The 5th Annual East Village Theater Festival Presents 12 New Works, 4/14-5/4

OBIE Award winner and "indispensable East Village institution"? (nytheatre.com) Metropolitan Playhouse, presents the fifth annual East Village Theater Festival, a three-week celebration of the ever-vital life and lore of the East Village. The festival features four different evenings of new plays and solo-performances, as well as the work of local artists, and a panel discussion on the neighborhood's changing identity.

April 14th through May 4th, 2014
Mondays - Sundays at 7:00 pm
Saturdays and Sundays at 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm
Metropolitan Playhouse
220 East 4th Street

Press welcome at any event; no nights are designated press nights.

East Side Stories includes 6 new short plays, 6 new solo performances, an opening night reception, and a lobby exhibition of the photographs of John Milisenda, born and raised on the Lower East Side

PERFORMANCES
The festival includes 2 series of new works, each in their 10th year: The East Village Chronicles and the Alphabet City Monologues.

The East Village Chronicles are new plays inspired by the contemporary life, the lore and the history of the diverse neighborhood. This year's collection, selected from submissions from around the country, includes plays by award-winning and prolific authors local and distant: one evening, entitled Outsiders, directed by Melissa Maxwell (American Slavery Project's Unheard Voices and Nathan the Wise at The Pearl Theatre Co.) includes "Locked," by David Vazdauskas (New Brunswick, ME); "gen-tri-fi-ca-tion, noun," by Kathy Coudle-King (Grand Forks, ND); and "Man Legs Runs Free," by Mercedes Segesvary (Los Angeles). The second evening, entitledGhosts, directed by Jason Jacobs (Winner Best Direction at Fresh Fruit Festival 2013 for After the Chairs) includes three plays by New York authors: "Ashes," by Jane Prendergast; "Resistance," by East Village resident Armand Ruhlman; and"Black Triangle," by Lavinia Roberts.

The Alphabet City solo performances are unlike any other theatrical experience in their marriage of true-life and performance: derived verbatim from interviews with local residents, the monologues celebrate the lives and philosophies of current East Village neighbors in their own words, as portrayed by actor/interviewers. This year's performers are Sari Caine as Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Theater for the New City, Crystal Field; Marie Louise Guinier, as community activist Annette Aberette; Chris Harcum, as legendary Larry Schulz, of the Sandra Cameron Dance Studio; Reynaldo Piniella, as dancer and speech pathologist as Brian Alejandro Scott; Amar Srivistava, as LES Prep English teacher Rian Keating; and Lenore Wolf, as actress April March.
Past series have featured over 60 neighbors since 2003, including both prominent and unknown artists and advocates; entrepreneurs and street figures, drug dealers and care-givers. Better known partners include Hilly Christal of CBGBs; photographer Marlis Momber; street philosopher and artist de la Vega; Bill diPaola of Time's Up; Eddie Boros of Avenue B Garden; and "Mosaic Man"? Jim Power. This year's series is directed by Yvonne Opffer Conybeare.

A new exhibition of hither to unseen photographer by John Milisenda, born and raised on the Lower East Side will run throughout the festival in the theater's lobby (shared with the Connelly Theater.)

Metropolitan Playhouse explores America's theatrical heritage through forgotten plays of the past and new plays of American historical and cultural moment. Winner of a 2011 Village Voice OBIE award for "For helping us see, theatrically, where we've been and where we are", a 2014 Victorian Society in America Award for preservation of heritage, as well as numerous New York Innovative Theatre awards,Metropolitan has earned accolades from The New York Times, nytheatre.com, TheVillage Voice, Back Stage and The New Yorker as well for its ongoing mission to produce theater that illuminates American culture and heritage. Recent productions include Self, The Hero, The Detour, The Boss, Both Your Houses, The Jazz Singer,Deep Are the Roots, The House of Mirth, From Rags to Riches, One-Third of a Nation, The Great Divide, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Drunkard, Dodsworth, and The Return of Peter Grimm. Past productions of note include Year One of the Empire, The Pioneer: 5 plays by Eugene O'Neill, Denial, The Octoroon and The Melting Pot.

Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for students and seniors, and $10 for Children under 18.
Discount passes are available for multiple events.

To purchase tickets online visit www.metropolitanplayhouse.org or call 800-838-3006.