Red Bull Theater is presenting eight world premieres in this year’s Short New Play Festival 2022:ALCHEMY at The Sheen Center tonight. The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture is located at 18 Bleeker Street in New York. Tickets are $25. Click here for tickets.
Featured in the short plays will be Elizabeth Canavan (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, Between Riverside and Crazy, Our Lady of 121st Street, Little Flower of East Orange, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train); Liza Colón-Zayas (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven – Drama Desk and Obie Awards, Between Riverside and Crazy – Lortel Award, Little Flower of East Orange, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street); Montana Cypress (Off-Broadway debut); Jake Hart (Bury the Dead, The Octoroon: An Adaptation of The Octoroon Based on The Octoroon); Tanis Parenteau (Material Witness, Smoke); Lorenzo Pisoni (Equus, Humor Abuse – Drama Desk, Obie and Outer Critics Circle Awards; The Explorers Club, Golden Age, Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, Henry IV); Michael Puzzo (The Body Politic, Killing Women, Yet Another Country Heard From); Sidney Williams (The Atmosphere of Memory, Little Flower of East Orange); and David Zayas (Anna in the Tropics, Little Flower of East Orange, Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train).
The 12th Annual Short New Play Festival, an in-person event, is the latest installment of Red Bull’s renowned annual new play festival of classically inspired ten-minute plays.
The evening will present works by some of the most exciting writers from across the country, penning classically inspired ten-minute plays. This year’s festival will include newly commissioned plays by Larissa Fasthorse (The Thanksgiving Play) and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis (Between Riverside and Crazy) alongside six plays from up-and-coming playwrights selected through an open submission process: Montana Cypress, Debra Fried, Kevin P. Joyce, Nick Martorelli & Justin Muschong, Zoë Rhulen, and Elaine Romero. Timothy Douglas and Nathan Winkelstein will direct.
THE PLAYS
And There Shall Be No More Tears
by Montana Cypress
As the U.S. Cavalry approaches, a Medicine Man rushes to concoct a remedy to save his people.
With Visible Breath
by Larissa FastHorse
Inspired by one of the oldest stories of the L/D/Nakota people, Pté Sán Wínyan has been sent from the spiritual world to Earth on a quest to help the people who will be known as the Oceti Sakowin
Another Part of the Green Room
by Debra Fried
Orson Welles, in the figure of Mercury, finds a trio of Elizabethan actors who have magically transformed into the very roles they play (within the play) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and recruits them for his 1937 Mercury Theatre production of Faustus.
Cancel Me
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
An ancient King summons a long ago banished Alchemist to transmutate his greatest and worst possession – his son.
Vulgar Gold
by Kevin P. Joyce
Bitter Rosetta uses an alchemical elixir to seduce her sister’s husband with chaotic results.
Make Gold of That
by Nick Martorelli and Justin Muschong
A man arrives for his appointment with a modern Alchemist, where he meets other customers with items they want the Alchemist to transmute into the most valuable resource in the modern world: Time.
Medusa Prays
by Zoë Rhulen
Medusa, having just turned her most recent lover to stone, begs Athena to reverse her curse.
Prosperita
by Elaine Romero
Prosperita has the unique gift of folding and understanding both time and war. Her inner transformation calls her to action as she prepares herself to intervene in a most brutal war.
“It is a thrill to be bringing our annual Festival back to in-person performance this year! This year’s ‘Alchemy’ theme was magical – it generated hundreds of surprising and delightful plays with a wonderful range. The six selected plays together with our two established playwright commissions offer a terrific panoply of romance, drama, tragedy, and satire – all in conversation with the classics – enriching the boundaries of what that word can encompass. The eight plays brim with the theatricality made for live theater we all love so much. And with this fabulous ensemble cast each playing multiple roles in multiple plays, it’s going to be a terrific evening. Join us!” said Artistic Director Jesse Berger.
This year’s Short New Play Festival is made possible with the leadership support of The Noël Coward Foundation.
Backstage Pass with Lia Chang 