2024 LUNGS Summer Theater Festival to Take Place in June

LUNGS, FRIGID New York and GOH Productions will present the third annual LUNGS Summer Theater Festival, a festival featuring the work of International and LES artists, on Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9 from 2pm-5:30pm at the 6B Garden (located at Avenue and East 6th Street in New York City). Admission to the festival is completely FREE. 

In 1956, Joe Papp began the outdoor theater tradition on the Lower East Side when he introduced “Shakespeare in the Park” in East River Park Amphitheater. From the 1950’s to the present, the Park was the site of frequent free Evening-in-the-Park concerts and plays. In 2022, LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) launched the first FREE annual LUNGS

Summer Theater Festival and continues to honor the tradition with the third annual festival this June. The 2024 festival will be hosted by Lower East Side icon Riki Colon and feature poems by  Loisaida Poetas, read by Carlos Rodriguez. 

The 3rd Annual LUNGS Summer Theater Festival is supported in part by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The festival was curated by Erez Ziv, Riki Colon, Roman Primativo Albear, Bonnie Sue Stein and Charles Krezell. Special thanks go to 6B Garden, Sally Young, and Rina Root. Festival banner by Theresa Linnihan

2024 Festival Schedule

2pm:  CZECH AND BENGALI STORIES WITH PUPPETS

By Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre

Created and performed by Vit Horejs & Sayma Karim

Featuring The Naughty Tiger performed by Sayma Karin and The Devil and The Lawyer & The Twelve Months  performed by Vit Horejs. In addition: The Devil marionette announces his 2024 Presidential Campaign. Sayma Karim and her Muppet Titly will tell a Bengali folk tale she heard as a child in her home country of Bangladesh followed by Vít Hořejš and his Century old marionettes telling his childhood story from Czechoslovakia, where the naughty creatures are, of course, the devils.

Sayma Karim, a versatile puppeteer and educator, worked for 19 years in Bangladesh before emigrating to the USA. As a teacher, she trained emerging talents in voice, acting, and puppetry and acted in television dramas as well as puppetry. She joined the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre this year. 

A native of Prague, Vít Hořejš emigrated to the US in 1979. In 1990, he found a trove of antique marionettes in the attic at Jan Hus Church on East 74th Street, in the heart of the once-upon-a-time Czech and Slovak neighborhood and founded Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre in NYC. He has lived in the once-upon-a-time Czech and Slovak Lower East Side since 1980.

3pm: EL TENDEDERO 

Presented by Something from Abroad 

Written and Directed by Regina Romero

Performed by Regina Romero, Silvana Gonzalez, Pelayo Alvarez and Martha Lorena Preve

In El Tendedero Latin New Yorkers Zaira and Nadia deal with the arrival of new neighbors; and with everything that it might imply: gentrification? Love? Infidelity? This short comedy is set in the perfect chisme (gossip) spot: a rooftop "Tendedero". The reflection of a quintessential NY community. 

Something From Abroad produces material from different cultural backgrounds to give "outside" stories a voice in America today. It is a theater company made up of a couple of broads from abroad, proud to promote art created by women. Our mission is to provide an opportunity for actors from all over the world to perform on stage in New York. We tell the stories of our people and our struggle as immigrants. We believe that the differences and diversity that an international group brings to the table are our strength.

4pm: OUR DAD IS IN ATLANTIS

Written by Mexican playwright Javier Malpica

Directed by Roman Primitivo Albear

Performed by Daniel Gutierrez Isaiah Garcia Muchas

The play concerns two young Mexican brothers who are left with their grandmother in a rural village while their father goes to the United States to look for work. Motherless, missing their father, and left in the care of relatives they scarcely know, the boys rely on one another for emotional support they are unequipped to provide, and for physical support in a naive and desperate attempt to reach their father in “Atlantis.” Roman Primitivo Albear, playwright, poet,  director, and painter, was born in Mexico City and lives in New York City. 

5pm: LORCA’S LAST NIGHT

Written and directed by Charles Krezell

Directed by Daria Fain, Music by Leonid Galaganov

Performed by Leonid Galaganov, Rocco George, Jhonathan zapata Garcia, Owen Engesser and David Fasano. Guitar by David Barish

Lorca is captured by the Guardia de Civil (“Civil Guard”) in fascist Spain. He is waiting for the morning to come.  

LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) was formed in 2011 as a grassroots community gardens-based organization to unite the many volunteer-run community gardens in Loisaida, the Lower East Side and the East Village. LUNGS works to promote, protect and preserve gardening and greening through cooperation, coordination and communication. We believe that permanent community gardens and public greenspaces are necessary for a healthy New York.  www.lungsnyc.org

GOH Productions is a nonprofit arts organization based on the Lower East Side that has been creating, producing and managing performing arts projects for over 35 years. 

FRIGID New York’s mission is to provide both emerging and established artists the opportunity to create and produce original work of varied content, form, and style, and to amplify their diverse voices. We do this by presenting an array of monthly programming, mainstage productions, an artist residency, and eight annual theater festivals that create an environment of collaboration, resourcefulness, and innovation. Founded in 1998, the aim was and is to form a structure, allowing multiple artists to focus on creating and staging new work and providing affordable rental space to scores of independent artists. Now in our third decade we have produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. www.frigid.nyc

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