New York Theater: CREATETHEATER’S NEW WORKS FESTIVAL (Theater Row)

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by Gregory Bernard on March 16, 2022

in Theater-New York

CreateTheater in association with The Prism Stage Company are jointly presenting CreateTheater’s New Works Festival – the first new theater festival to emerge post-shutdown. The new festival will run from Thursday, April 14 to Sunday, May 15 at Theater Row’s Theater Four, (410 West 42nd Street) and provides a new model for developing theater online and then producing work on stage. https://newworksfest.org The festival features seven productions – six new musicals and one new play, from writers across the country who have developed their work in-house through CreateTheater’s resident writer company, The Expert’s Theater Company (ETC). CreateTheater’s ETC members are given writing groups and workshops, musical theater writing classes, producer seminars featuring NYC industry experts, producer coaching, and online reading spaces with feedback from company members and NYC industry. The ETC model online is inspired by Ellen Stewart’s (La MaMa ETC) example of providing a low-cost safe space for artists to develop their work. Introducing CreateTheater’s New Works Festival productions for 2022:RETRACTIONDavid Zaragoza Gutierrez (Playwright)Jen Wineman (Director) An accomplished journalist’s life is turned upside down when she discovers that her explosive, controversial magazine article might not be true. Adapted from a true story, RETRACTION is not just a play about sexual assault and journalism, but how journalistic failure can damage people’s lives, damage a movement, and ruin careers. Performance dates:
  • May 5 at 8pm
  • May 7 at 3pm
  • May 8 at 3pm
  • May 10 at 7pm
  • May 11 at 8pm
  • May 13 at 8pm

FINDING MADAME CURIE:David Kurkowski (Writer/Composer)Staś Kmieć (Director) Nothing can stop Marie Curie in her quest for scientific discovery—not gender bias, ethnic discrimination, or personal tragedy.  After winning two Nobel Prizes, she creates mobile X-ray units that save countless lives of French soldiers, and at the warfront, she makes an unexpected discovery of her own. Performance dates:

  • April 14 at 8pm
  • April 15 at 8pm
  • April 16 at 8pm
  • April 17 at 3pm
  • April 20 at 2pm
  • April 23 at 3pm                               

THE GOLDEN CAGE  Deborah Henson-Conant (Playwright/Composer)Rebecca Miller Kratzer (Director)Nevada Lozano (Music Director)  THE GOLDEN CAGE is a mythical musical fable about a Bird-Person, Boris, who’s on a lifelong quest to find the legendary Golden Cage.  When Boris finally finds the glorious cage on a remote mountain peak, it’s everything the legends described – except for one thing: there’s a grumpy, reclusive Diva living inside it, Alphea – who says the cage is a prison made of cement and iron.  A story of perception, isolation, freedom and ambition, THE GOLDEN CAGE is about the powerful illusions we trap ourselves in and the one thing that can set us free. Performance dates:

  • April 20 at 8pm
  • April 21 at 8pm
  • April 22 at 8pm
  • April 23 at 8pm
  • April 24 at 3pm

 FIRE ISLAND THE MUSICAL: Jarlath Barsanti Jacobs (Original Book and Lyrics)Emilio Solla (Composer, 2020 Grammy Award-Winner)Fred Mann III (Direction and Choreography) Can love lost get a second chance?  Gabe and Anne almost married one summer. Years later their gay housemates have invited them to a wedding/reunion the historic day same-sex marriage becomes legal.  Anne showed up. Will Gabe? Performance dates:

  • April 27 at 8pm
  • April 30 at 8pm
  • May 6 at 8pm
  • May 14 at 3pm
  • May 15 at 3pm

SEWING THE DREAM Judith Estrine (Book/Lyrics) David Kurkowski (Music) Zillah Glory Langsjoen (Director) With music in the tradition of the Great American Songbook, SEWING THE DREAM tells the story of Annie Moran,  a newly arrived Irish immigrant in 1800s NYC and how her life intertwines with that of scandal-ridden inventor Isaac Merritt Singer. Overcoming all odds and challenging accepted conventions of women’s place in society, Annie Moran and Isaac Singer forever change the world for women. Performance dates:

  • April 26 at 7pm
  • April 29 at 8pm
  • April 30 at 3pm
  • May 1 at 3pm
  • May 4 at 8pm
  • May 8 at 7pm

 OCEAN IN A TEACUP Joel Krantz (Book, Music, Lyrics)Lola Lopez Guardone (Director) OCEAN IN A TEACUP is a spiritual quest musical based on a true story. World War II may be over, but American Red Cross medic Ray Hauserman can’t bring himself to return home from India. The shame of having broken his pacifist vow “never to kill” draws him into the turbulent world of a charismatic Indian doctor, and spiritual teacher.  This inspiring man offers Ray a unique path to redemption. To follow that path, Ray will have to give up everything he knows, including the woman he loves. Performance Dates:

  • April 28 at 8pm
  • May 1 at 7pm
  • May 3 at 7pm
  • May 4 at 2pm
  • May 6 at 3pm
  • May 7 at 8pm

REWIND – AN 80s POP MUSICALGeoffrey Rose and Sam Rose (Music, book and lyrics)Richard Israel (Director) REWIND is a time-bending 80s pop musical about lost dreams and the magic of second chances. It tells the story of a powerful producer who derails a young girl’s promising music career, and she spends the next 50 years waiting tables. When he meets his untimely end he is barred from heaven, and to gain entrance he must, with a little help from the Universe, REWIND time and help her become the star she was born to be. With its original story and 80s style pop score, REWIND is the Rose brothers’ love letter to one of the most colorful decades in popular music history. Performance dates:

  • May 11 at 2pm
  • May 12 at 8pm
  • May 14 at 8pm

All New Works Festival shows run for approximately 60-120 minutes, some intermissions. Tickets can be purchased online at https://bfany.org/theatre-row/shows/new-works-festival-presented-by-createtheater/or by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200. Tickets are also available at the Theatre Row box office, 410 West 42nd Street, NYC.   ABOUT CREATETHEATER CreateTheater has been helping writers develop and produce their work since the company was launched in 2016 by Cate Cammarata, an Off-Broadway producer, director and dramaturg. During the shutdown of 2020-2022 CreateTheater developed and/or produced more than 70 shows with online readings, workshops and dramaturgical guidance. For this work Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) has honored her with the TRU Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2020. In 2020 CreateTheater created a resident writer company, The Expert’s Theater Company (ETC), to work with a smaller group of writers in order to personally develop their script and then to guide it through to production.The New Works Festival is a collaborative series, in association with The Prism Stage Company, of members of Create Theater’s Expert’s Theater Company (ETC), whose shows are ready to be presented in NYC and then go on to further development in NYC and regionally.

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