Seven Deadly Sins Created by Alumni Comes to the Streets of Manhattan

By
Robbie Armstrong
May 19, 2021

The Miami production of Seven Deadly Sins will transfer to New York this summer. Conceived and directed by alumnus Michel Hausmann ’13Seven Deadly Sins played in Miami to rave reviews and will be reimagined for New York audiences. Playwriting alumna Ming Peiffer ’16 joins the team for the  New York transfer and will write alongside esteemed playwrights Ngozi Anyanwu, Thomas Bradshaw, MJ Kaufman, Jeffrey LaHoste, and Bess Wohl. The New York premiere will be directed by Moisés Kaufman. 

Seven Deadly Sins is an outdoor theatrical anthology series that explores humanity’s basest impulses. The production premiered at Miami New Drama where Hausmann is the Artistic Director. The theatrical experience takes theatre to outdoor storefronts where scenes unfold. At the Miami New Drama production, six of the plays were staged in glassed-in storefronts, and the seventh was presented in the loading dock of the Colony Theater, the company’s regular home. Guides led audience groups of 12 from store to store, where they listened to the actors over iPods Velcroed to their bright red, socially distanced chairs. 

Hausmann’s production was one of the most successful in the country when it opened in Miami on November 27, 2020. The production employed over 100 theatre workers and had a production budget of $580,000. The play was extended twice and according to Actors Equity Association Seven Deadly Sins was the biggest live theatrical production in the country at the time.

Tectonic Theatre Project will adapt this production to the streets of New York with an all new company of playwrights. Each playwright’s work will address a particular biblical sin: pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth or lust. Peiffer’s piece addresses the sin, wrath, and is titled “Longhorn.” Before the series of 10 minute plays, the audience will be able to grab a drink at the pop-up bar, Purgatory. 

'Seven Deadly Sins' title graphic

Seven Deadly Sins will begin performances on June 22, 2021 and will take place in storefront windows of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. The production plays through August 8, 2021. Tickets are on sale now.

Ming Peiffer is the first Asian woman to be nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Play in its history. Her play Usual Girls (3 Drama Desk Nominations including Outstanding Play and a New York Times Critic’s Pick) played Roundabout Underground. Her work has been developed and/or presented by New York Theatre Workshop, The New Group, The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, The Flea, The Wild Project, New Ohio, and Soho Playhouse. Awards and fellowships include: 2017 Kilroy's List, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Youngblood Member, The Kennedy Center's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award Recipient, The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center NPC Finalist, Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award Finalist. Peiffer has trained with the Stella Adler School of Acting and the Shanghai Theatre Academy where she studied Traditional Peking Opera. Peiffer is currently a Supervising Producer on the Amazon show Dead Ringers. She studied poetry at The New School and holds a BA with Honors in Theater Arts and Mandarin Chinese from Colgate University.

Michel Hausmann Is a Venezuelan-born theater director, producer, and writer. He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Miami New Drama, the resident company and operator of the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. Hausmann is the librettist and director of The Golem Of Havana, a critically-acclaimed original musical that played the Colony Theatre. Under his artistic leadership Miami New Drama has produced: Our TownQueen of Basel, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad DeityTerrorOne Night in Miami…Confessions of a Cocaine CowboyViva La Parranda!, and others. Hausmann’s Off-Broadway credits include the Black Milk and The Color Of Desire, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nilo Cruz. He was the co-founder and Artistic Director of an award-winning theater company in Venezuela where he directed over a dozen productions. Michel received a BA from Emerson College. He is a New York Theater Workshop 2050 Fellow, a Shubert Presidential fellow, an IRNE nominee, a Richard Rodgers Award finalist, and a two-time Knights Arts Challenge Award recipient. Hausmann is a husband, father of three, and a dog lover.