Casts Set for Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival 2024

Red Bull Theater has revealed the winning selections for Red Bull's ANNUAL SHORT NEW PLAY FESTIVAL. Six brand new 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes inspired by this year's theme, “Renewal,” have been selected through an open submission process. These selections will premiere alongside commissions from Madeleine George  (“Only Murders in the Building,” The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, Hurricane Diane) and Robert O'Hara (Bootycandy, Insurrection: Holding History, Barbecue).

The Short New Play Festival will be held on Monday June 24th (7:30pm) at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater, 136 East 13th Street. 

The cast for this one night only event includes Shirine Babb (currently on Broadway in A Beautiful Noise; other B'way: The Piano Lesson, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Macbeth), Tina Benko (for Red Bull Theater: Medea, Don Carlos; Broadway: The Rose Tattoo, The Cherry Orchard, The Crucible, Irena's Vow, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Hedda Gabler, The Real Thing; Off-Broadway: Becky Nurse of Salem, Nantucket Sleigh Ride - Lincoln Center Theater; Julius Caesar - Public Theater; Tales From Red Vienna - Manhattan Theatre Club; A Midsummer Night's Dream - Theatre for a New Audience; Marie and Bruce - The New Group; The Little Foxes, Scenes from a Marriage  - New York Theatre Workshop); Jason Bowen (for Red Bull Theater: The Tempest, Macbeth; Broadway: The Play That Goes Wrong; Off-Broadway: The Play That Goes Wrong; Long Day's Journey into Night - Audible; Native Son, Measure for Measure - The Acting Company; If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka - Playwrights Horizons; Crumbs from the Table of Joy - Keen Co);  Leovina Charles (for Red Bull Theater: Macbeth; Lempicka - La Jolla Playhouse);  Amy Jo Jackson (for Red Bull Theater: Kit Marlowe, Volpone, or The Fox); Paloma Nozicka (The Thanksgiving Play - Steppenwolf; The Untranslatable Secrets of Nikki Corona - Goodman Theatre; Native Gardens - Victory Gardens); Lux Pascal; and Sarin Monae West (soon to be seen in the title role of Red Bull Theater's Medea: Re-Versed; Mint Theater's The Rat Trap; The Skin of Our Teeth - LCT/Broadway; Merry Wives - Shakespeare in the Park; Mia MIA at La MaMa). Haley Huxley and Fiona Maguire will read stage directions.

This year's winning playwrights, selected from hundreds of open submissions from playwrights across the country, are Luke Brett, Amy Jo Jackson, Fleurette Modica, Paloma Nozicka, Emma Schillage, and Madison StranahanMadison Stranahan. The premieres will be directed by Evan Yiounoulis and this year's Drama League Directing Fellow, Irvin Mason Jr. 

This year's selected plays are:

The Skull of Elizabeth Bathory

by Luke Brett
Whispering to her keeper, the long dead skull of Elizabeth Bathory convinces a Restoration era actress in 1664 to lure trusting colleagues back to her home where they will be sacrificed in a ritual to eventually reanimate the horrifying Hungarian countess. In exchange, the actress has been promised the secret to eternal beauty. This dark legend plays with the conventions of Jacobean villainy while also examining why and how people find themselves willing to trade pain for beauty.
 

You Know What They Say About Scorned Women

by Amy Jo Jackson
A modern-day Helen of Sparta has fled captivity and come home to Menelaus...but after a decade of being reviled and misunderstood, how can she return to the life she thought she knew? After Menelaus decides they should renew their marriage vows, Helen takes an unconventional path towards reclaiming renewal for herself.
 

daphne and laurel

by Fleurette Modica
The campers at Diana's Camp for Wholesome Teenage Girls have been told that if they explore their sexuality in any way, they will turn into a tree. When Daphne returns from a late-night encounter with a boy, she and her roommate Laurel must confront whether everything they have been told is a lie. 
 

Semillas

by Paloma Nozicka
Antigone meets "Fleabag." With Mexicans. Or something. A short play about honoring our dead, no matter what. 
 

The Purgatory for Women Who Commit Suicide

by Emma Schillage
Ophelia has lost someone. Everyone has in The Purgatory for Women Who Commit Suicide. But before they can move on to whatever is next, the women must find closure. And how do they do this? By casting spells of course! The Purgatory for Women Who Commit Suicide forces you to rethink what it means to be a hysterical woman.
 

Lady Macbeth's Hand Soap

by Madison Stranahan
Lady Macbeth (from Shakspeare's Macbeth) finds herself in the middle of a commercial for hand soap.
 

This year's commissioned plays are:

 

The Clear Atoms of our Human Air

by Madeleine George
On the steps of the ritual bath, a convert and a skeptic confront the barriers--internal and external--that stand between them and total immersion.  Before they can chicken out and retreat to dry land, the voice of the ancients erupts through the intercom, drawing them inexorably towards the transformation they both crave.
 

Murder One

by Robert O'Hara
A Royal Family lies massacred in the Living Room. While One Witness and One Detective discuss a Ghost.

Over the Short New Play Festival's fourteen-year history, Red Bull Theater has cultivated over 4,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting 95 of them in a one-night-only Festival performance with some of New York's finest actors and directors. The commissioned playwrights have included Larissa FastHorse, Marcus Gardley, John Guare, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jeremy O. Harris, David Ives, Craig Lucas, Ellen McLaughlin, Dael Orlandersmith, Heather Raffo, Theresa Rebeck, José Rivera, Anne Washburn, Doug Wright, and winning entries by writers such as Anchuli Felicia King, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Lynn Rosen, and Jen Silverman. Stage Rights has published a 5-volume collection of the plays from the first 10 years of Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival as Red Bull Shorts. 

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