New Plays Festival 2022 | Part I
April 28 – May 21, 2022
Columbia University School of the Arts presents an expanded festival of new plays written by Columbia MFA Playwriting Students. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Tony©, Pulitzer, and Obie Award winners such as David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Charles Mee, and Rogelio Martinez invite you to experience these innovative new playwrights.
This is the first round of our New Plays Festival that runs through the summer presenting the work of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Playwrights of Columbia's MFA Theatre Program.
Organized by David Henry Hwang, Theatre.
Featuring
The Singularity Play by Jay Stull, La Sosa Sisters by Paola Alexandra Soto, birthday birthday birthday by Johnny G. Lloyd, Blanche & Stella by A.A. Brenner, Telo by Julián Mesri, and How to Gild an Eagle by Zizi Majid.
"These plays have been created by visionary writers under extraordinary circumstances. Some were originally scheduled to be produced as far back as 2020; others were written during the pandemic itself. Like theatre itself, they have survived the shutdown of our art form to come roaring back to life. We are so proud of what our writers have achieved during these challenging and traumatic times. Enjoy the rebirth!"
– DAVID HENRY HWANG, CONCENTRATION HEAD, PLAYWRITING
Schedule of Events
The Singularity Play
by Jay Stull
Directed by Jay Stull
Thursday, April 28 @ 3:30 pm
Saturday, April 30 @ 2:30 pm
Saturday, April 30 @ 8 pm
In an unused room at the Google offices in Manhattan, a theater troupe has gathered to rehearse and develop a new play written by a cutting edge artificial intelligence named "Denise."
La Sosa Sisters
by Paola Alexandra Soto
Directed by Michelle Bossy
Friday, April 29 @ 8 pm
Sunday, May 1 @ 2:30 pm
Sunday, May 1 @ 8 pm
After their Mami passes away, Manita and Rosita deal with it in very different ways. Manita feels haunted by their mother, while Rosita seems to be living her best life. Until Mami’s younger sister, Miri, with her fresh new Green Card arrives in NYC ready to start a new life while still tightly hanging on to the past. In the midst of burying their Mami, Rosita and Manita have to deal with the family secrets that they dig up. La Sosa Sisters deals with what it means to belong to a family that is separated by space and time.
birthday birthday birthday
by Johnny G. Lloyd
Directed by William Steinberger
Thursday, May 5 @ 2:30 pm
Saturday, May 7 @ 2:30 pm
Saturday, May 7 @ 8 pm
Marissa and Clark are best friends who share a birthday. Marissa and Clark are best friends who share a birthday party. And Marissa and Clark plan on sharing that birthday party for the rest of their lives - and then some. If only the future doesn’t get in their way. A multi-decade meditation on race, class, and time, birthday birthday birthday is about who we choose and how we change - and if we get any say in the matter.
Blanche & Stella
by A.A. Brenner
Directed by Colm Summers
Thursday, May 12 @ 2:30 pm
Saturday, May 14 @ 2:30 pm
Saturday, May 14 @ 8 pm
A modernized queer, Disabled new play inspired by Tennessee Williams' A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with no cis white men and one Gentleman Caller who is not a gentleman, BLANCHE & STELLA explores and reimagines the central complex female relationships at the heart of Williams' play and canon. In this retelling, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski are two only-children and childhood best friends ("sisters") who end up living together after Blanche goes through a cataclysmic breakup and shows up unannounced on Stella's doorstep in Washington, D.C. Now adults, the pair must navigate mismatched expectations and their own maladaptive coping mechanisms as they question what to do when the people they love aren't quite who they appeared to be.
Telo
by Julián Mesri
Directed by Rebecca Martinez
Friday, May 13 @ 2:30pm
Friday, May 13 @ 8pm
Sunday, May 15 @ 2:30pm
An intrepid and revealing look at intimacy, revolution, and global identity, set within the paper-thin walls of a telo, a pay-by-the-hour sex hotel in the heart of Buenos Aires, three pairs of people across three eras of Argentine history find themselves torn between the personal and political in a perpetually changing and increasingly dangerous world. Repressed gay lovers in a tango bar, two sisters planning a terrorist attack, and a random hookup in the middle of an economic crisis are woven together in a narrative that crosses generations. Accompanied by a dynamic score that brings together tango, cumbia, and Latin rock, Telo connects the revolutions--big and small--of the past with what we face in the world today.
How to Gild an Eagle
by Zizi Majid
Directed by Jonathan Seinen
Friday, May 20 @ 2:30pm
Saturday, May 21 @ 2:30pm
Saturday, May 21 @ 8pm
Donna and Matt Walker face the impending foreclosure of their family store and inn when Lana Usman, an immigrant single mother, offers them a deal that gives them a chance to stay. How To Gild An Eagle is a play about what it takes to belong and what one must sacrifice to hang on to past legacies.