, innovative performances.
 
The Festival is helmed by the theater’s Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price.  This year it offers 22 plays, 15 of which are world premieres. Two are workshops. Audiences will savor the excitement, awe, passion, challenge and intrigue of new plays from around the country. 
 
Theater for the New City has consistently been the most inexpensive theater of its caliber and it continues its commitment to affordable tickets with this festival. Dream Up Festival tickets are $15-$20 for all participating productions.
 
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.
 
Michael Scott-Price (Curator/Festival Director) has directed in New York City at venues including Chashama, Dixon Place and Collective Unconscious. He has written and directed productions that were presented nationally as well as in Canada, Ireland and England. He is also Curator of TNC’s “New City, New Blood” reading series and “Scratch Night” (works-in-progress). He is Artistic Director of an experimental theater troupe, Asteroid B612 Theatre Company, which made its debut in the 17th Annual HERE American Living Room Series in August 2006. He has studied at the School of Physical Theatre in London, England, at Odin Teatret in Hostelbro, Denmark and in the International School Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in Wroclaw, Poland with Eugenio Barba and company. He is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Theater for the New City.
 
Theater for the New City (TNC) maintains a distinctive commitment to high artistic values and community service. In an effort to make theater accessible to all, TNC presents an assortment of distinct, exceptional events each year, including the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, which celebrates the artistic and cultural diversity of TNC’s Lower East Side community; an annual Village Halloween Ball and an annual summer Street Theater tour that presents a free, live, original musical in thirteen neighborhoods in all five boroughs. Most of these are free to the public.  (www.theaterforthenewcity.net)
 
Theater for the New City is located at 155 First Ave., at East 10th Street. For Dream Up Festival tickets, go to: http://dreamupfestival.org. For additional info, call the TNC box office at 212-254-1109.

DREAMUP FESTIVAL 2025
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PRODUCTIONS
All events at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (at E. 10th Street).
BUY TICKETS:  WWW.DREAMUPFESTIVAL.ORG – (212) 254-1109
INFO AS OF JULY 30, 2025  – SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Table of Contents
“Breaking the Trust” (NY Premiere), written by Bill Rogers, directed by Gerald vanHeerden
“Con*Cussed,” (World Premiere) written and performed by Elizabeth Alice Murray, directed by Roger Cacchiotti
“Dismantling Prospero,” (Workshop), written by Tom Rowan, directed by Kevin Ray, choreographed by Ai Toyoshima, original piano score by Martin Hennessy
“Dune: The Dunesical (The Unauthorized 4D Muad’Dib Experience): Part 1” (World Premiere), written and directed by Blake Du Bois and TJ Canlon.
“First Liar on the Moon” (World Premiere), written and directed by Fletcher Michael
“Fury” (Workshop), written and directed by Paul Kouri
“Gin & Milk (World Premiere), written and directed by Antony Raymond
“Green Herrings in a Yellow Room: A Counter Production of The Yellow Wallpaper” (World Premiere), written, directed, and designed by Sloan Aulgur
“In Between Sessions,” (World Premiere), written and performed by Amy Coleman, directed and designed by Roger Cacchiotti
“In Search of “True Love” (World Premiere), written and performed by Ayaka Yamamoto
“Kind Stranger:…a memory play” (World Premiere), adapted for the stage & directed by Steven Simone-Friedland based on Tennessee Williams’ “Memoirs”
“Little Jewel: In the Plagues and Throes of Love” (World Premiere), written and directed by Bob Shuman, co-director Frank Farrell
“One in Twenty-Five” (World Premiere), written and directed by Thomas M Copeland
“Sartre and Simone: A Comedy of Redemptive Love” (World Premiere), written and directed by William Cane
“Sundown Town: A New Musical” (World Premiere), directed, choreographed, and designed by Azariah Coppin
“That Lost Orange Sauce” (World Premiere), written by Evan Davis, directed by Elena Menendez Sanchez
“The Boys From Kingsbridge” (New York Premiere), written by Steven Sarao, directed by Anna Rebek
“The Shadows of Love and Light,” (World Premiere), written by Larry Americ Allen, directed by Jill Giedt
“The Story of Sal B and Barbranne: A Mob Fantasia (Cyrano Redux)” (World Premiere), written and directed by Stephan Morrow
“To Feed the Roses,” written by Amy Losi, directed by Laurie Rae Waugh
“Twist of Faith,” written by Michael Gurin, based on an original story by Matt Okin & Michael Gurin, with original songs by Avi Kunstler, directed by Matt Okin
“Undesirable Secrets” (NY Premiere), written and performed by Rodolfo Avarado, directed by William Doll, designed by Rodolfo Alvarado and William Doll

“Breaking the Trust” (NY Premiere), written by Bill Rogers, directed by Gerald vanHeerden
95-100 minutes
$20, Johnson Theater 

September 2 6:30 PM
September 4 6:30 PM
September 5 9:00 PM
September 6 5:00 PM 
September 7 5:00 PM

Unexpected complications arise when four sisters return to their childhood home for their younger brother’s funeral. They are amazed to discover that their shiftless, unmarried brother amassed a fortune worth over $4 million. The sisters soon learn that their brother created a trust that makes two of them rich and leaves the other two virtually nothing. After a promise to share the inheritance more equitably breaks down, the sisters face a crisis that threatens to destroy their family. 
 
Playwright Bill Rogers is a writer and educator who has won awards as a playwright and for teaching history and English in colleges in the United States and Australia. He has written four full-length plays, two one act plays, a radio play, Irish Joe and the Dutchman (commissioned and performed by Kansas City Actors Theatre), several ten-minute plays, and book and lyrics for “Wild and Willful Women,” a full-length musical that was presented during the Theatre Resources Unlimited 2014 New Musicals Reading Series. Albuquerque’s Fusion Theater will give his new ten-minute play, “Are they Watching,” a staged reading as part of the Second Seven in their 2025 The Seven festival. He also had a novel, Mango Black, published in 2023. KCStage Magazine recognized his play, Collisions, as the highest rated show in Kansas City for 2008. Caldwell’s Bomb won a Best Play nomination for the Venus/Adonis Festival in New York City in 2016. His first play, Broken Strings, was a finalist in the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild-Julie Harris Competition, and Breaking the Trust won Rockhurst University’s Plays in Progress Competition in Kansas City. He lives with his wife in San Diego and is a Lifetime Member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
 
Director Gerald vanHeerden is an award-winning director of new plays and musical theater works. He has been directing since the 90’s and worked at numerous theatre venues in the New York City (TNC, Hudson Guild, June Havoc Theatre, Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, Henry Street Settlement) and regionally (Stageworks in Tampa, FL, The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX). His focus is on the discovery and development of new plays, the conceptualization of new musical theatre, and the shepherding of new talent through his work as a teaching artist. He holds a BFA in musical theatre from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and is an alumnus of Webster University Conservatory, St. Louis, MO. He is a proud member of SDC.

CAST is unavailable at this time.

“Con*Cussed,” (World Premiere) written and performed by Elizabeth Alice Murray, directed by Roger Cacchiotti
60 minutes
$20, Community Theater

September 3 6:30 PM 
September 6 5:00 PM
September 7 8:00 PM
September 13 2:00 PM
September 14 8:00 PM

Some people suffer head injuries and suddenly can speak French, play a musical instrument, or visualize quadratic equations. Elizabeth kept waiting for that to happen to her. “Con*Cussed” is a hilariously painful and ridiculously true story of healing that explores questions of how we perceive our reality.

Playwright Elizabeth Alice Murray is a disabled writer, performer, teacher and disability advocate in New York. Her previous one woman show, “Woman in the Dark” (which recounts her misadventures while trapped in an elevator during the 2003 Blackout) was developed with Emerging Arts Theater and went on to run at the Planet Connections and Untied Solo Fest, where it was nominated for Outstanding Performance. She is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts and performed with various theater companies throughout New York and New England. Ms. Murray mentors with the Writer Guild Initiative and is particularly dedicated to helping disabled female populations tell their stories. She has written and produced several short films including a webseries, “Cafe Conversations,” which won the Grand Prize from Fliggeebox, and “Timing,” which has aired on PBS and won Best Short at the Strasbourg International Film Festival and a Best Acting Award from the NY International Film & Video Festival.

Director Roger Cacchiotti Ph.D. taught acting at the University of New Mexico while a teaching fellow for his Master’s degree in Stage Directing and Theater Education. He was part of UNM’s Wrinkle Writing program, teaching acting and playwriting to students in the public schools and culminating in full productions in professional theater settings. He is a former Board Member of the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque, NM. He was Producing Artistic Director of the Provincetown Theatre Company for three seasons. He taught theater classes at Public School Repertory Company and The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, and ran the theater department at the High School of Applied Communication in New York City. He was a teaching assistant in the Educational Wing of The Roundabout Theatre Company. He taught English at LaGuardia Community College. He has acted and directed in Boston, New York, and New Mexico. He writes, performs, and directs solo shows. He recently completed his training as a spiritual director through the Chaplaincy Institute Interfaith Seminary and works as a spiritual director.    

“Dismantling Prospero,” (Workshop), written by Tom Rowan, directed by Kevin Ray, choreographed by Ai Toyoshima, original piano score by Martin Hennessy, produced by TBD Capital.
2 hrs, 15 minutes.
$15, Community Theater
This work-in-progress is not open for review.

August 24 2:00 PM
August 27  6:30 PM
August 31  2:00 PM
September 1 6:30 PM

Professor Griffin Bates is a dynamic choreographer who has built a top-ranked dance department at Midwestern University. He struggled to hold the program together during the recent pandemic, teaching dance classes online. Now that the students are finally back on campus, he decides to reinvigorate the department with an especially ambitious spring production: an original ballet version of “The Tempest”—and audaciously casts himself as the magician Prospero. But is Griffin prepared to navigate the minefield of today’s culture wars? A provocative and timely dance/theater piece which takes an unflinching look at diversity training, Shakespeare, artistic freedom and campus politics in our rapidly changing world. Presented with support from an Artist’s Grant from FAIR In The Arts.

Playwright Tom Rowan has written “Kiss and Cry” (GLAAD Nomination), “The Second Tosca,” “Faye Drummond,” “David’s Play,” “The Blue Djinn” (Best Short Play, Fresh Fruit Festival 2014), and “Tears of a Clown” (Red Bull Short Play Festival, 2014). He has held commissions from The Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Maryland Opera Studio, where his libretto for “The Young King” (music by Martin Hennessy) was heard in concert in 2017. His work has been published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, Smith & Kraus, Next Stage Press, The New York Theatre Experience and Steele Spring Stage Rights. He has directed over 75 plays and musicals and has worked as a Casting Director and Literary Manager. He is the author of the books “A Chorus Line FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Broadway’s Singular Sensation” and “Rent FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Broadway’s Blaze of Glory.” www.TomRowan.net.

“Dune: The Dunesical (The Unauthorized 4D Muad’Dib Experience): Part 1” (World Premiere), written and directed by Blake Du Bois and TJ Canlon. Additional Material by Eli Neslund. Choreography by TJ Canlon. Associate Choreographer Yasmyn Sumiyoshi. Associate Choreographer Tanner Hodson, Music Director Andrew David Sotomayor. Assistant Music Director Collin Hodgkin. Produced by Westley Strausman
90 minutes
$20, Johnson Theater

September 8 6:30 PM 
September 10 9:00 PM
September 13 2:00 PM
September 14 8:00 PM

Made with a sincere love for Frank Herbert’s epic book series (or, well, actually the movies), this is a parody musical for everyone from musical theater fans and Dune-heads to musical cynics and Dune haters. Written by one Letterboxd-obsessed man and one brave woman, it mixes campy musical theater, raunchy fanfic and confusing hardcore sci-fi no one actually understands into one endlessly hilarious experience.

Writer/Director Blake Du Bois is a writer and actor from the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a BFA in Musical Theater from The Boston Conservatory. He made his directorial debut with New Ground Theater Company with “Dahmer: A Musical” and produced his first play, “What Love Is Not.” His credits include “Metamorphosis…With Puppets!” (Edinburgh Fringe 2024), “RENT” (Theater Aspen), vocalist with Norwegian Cruise Lines, “West Side Story” (Reagle Music Theatre) “His Story” (orig. Judas), and “American Idiot” (Boston Center for the Arts).

Co-Author/Director TJ Canlon is a choreographer and theater artist based in NYC who holds a BFA from The Boston Conservatory in Dance. She began writing in college and made her debut as choreographer and co-writer with New Ground Theater Company’s “Dahmer: A Musical.” She decided with co-writers Blake and Eli to take their collaborations to the big leagues. Choreography credits include “Dahmer: A New Musical,” “Peter and the Starcatcher,” “Lollapalooza” and most recently with a new work in 2023 at Bridge for Dance NYC. Theater credits include “Stranger Things: Immersive Experience” (NYC cast), “Another Rose” (Virgin Voyages), “American Idiot” (Boston Center for the Arts). Film/TV credits include “I am Legend” and “The Sopranos” (HBO).

“First Liar on the Moon” (World Premiere), written and directed by Fletcher Michael
90 minutes
$15, Community Theater 

September 3 9:00 PM
September 7 5:00 PM 
September 8 6:30 PM 
September 9 6:30 PM 
September 11 6:30 PM

“First Liar on the Moon” imagines that the moon landing was faked and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were not astronauts, but actors. While Buzz rides the momentum of the falsehood to a promising career in politics, Neil’s struggle to come to terms with the lie threatens to tear him — and Buzz — apart. 

Playwright/Director Fletcher Michael is founder of Infinite Monkey Theater Co., through which he writes, directs, and produces full-length comedic plays and an Off-Broadway sketch comedy show called Chimp Cocktail. Following ten sold-out shows in 2024, Chimp Cocktail headlined the 10th Annual NYC SketchFest (2024) and was awarded The PIT Sketch Group of the Year. Infinite Monkey Theater Co. had its Off-Broadway premiere with the debut of Chimp Cocktail at The Players Theatre in May 2025, where it played to a sold out house of 180 patrons. Prior to this, the troupe staged “Til Death Do Us Party,” a full-length comedic play, at the Hudson Guild Theatre as part of the New York Theater Festival (2024). The screenplay version of “Til Death Do Us Party” was a quarter finalist in the Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Awards (2024) and Mr. Michel’s’s short film screenplay, “Block Island Is Somewhere,” was a finalist in the 2022 Tribeca Studios Film Festival Competition. Beyond writing for the stage and screen, he is author of three novels. fletcherisuptosomething.com

“Fury” (Workshop), written and directed by Paul Kouri, produced by Margot Foley and Paul Kouri
90 minutes
$15, Community Theater
This work-in-progress is not open for review.

September 5 6:30 PM
September 6 8:00 PM
September 8 9:00 PM
September 12 6:30 PM
September 13 8:00 PM
September 14 5:00 PM

“Fury” is about Dawn and Letty Fury who inherited the family business, a military manufacturer, after their father passed away. Dawn, now company president, is following her father’s wishes to sell the company when a union organizing effort throws a wrench into the plan. In addition, she gets the unwelcome news that her son is joining the Marines – something she doesn’t want – all while dealing with a rapacious CEO set on buying Fury and moving the company. Led by two female characters, “Fury” is a high energy and fast paced comedy (with a little drama) that explores the struggles we face in the workplace and in life.  

Author/Director Paul Kouri has written several screenplays and the comedy series “Planet Methane” and “Unstately”, which won the Audience Award at the LA Movie Awards. He has an improv background (iO!) and is currently working on two new projects: a comedy series about a supernatural hotel and a police detective action/thriller screenplay. He’s a graduate of West Point and a veteran with a background in corporate business development, and experiences in each of these areas inform his writing and acting with inspiration and comedy.

“Gin & Milk (World Premiere), written and directed by Antony Raymond
75-80 minutes
$20, Johnson Theater 

September 2 9:00 PM 
September 3 6:30 PM 
September 6 2:00 PM
September 7 8:00 PM
September 9 6:30 PM

“Gin & Milk” is a bruised lullaby of a play—two strangers, one night, and the ghosts that won’t stay quiet. Between half-empty glasses and half-told truths, a man and a woman try to outrun their loneliness, only to find themselves tangled in memory, loss, and the strange intimacy of regret. A quiet storm of longing and fallout, where even spilled milk has something to say.

Cast: Christopher Heard as Robert, Amanda Nichols as Kate.

Playwright/Director Antony Raymond has managed to build an assorted, wide-ranging body of New  York theater in the last two decades. He is a classically trained actor turned  playwright and director. He wrote and directed “Elsinore County” (Theatre Row and Cherry Lane Studio Theater), “Yeah I Met This Girl” (Zipper Factory),” “Peter in Pieces” (DreamUp Festival), “The Autobiography…” (LaMama), “Apartment 301” (Access Theater), “Julio!” (Kraine  Theater) and “Pretty Babies” (13th Street Rep). Directing credits also include the one woman show, “Bette David Ain’t for Sissies” by Jessica Sherr (EdinburghFringe and 59E59) and “Bluff”  (Provincetown, MA). He’s recently directed his first short film,”Sleeping with Gus,” which had its world premiere at Katra Film Series and Big Apple Film  Festival in May.  

“Green Herrings in a Yellow Room: A Counter Production of The Yellow Wallpaper” (World Premiere), written, directed, and designed by Sloan Aulgur
30 min + performance discussion
$20, Community Theater

August 25 9:00 PM 
August 26 9:00 PM
August 28 9:00 PM
August 30 8:00 PM
August 31 5:00 PM

“Green Herrings in a Yellow Room” is a theatrical table reading about a play-in-progress. It is a counter-production of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story published in 1892 which follows an unnamed woman prescribed a “rest cure” by her husband, John. Confined to a room wrapped in gothic yellow wallpaper, the narrator becomes obsessed with its patterns. As her mind deteriorates, she sees a woman trapped behind the paper. This production reimagines Charlotte’s bedroom as not yellow, but green—a rich, vibrant green laced with the medium responsible for its provocative coloration: arsenic. Developed through a method of “unfabulation,” this performance un-writes the feminist text to reveal the toxic material histories behind 19th-century arsenic wallpaper. Set around a central table of archival props and models, audience members find themselves cast into an unfolding production—an investigative live performance about the production of another story. Guided by the Director, participants read from verbatim historical texts, engaging in a layered, live dramaturgy that blends theater with design theory. “Green Herrings in a Yellow Room” undoes Charlotte’s literary misdirections and the public discourse surrounding the color in question.

Playwright/Director/Designer Sloan Aulgur is an architectural designer, researcher and playwright whose work explores the intersection of material, performance, and narrative. She holds a Master of Architecture from MIT and a B.S. in Interior Design from the University of Arkansas. Her interdisciplinary work spans scenic, exhibition, and architectural design, with projects like MIT’s “Face to Face” with Es Devlin and “The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology,” a collateral event at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Her practice is interested in creating props- objects that offer material properties or spaces creating narrative propositions.

“In Between Sessions,” (World Premiere), written and performed by Amy Coleman, directed and designed by Roger Cacchiotti
90 minutes
$20, Cabaret Theater

September 7 5:00 PM
September 8 6:30 PM
September 11 6:30 PM 
September 12 6:30 PM
September 14 5 PM

A Therapist reflects on her life and death in between patients.

Cast: Amy Coleman

Writer/Performer Amy Coleman began her career at open mikes in cabarets and clubs in NYC. There, she met and collaborated with the late Brian Lasser, the renowned cabaret musical arranger, on “Face to the Wall,” a cabaret piece set to the words and music of Lennon and McCartney. “Face to the Wall” played to sold-out audiences at Don’t Tell Mama in NYC and won Amy two Best Vocalist of the Year awards in Backstage Magazine. She opened for the late Jackie Mason at Dangerfield’s in NYC. Her regional theater credits include Mary Magdalene in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Audrey 2 (the Voice of the Plant) in “Little Shop of Horrors,” and the Gypsy Queen in “Tommy.” She played Janis Joplin in the original Off-Broadway production of “Beehive” at The Village Gate. Tony Award winner Andre DeShields directed her in “Kiss Me When it’s Over” at La MaMa. Coleman also performed at Theater for the New City and toured Europe with Jimmy Camicia’s satirical political troupe Hot Peaches, featuring Marsha P. Johnson. She is a psychotherapist in private practice, licensed in New Jersey.

Director/Designer Roger Cacchiotti Ph.D. taught acting at the University of New Mexico and was part of UNM’s Wrinkle Writing program teaching acting and playwrighting to students in the public schools culminating in full productions in professional theatre settings.  He is a former Board Member of the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque, NM. He was Producing Artistic Director of the Provincetown Theatre Company for three seasons. He taught theater classes at Public School Repertory Company and The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, and ran the theater department at the High School of Applied Communication in New York City. He was a teaching assistant in the Educational Wing of The Roundabout Theatre Company. He taught English at LaGuardia Community College.  He has acted and directed in Boston, New York, and New Mexico. He writes, performs, and directs solo shows. He recently completed his training as a spiritual director through the Chaplaincy Institute Interfaith Seminary and works as a spiritual director.

“In Search of “True Love” (World Premiere), written and performed by Ayaka Yamamoto
30 minutes
$15, Community Theater

September 2 6:30 PM
September 4 6:30 PM
September 5 9:00 PM
September 9 9:00 PM
September 10 6:30 PM
September 11 9:00 PM 
September 13 5:00 PM 
September 14 2:00 PM

“In Search of ‘True Love’” is about epiphany and revival when a woman loses the sense of loving herself and others.

Cast: Ayaka Yamamoto

Playwright/performer Ayaka Yamamoto is a New York-based artist. Her life themes are love, passion, and creativity. After her experiences as a children’s violin teacher in post-earthquake areas in Japan and a small town in Venezuela, a coordinator for the government and NPOs, and an executive assistant for an IT company, her passion for theater brought her to New York.

“Kind Stranger:…a memory play” (World Premiere), adapted for the stage & directed by Steven Simone-Friedland based on Tennessee Williams’ “Memoirs”
75 minutes
$20, Johnson Theater

August 24 5:00 PM
August 25 6:30 PM
August 29 6:30 PM
August 30 2:00 PM
Setember 1 9:00 PM
September 3 9:00 PM

Tennessee Williams, one of America’s most influential playwrights, shares his memories on his loves, his plays, his art and his life while struggling to work on his autobiography, “Memoirs.”

Cast: Rick Simone-Friedland as Tennessee Williams

Director, adaptation & performer Steven Simone-Friedland is an independent, freelance filmmaker residing in Los Angeles.  He has directed, written, produced and edited a number of short film and television projects including “[sic],” “Togetherness” and “Sunday Cup of Coffee,” which was awarded the CineEast’s Golden Eagle Award, the Herman Kass Fellowship in Filmmaking, the Rita Morrison Best Director’s Award, and the AMPAS Award in Motion Picture Production.   He edited the feature documentaries “The Yes Men Are Revolting” and “Donner Pass” and the television pilots, “Group” and “Techno 3.”  When not pursuing film and TV projects, he serves as series editor on Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” “Salt Lake City,” “Orange County and Dubai,” “Vanderpump Rules,” “Below Deck” and “Family Karma,” MTV’s “Siesta Key” and HBO’s “Queen of Versailles Reigns Again.”  His Los Angeles theater directing credits include critically acclaimed productions of “Ourselves Alone,”  “Oleanna,” “Betrayal,” “Scenes of an American Life,” and “Imagining Rachel,” which received its World Premiere at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s theater department and received his MFA in filmmaking at UCLA.
 
“Little Jewel: In the Plagues and Throes of Love” (World Premiere), written and directed by Bob Shuman, co-director & production manager Frank Farrell. Based on Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”
2 hours
$18, Cabaret Theater

August 24 5:00 PM
August 27 6:30 PM 
August 29 6:30 PM 
August 31 8:00 PM
September 3 6:30 PM
September 5 6:30 PM

“Little Jewel: In the Plagues and Throes of Love,” based on Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” is written in Early Modern English and iambic pentameter.  The play is set amid the fearful turbulence of the Italian Renaissance, or in the Bronx during COVID, or even in Elizabethan England in the course of a pox outbreak—times analogous, or as Einstein theorized, all happening at once. The window into these worlds is the dogs inhabiting the grounds at the Duke of Milan’s castle. They are cared for by Magdalene, a milkmaid, and Launce, Sir Proteus’s servant. Displaced into a terror-ridden world of a severe epidemic, part of a larger pandemic, they, their love, and the destinies of their animals, may remind audiences of their own lives in a time not very long ago.

Cast: Noni Alley, Maddie Boudov, Bobni Das, Alejandro Flores, Ireland Meachum, Katy Robinson, and Eike Ross.

Playwright/Director/Producer Bob Shuman brought  “Tongs and Bones Shakespeare” to the Dream Up Festival in 2024. He earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch and is the owner of Marit Literary Agency and the theatre website Stage Voices. He is also a playwright, a senior editor with experience in mainstream publishing, a college professor, and a recipient of Hunter College’s Zarkower Award for excellence in playwriting. His dramatic work has appeared in four anthologies from Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, which includes a volume of monologues for kids. He co-edited “Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays” (Northwestern University Press), has written for the Eugene O’Neill Society and judged work for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. He is co-author, with fashion florist Michael George, of “Simply Elegant Flowers,” Shuman is a past fellow of the Lark Theatre Company, and his work has been given readings with the Amoralists, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, Second Stage, and the WPA, among others.

Co-director/Production Manager Frank Farrell  recently returned to his hometown New York City and directed “Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo” as part of the 2024 New York City Fringe Festival. An actor in Chicago for 40 years, he received three Joseph Jefferson acting nominations, and directed and produced plays for the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare’s Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players, and Theatre-Hikes. He has formed seven theater companies, including the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Chicago’s first year-round Shakespeare performance ensemble, Theatre-Hikes in Chicago and, in Grand Haven, Michigan, the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company. In New York City, for First Flight, his new performance group, he wrote, directed, and produced “Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War.” Also for First Flight, he coordinated several stage readings of Maxwell Anderson’s plays in New York City, New Jersey, and Chicago, and he directed and produced a 2022 production of Anderson’s play “Valley Forge.” His Zoom film “In the Garden of Live Flowers” recently won Best Biopic at the Green Academy Awards Film Festival.

“One in Twenty-Five” (World Premiere), written and directed by Thomas M Copeland
30 minutes
$20, Cabaret Theater 

8/24 8pm
8/30 8pm
9/2 9pm
9/4 9pm
9/6 8pm
9/7 2pm
9/8 9pm
9/10 6:30pm

In the final hours of the Rogers Commission investigating the space shuttle Challenger disaster that killed seven astronauts, Nobel Laureate and theoretical physicist Dr. Richard P. Feynman exposes an uncomfortable truth and forever changes how NASA thinks about safety.

Writer/Director Thomas M Copeland is an actor, playwright and entrepreneur. He relocated from Florida to Edgewater, NJ in September 2024 and is a graduate of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in NYC. This is his Off-Off Broadway debut and his first play produced in NYC. More info on IG @castingtom and  castingtom.com.

“Sartre and Simone: A Comedy of Redemptive Love” (World Premiere), written and directed by William Cane
100 minutes
$15, Johnson Theater 

August 26 9:00 PM
August 31 2:00 PM
September 4 9:00 PM
September 7 2:00 PM
September 10 6:30 PM
September 11 9:00 PM
September 12 9:00 PM

The true story of the most challenging of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s relationships: their involvement with two brilliant and vulnerable young students, the sisters Olga and Wanda Kosakiewicz.

William Cane (writer/director) is the pen name of award-winning playwright and bestselling author Michael Christian. A former trial attorney, he has directed more than a hundred stage shows, including his Off Broadway musical “Meet The Real Ernest Shackleton” (2004), which the New York Times compared to the Marx Brothers. In 2024 he directed “The Beat Generation” and “Crazy About You” at the Producers Club in Manhattan. His books have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than a million copies worldwide.

“Sundown Town: A New Musical” (World Premiere), directed, choreographed, and designed by Azariah Coppin
1 hour 45 min
$15, Community Theater 

August 24 8:00 PM
August 8/26 6:30 PM
August 8/28 6:30 PM
August 8/29 9:00 PM
August 8/31 8:00 PM

A brother and sister find themselves on a road trip through Arkansas, encountering strange new acquaintances who all help the duo to reclaim their newfound sense of purpose.

Cast: Joseph Sanford IV, Shania Weatherford, Sage Kalmus, Maggie Lega, Ki’mari Lavender, Gregory Jordan 

Author/Director Azariah Coppin (Azi) is also set/lighting/costume designer and musical director of “Sundown Town: A New Musical.” He is a  writer and actor from Baltimore who graduated from NYU Tisch in 2016  with a BFA in Drama. His short play, “Bleachers,” was staged as part of Secret Sundown Town: A New Musical Program at Info Theatre’s LIC Summer festival 2018. His other short play, “Servile,” was  performed as part of Manhattan Repertory’s Winter Showcase 2019. His first  anthology play of one acts, “Setting: Teachers’ Lounge,” premiered at  NYSummerfest ’19 at the Hudson Guild Theater in Mid-August.

“That Lost Orange Sauce” (World Premiere), written by Evan Davis, directed by Elena Menendez Sanchez
80 minutes
$18, Johnson Theater

August 25 9:00 PM
August 30 8:00 PM
September 6 8:00 PM
September 13 8:00 PM
September 14 5:00 PM

Joe, an aspiring chef, infiltrates Cookie’s restaurant to reclaim his deceased grandmother’s recipe, the Orange Sauce, while hooking up with DJ, Cookie’s grandson, an aspiring underground ambient-jungle disc jockey with lofty dreams of moving to the big city.

Playwright Evan Davis (they/them) is a Black and queer playwright born and raised from Middletown, CT. Evan began writing as a stand-up comedian and then transitioned into playwriting. They founded Pushin the Pen, a Black writers collective located between CT and NYC. Evan centers Black ecologies and technologies and uses storytelling as a form of comedic catharsis and ancestral veneration. Recent credits include: “Songbird” at the Garde Center Mayfly Play Festival, and the NYU Reality Show at Radio City Music Hall/Skirball Center. They received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU in May 2024.

Director Elena Menéndez Sánchez is an Afro-latinex multihyphenate artist who is interested in changing the boundaries of what mainstream theater can be and who it can be for. She received her BFA in Drama with a minor in Psychology, and uses that education to create spaces in which she and other people like her can feel safe and have a chance to be artists in a system that mainly prioritizes white, cis-heteropatriarchal stories. She was born in Canada and began her performing journey as a dancer at the mere age of 4 years old. She loved the lights and the stage from then, and had always pursued new ways of expression that had not yet been seen by others.

“The Boys From Kingsbridge” (New York Premier), written by Steven Sarao, directed by Anna Rebek
1 hour 40 minutes
$18, Johnson Theater

August 8/27 6:30 PM
August 28 6:30 PM
August 8/29 9:00 PM
August 8/30 5:00 PM
August 8/31 8:00 PM
September 9/1 6:30 PM
September 5 6:30 PM

A realistic view of life of the NYPD circa 1999 shows us two lifelong friends from the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx on their daily grind as NYPD patrol officers.  

Playwright Steven Sarao is a BFA graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who has appeared in productions Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway including “Twist of Faith,” “The Ugly Wife” and “Pigs: An experience with Steve Sarao.” He has worked with Kevin Kuhlke, David Gideon, Geoffrey Horne, Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and numerous NYU Tisch graduates over the years in theater, film and television. Sarao is an MPA graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government where he attended as a Public Service Fellow. As a postgraduate, Sarao served as a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice Policy & Management where he concentrated his scholarship on the intersection between sub Saharan Africa, terrorism, and government reform including initiatives in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. Sarao’s writing has been published in the Harvard Kennedy School Review, Harvard Africa Policy Journal, American Police Beat, The Jewish Week, and The Star Ledger. Sarao will be participating in LaMama Umbria Playwrights retreat during the summer of 2025, where he will be developing his next full length work.

Director Anna Rebek is a Mexican and Hungarian-American theater and opera director working in NYC. She received her BFA in performance from Yale University, her MFA from Columbia, and was awarded the Opera Directing Fellowship at Juilliard for two years, becoming an assistant faculty member there her second year. Her classical theater company, Shakespeare Workshoppe, received praise for its creatively staged Julius Caesar and also for its new adaptation of Euripides’ “The Trojan Women.” Anna’s favorite opera credits include Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in the historic Estates Theater in Prague, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at Montclair State University, and also his La Bohème & Tosca at the Soo Opera Theater. Anna also loves to champion new plays; she directed “Last Room,” an intimate portrait of Anthony Bourdain by Mitch Moxley, and also her original Columbia thesis, “GASP!”  

“The Shadows of Love and Light,” (World Premiere), written by Larry Americ Allen, directed by Jill Giedt
2 hours
$18, Cabaret Theater

August 28 9:00 PM
August 29 9:00 PM
August 30 5:00 PM 
August 31 5:00 PM 
September 1 6:30 PM

A mother has dinner with the son she aborted 30 years earlier.  

Cast: Josie Seid, Marcel Johansen, Kayla Kelly, Pancho Demmings

Writer Larry Americ Allen was born and raised in San Francisco and earned a master’s degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University. His journey into theater and playwriting began at an early age, inspired by the rich cultural tapestry and artistic dynamism of his hometown. He won the Perry Award for “Shakespeare’s Lost Masterpiece,” a drama about a burned-out white professor who discovers that a Black homeless man unknowingly has Shakespeare’s lost manuscript. His “Colors of Visions” dealt with the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad. His “The Chef” premiered at the Dunbar Repertory Company and his “Paradise Revisited” was produced by Recovery Theater. 

Director Jill Giedt is a director, choreographer and founder of Ballet the Black Way, a ballet and movement program centering on black stories, healing and cultural expressions.  She has directed and assistant-directed for PassinArt: A Theatre Company, based in Portland, Oregon.  Her credits include “The Hobo King” (Portland Film Festival), “Dot,” “Seven Guitar” and “Clean Sheets.”  Her directing experience  spans staged readings and live productions rooted in Black theatrical storytelling.  She holds an BFA in Directing and trained with the American Contemporary Ballet Company under Elizabeth Abts.  She studied and performed African dance with Obo Addy.  Her background includes over a decade of teaching and directing musical theatre at Park Academy. She previously taught ballet through Oregon Ballet Theatre’s community outreach program.  As a resident artist with Young Audiences, she uses creative movement to honor the African American experience and nurture resilience through storytelling.

“The Story of Sal B and Barbranne: A Mob Fantasia (Cyrano Redux)” (World Premiere), written and directed by Stephan Morrow
100 minutes
$18, Johnson Theater

September 8 9:00 PM
September 9 9:00 PM
September 11 6:30 PM
September 12 6:30 PM
September 13 5:00 PM

This is a re-invention of Cyrano De Bergerac but set one hundred years in the future after WWIII in a world in which the mob has merged with the military as it struggles with Eastern enemies over Middle East oil. It’s also a story of unrequited love: Sal B, a horribly scarred veteran of Special Forces just returned from the war zone, is pursued for a scoop by a young cub reporter. He becomes enamored of her but she is enraptured by the young heir of the head of the mob families of NY. Big Paul – Jr (the son) a louche “king of the discos,” is planning on opening a (Vegas-like) Pleasure Dome for U.S. soldiers in the Saudi peninsula.

Cast: Anthony Avitabile, Elyse Boucher, Tsahai Gilchrist. Michael Giorgio, George Lugo, Joe Marshall, Liam McGowan, Kazue Peck, Roy Rohrsetzer, Jeffrey St.Victor.

Author/Director Stephan Morrow is a proud veteran of the Off-off Broadway arena where has acted, directed and written and where he finds the freedom it offers so far from the specious projects of most commercial theater. He has worked with Norman Mailer (“Strawhead: A memory of Marilyn,” “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” and “Deerpark”) and Arthur Miller (“Incident at Vichy”) and directed productions by Mario Fratti and John Steppling, among others, at TNC. He is an active member of The Playwright Directing Unit of the Actors Studio and is founding Artistic Director of The Great American Play Series. He was mentored in the Playwright Directing Unit of the Actor’s Studio by Elia Kazan. He is also a prolific actor in theater and film and a director of indie films. He is grateful to Crystal Field for supporting his efforts at filming stage productions at TNC, including “The Assassination of J.Kaisaar” and “The Rise of Augustus – The Sopranos Meet Mad Max” which have garnered more than a dozen awards in film festivals including Best Science Fiction Feature Film in The Golden State Film Festival.

“To Feed the Roses,” written by Amy Losi, directed by Laurie Rae Waugh
80 minutes
$18, Cabaret Theater

September 2 6:30 PM 
September 4 6:30 PM 
September 5 9 PM
September 7 8 PM
September 9 6:30 PM
September 13 2:00 PM

A romantic comedy about an older couple whose past secrets get in the way of their falling in love again.

Cast: J. Dolan Byrnes, Amanda Cannon, Amy Losi

Playwright Amy Losi is an actor, director, and playwright based in NYC. She has acted in ninety plays, in both lead and supporting roles. She has also appeared in commercials, TV, independent films, and a long-running sketch comedy show at the Broadway Comedy Club. Her plays have been selected for eighteen festivals, and won nine awards. Her Zoom comedy “Don’t Stand Up!” won the 2020 Spirit of the Hartford Fringe Festival award. She won “Best Female Screenwriter” (Cutting Room International Short Film Festival) and “Best Female Centre Film” (Philadelphia World Film Festival) for the filmed version of her play, “No Fall My Hand.” Her full-length plays premiered at Theater for the New City and American Theatre of Actors in NYC. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the New Play Exchange. https://www.amylosi.net/

Director Laurie Rae Waugh began her theater career in NYC in 1980 first as a Stage Manager and then as a Director in 2001. Laurie has since directed over 60 plays. She has also received several Director Awards from American Theatre of Actors and is one of their Resident Directors. Her recent ATA credits include: “Love’s a Thin Diet” by Amy Losi and “¡POOF!” by Sarah Vindigni (2025), “Hang Up Your Cleats” by Ken Coughlin (2024), and “My Mother’s Bookie” and “Billy” by the late Irving A. Greenfield (2024). She has also directed “The Poetry Panacea” by Amy Losi at the Flea Theater as part of the Rogue Festival, and “Halfway Through the Wood” by Amy Losi in the Chain One-Act Festival (2024). 

“Twist of Faith,” written by Michael Gurin, based on an original story by Matt Okin & Michael Gurin, with original songs by Avi Kunstler, directed by Matt Okin, assistant director Haia Bchiri
85 Minutes
$20, Johnson Theater

August 24 8:00 PM 
August 26 6:30 PM
August 27 9:00 PM
August 28 9:00 PM
August 31 5:00 PM

A fast-moving, comedic and moving play about two diametrically opposed young men who cross paths on the Jewish Sabbath and this meeting alters the course of both their lives. Features powerful original songs performed live by a roving singer/guitarist in a powerful exploration of identity and belief.

Playwright Michael Gurin is author of “Second Chances” and “Destinations,” sequels to “Twist of Faith,” produced by TNC. He is author of Black Box’s long-running “A Match Made In Manhattan” and dramaturg of the revival of the rock musical “Soul Searching.” He is currently working with the Isaac Bashevis Singer Literary Trust on an original play based on selected works by the Nobel Laureate entitled “Life After Warsaw.” His short stories have appeared in Midstream: A Monthly Jewish Journal, The Journal of African Travel Writing, Paris Transcontinental, and the Cimarron Review. He is a Professor of English at Lander College in Queens.

Director Matt Okin is currently directing “Annabel’s Sister” by George Kolber, the writer/producer of the 2023 feature film “Miranda’s Victim.” Recent theatrical directing credits include Sam Shepard’s “Action” and “The Unseen Hand,” the U.S. premiere of “Little Ocean,” “1+1” by Eric Bogosian; “Imaginary Comforts” by Daniel Handler a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, “The Cleopatra Club” by Paul Schrader; “Exposed” by Beth Henley, and Edward Albee’s “The Play About the Baby.” His original plays showcased in NYC, NJ, and on tours include “Cherry Hill,” “Beltsville/Rockville, Part One: Rise of the Goatman,” “#OneInnocentWoman” and “Walter Liked to Sit in His Big Backyard.” Original musicals include the rock musical “Soul Searching” and the long-running “A Match Made in Manhattan.” He received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of The Arts, where he studied with Maria Irene Fornes, Len Jenkin, Martin Epstein, Jan Hartman, Leslie Lee, Charlie Purpura, and Gary Garrison. He is the founder of Black Box and a long-time teaching artist for select theater programs for teens and adults in Bergen County, NJ.

Avi Kunstler (original songs) is a long time singer/songwriter who has composed the music and lyrics to many Black Box productions, including the original “Twist of Faith,” “Second Chances,” “Destinations,” “A Match Made In Manhattan: The Interactive Jewish Wedding Experience,” and the rock musical “Soul Searching.” At times, he has joined the band in performance of select shows. He has performed across the USA as well as in London and Israel. He and his wife Mimi split their time between their homes in New York and Jerusalem.

“Undesirable Secrets” (NY Premiere), written and performed by Rodolfo Avarado, directed by William Doll, designed by Rodolfo Alvarado and William Doll
Composer of “Anthony’s Theme” (opening and closing music): Eduardo García Rascón
85 minutes
$20, Cabaret

August 24 2:00 PM
August 26 6:30 PM
August 28 6:30 PM
August 8/30 2:00 PM
August 8/31 2:00 PM

“Undesirable Secrets” tells the extraordinary true story of Anthony C. Acevedo—a WWII medic, former POW, and the first Mexican American registered as a Holocaust survivor. Anthony was born, raised, and lived in California his entire life, yet his story remains widely unknown. Captured during the Battle of the Bulge, he was one of 350 American soldiers—many of them Jewish—sent to Berga, a Nazi slave labor camp. For 63 years, he kept the experience a secret under orders from the U.S. Army. In the final years of his life, he broke his silence.

Cast: Rodolfo Alvarado

Playwright/Performer Rodolfo Alvarado is a playwright, poet, and scholar whose work spans stage, film, and print. His solo play “Undesirable Secrets” was developed in collaboration with the Anthony Acevedo Educational Foundation and has been presented to standing ovations across the country. Alvarado is the recipient of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award and has been recognized for his contributions to Latino storytelling and socially impactful theater. He holds an MFA in Playwriting and a PhD in Fine Arts. His new poetry collection, “Brown Son of Lorca,” debuted with a reading in NYC in June 2025.

Director William M. Doll is an award-winning director, script consultant and educator with a career spanning over four decades. He has directed more than 100 productions across the United States and has a long history of developing theatrical works. A passionate advocate for socially conscious theater, Doll brings a powerful blend of emotional insight and structural precision to “Undesirable Secrets.”

Composer Eduardo García Rascón is a Mexican composer known for his emotionally evocative work in both classical and contemporary contexts.

(by Mark L. Hannay; via Jonathan Slaff.)

English “Radical Drag” Actor and Gay Rights Activist, Beloved by Downtown New York Theater Audiences, Dies at Age 84

Bette Bourne, the founder and driving force behind the English radical drag theater troupe Bloolips, died in his sleep at his home in Notting Hill, London late on Friday evening August 23, just one month shy of his 85^th birthday.  His husband and longtime performing partner Paul Shaw was at his bedside as his longtime caregiver.  Bourne died after a long illness involving cognitive decline.  He is also survived by his brother Mike Berry, a well-known English pop singer and actor who lives in London, and sisters Valerie Beale of Amarillo, Texas, and Pamela Williams of Bangor, Wales.

Born as Peter Bourne into a working class family in 1939 in the Hackney section of London’s East End, he was bitten by the theater bug as a young child and made his first stage appearance at age 4 in local amateur community theater in London’s Stoke Newington area.  As a young man, Bourne studied acting at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage, and then appeared in various roles on stage and television, including such TV series as ”The Avengers” and ”The Prisoner”. In 1969, he appeared alongside Ian McKellan in a touring double bill of Marlowe’s “Edward II” and Shakespeare’s “Richard II”.

In 1970, Bourne set aside his acting career to become a founding activist with London’s Gay Liberation Front (see the book “Blowing the Lid: Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution, and Radical Queens” by Stuart Feather.)  He joined an infamous gay commune based on Colville Terrace in London’s Notting Hill. During this period, Bourne started wearing drag in public and changed his name to ‘Bette’ while liberally switching between the pronouns he and she with friends, co-workers, and the public, to keep everyone guessing.

In 1976, Bourne joined the New York-based gay cabaret theater troupe Hot Peaches and performed with them across Western Europe, culminating in a show at the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Arts in London^.  When that troupe returned to New York, Bourne remained behind in London and founded his own gay musical-comedy company Bloolips.  Their shows skewered modern gay life and drag in the classical British music hall tradition, but often with a subtle-yet-biting political edge addressing mainstream heterosexual-dominant culture.

The all-men troupe played with drag as a theatrical art form, and combined satirical political comedy with singing and tap dancing.  The men all dressed in clown-like costume drag rather than in strictly female attire or as female impersonators. Their shows drew heavily on the glamor of the mid-20^th century eras of Hollywood and Broadway theater, staged, produced, and directed in the vaudeville tradition, with Bette often playing the leading lady. The scenery and costumes were designed to look tawdry and down-at-heel, to imply the company was on its last legs. Everyone in the troupe made their own costumes on a limited budget and incorporating found objects.  All the shows featured original songs or adaptations of well-known musical songs and numbers.

Bloolips toured the UK and Western Europe throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They enjoyed tremendous success in North America, where they often starred off-Broadway in New York.  They won an Obie Award for their production of “Lust in Space,” which ran for nine months at the historic Orpheum Theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  When in New York City over the years, the troupe developed a devoted following among denizens of Off-off Broadway theater, and appeared frequently at Theater for the New City and occasionally at PS 122 and La Mama E.T.C.  New York City soon became an often second home for the group.

In 1990, Bourne and Shaw separately joined forces with the New York lesbian theater troupe Split Britches (Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver) for the dramedy “Belle Reprieve”, a gay reflection on Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” wherein Bette played a Blanche DuBois-like character. The ensemble garnered an Obie Award.

During Bloolips’ two-decades long tenure, there were approximately two dozen men who passed through the troupe, joining a core of longtime and ongoing members including Bossy Bette, Precious Pearl, Lavinia Co-op, Gretel Feather, and Diva Dan.  A documentary titled “Bloolips” was produced in New York in 1993, centering on their show “Get Hur” that parodied classical Rome epic costume dramas and explored the historical relationship between the Emperor Hadrian and his young Greek lover Antinous, who was subsequently deified after his death at age 20. 

The company’s last production (“Bloo Revue”) was in 1999, and their final performance was in NYC over Gay Pride Weekend in June of that year at Theater for the New City.  A 2019 exhibition, “Blooplips and Radical Drag: Making an Exhibition of Ourselves” at the London gallery Platform Southwork, showcased the troupe’s history.  An archive about Bette Bourne and the Bloolips exists at the Bishopsgate Institute in London.

Throughout the latter part of and subsequent to the Bloolips era, Bourne resumed an acting career on stage, screen, and television, playing a combination of roles in drag (e.g., Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”; and the Nurse in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”), a solo show about Quentin Crisp and one about his/her own life, and legit Shakespearean theater at London’s historic Globe Theater.  During that era, Bourne appeared in New York in productions at New York Theater Workshop and St. Anne’s Warehouse.  A 2014 interview film, “It Goes with the Shoes” written and directed by Mark Ravenhill, documents Bourne’s life story.

Details about memorial events in London and New York are to be announced.

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Mark Hannay was the production and stage manager and sometimes actor with Hot Peaches from 1984 to 1997.  mhannay@igc.org, 917-318-5008