Second Stage Theater Will Present 53% OF and PATIENCE as Part of Uptown Series 2022

Second Stage Theater will present two world premiere plays as part of the 20th Anniversary season of its Second Stage Theater Uptown Series: Steph Del Rosso's 53% OF, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, and Johnny G. Lloyd's PATIENCE, directed by Zhailon Levingston.

 

53% OF will run June 14th through July 10th. Opening night is scheduled for June 28th. PATIENCE will run August 2nd through August 28th; opening night is slated for August 16th. Both plays will be performed this summer at Second Stage Theater's Uptown home, the McGinn/Cazale Theater on Broadway at 76th Street.

 

"It's been 20 years since we first launched the Uptown Series and we are extremely proud to continue this tradition with these world premiere plays this summer," said Second Stage President and Artistic Director Carole Rothman. "The artists who have been part of Uptown over the years have gone on to work on Broadway, regionally, and internationally - it's an exciting launching pad for emerging playwrights and an ongoing source of new plays by American Playwrights. We look forward to welcoming our audiences uptown this summer to discover these exciting new writers."

 

Casting for both productions will be announced in the coming weeks.

53% OF

By Steph Del Rosso

Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene

Previews begin Tuesday, June 14

Opens on Tuesday, June 28

 

The president is coming to town, and the good ladies of Bethlehem, PA are beside themselves planning to give him a hero's welcome; later, their husbands drink and posture during his swearing in.a?? And in Brooklyn, a group of 20-something white women gather to plan . . . a revolution?a?? Or is it a ritual to absolve their own guilt?a??53% OF shines a spotlight on the status quo and shakes up our perceived notions of who calls themselves good and who pleads ignorance.

 

"In 2016, 53% of white women voted for our 45th president, a statistic that became an obsession for me. This play is my attempt to find a frank, dark, and funny way to talk about white women -- the ones who voted for him and the ones who didn't." - Steph Del Rosso

 

STEPH DEL ROSSO (Playwright) writes plays, fiction, film, and television. She is a winner of the Steinberg Playwright Award and the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award. Steph is the former Shank Playwriting Fellow at The Public Theater, has been commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, Studio Theatre, and the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and was featured on The Kilroy's List. Her work has been produced or developed at The Kennedy Center, Alliance Theatre, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, JACK, the Los Angeles Theatre Center, and many others. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a former Theater Master's Visionary Playwright, and an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group, and The Lark's Playground. Her plays are published by Dramatists Play Services, Inc. She currently teaches Playwriting at NYU and lives in Brooklyn. MFA: UC-San Diego.

 

Tiffany Nichole Greene (Director) is the resident director of Hamilton (Philip Tour). Recent credits include the world premiere of High School Play: A Nostalgia Fest (Alley), Nina Simone: Four Women (ATC), the world premiere of Shoebox Picnic: Route One (AST), Ohio State Murders (Goodman), Something Grim(m) (DTC). Digital credits include the world premieres of Lydia Diamond's Whiterly Negotiations and Lynn Nottage's What are the Things I Need to Remember? (Octopus Theatricals; NYT Critic's Pick), As Is: Conversations with Big Black Women in Confined Spaces (MTC), Alice Childress' Wine in the Wilderness (PCS), and Battle Cry by Bianca Sams (CPHT). www.tiffanynicholegreene.com

PATIENCE

By Johnny G. Lloyd

Directed by Zhailon Levingston

Previews begin Tuesday, August 2

Opens on Tuesday, August 16

 

Daniel plays solitaire. Professionally. He's very good - some would say the best. But he is ready to retire and settle into that perfect new house with his husband-to-be, Jordan. He's just got to hold it together through one final, career-defining match. A sports-inspired fantasia, PATIENCE is a meditation on black excellence, next chapters, and playing a very long game alone.

 

"PATIENCE is special to me because it's my take on the coming of age story - one where becoming is equally about questioning as it is about growing. I hope it's both the kind of quiet where you can hear yourself think and the kind of funny where you see yourself in the joke. When writing PATIENCE, I was inspired by the space between life's chapters, by Venus Williams, by the oppression of competition - and by the magic of playing a card game against yourself." - Johnny G. Lloyd

Johnny G. Lloyd (Playwright) is a New York-based writer and producer. Johnny was the winner of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (The Problem With Magic, Is:) and has been commissioned by Clubbed Thumb and Second Stage Theater. Currently he is a member of the Ars Nova PlayGroup and was previously a member of the Clubbed Thumb Early-Career Writers Group and Liberation Theatre Company's Writing Residency. Johnny is a collaborator with Theater in Quarantine and SalonSéance. He is the Director of Artistic Development at The Tank and Producing Director for InVersion Theatre. MFA: Columbia University.

Zhailon Levingston (Director) is a Louisiana-raised storyteller, director, and activist. He is a Board Member for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which he co-created, and teaches the Theatre of Change course at Columbia University. He is a Music Mentor Fellow and has done work with Idina Menzel's A Broader Way Foundation. His directing credits include Neptune (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Museum), The Years That Went Wrong (Lark, MCC), The Exonerated (Columbia Law School), Chariot Part 2 (Soho Rep., for The Movement Theatre Company), Mother of Pearl (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center). He is the associate director of Primer for a Failed Superpower with Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin, and Runaways at The Public Theater with Sam Pinkleton. Most recently, he directed Chicken and Biscuits, which premiered on Broadway this fall. Zhailon is also the resident director at Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway and the associate director of Hadestown in South Korea.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.2ST.com. Standard tickets are $30, premium tickets are $50. Receive a package discount and see both shows in standard seating for $50. For more information call the Second Stage Theater Box Office at (212) 541-4516 or visit at www.2ST.com.