Columbia University School Of The Arts Presents New Plays Festival

Columbia University School of the Arts presents an expanded festival of new plays written by Columbia MFA Playwriting Students. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Tony©, Pulitzer, and Obie Award winners such as David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Charles Mee, and Rogelio Martinez invite you to experience these innovative new playwrights.

This is the first round of our New Plays Festival presenting the work of the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Playwrights of Columbia's MFA Theatre Program. The festival will run continuously throughout the summer.

From the Head of Playwriting, David Henry Hwang: "These plays have been created by visionary writers under extraordinary circumstances. Some were originally scheduled to be produced as far back as 2020; others were written during the pandemic itself. Like theatre itself, they have survived the shutdown of our art form to come roaring back to life. We are so proud of what our writers have achieved during these challenging and traumatic times. Enjoy the rebirth!"

Blanche & Stella by A.A. Brenner

A modernized queer, disabled new play inspired by Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire with no cis white men and one Gentleman Caller who is not a gentleman, Blanche & Stella explores and reimagines the central complex female relationships at the heart of Williams' play and canon. In this retelling, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski are two only-children and childhood best friends ("sisters") who end up living together after Blanche goes through a cataclysmic breakup and shows up unannounced on Stella's doorstep in Washington, D.C. Now adults, the pair must navigate mismatched expectations and their own maladaptive coping mechanisms as they question what to do when the people they love aren't quite who they appeared to be.

Performances:
Thursday, May 12 at 2:30pm
Saturday, May 14 at 2:30pm
Saturday, May 14 at 8pm

Tickets: FREE
Location: Lenfest Center for the Arts 615 W. 129th St., New York, NY 10027
Ticketing Info: https://www.showclix.com/event/npf5-blanche-stella

Telo by Julián Mesri

An intrepid and revealing look at intimacy, revolution, and global identity, set within the paper-thin walls of a telo, a pay-by-the-hour sex hotel in the heart of Buenos Aires, three pairs of people across three eras of Argentine history find themselves torn between the personal and political in a perpetually changing and increasingly dangerous world. Repressed gay lovers in a tango bar, two sisters planning a terrorist attack, and a random hookup in the middle of an economic crisis are woven together in a narrative that crosses generations. Accompanied by a dynamic score that brings together tango, cumbia, and Latin rock, Telo connects the revolutions--big and small--of the past with what we face in the world today.

Performances:
Friday, May 13 at 2:30pm
Friday, May 13 at 8pm
Sunday, May 15 at 2:30pm

Tickets: FREE
Location: Lenfest Center for the Arts 615 W. 129th St., New York, NY 10027
Ticketing Info: https://www.showclix.com/event/telo-npf6

How To Gild an Eagle by Zizi Majid

Donna and Matt Walker face the impending foreclosure of their family store and inn when Lana Usman, an immigrant single mother, offers them a deal that gives them a chance to stay. How To Gild An Eagle is a play about what it takes to belong and what one must sacrifice to hang on to past legacies.

Performances:
Friday, May 20 at 2:30pm
Saturday, May 21 at 2:30pm
Saturday, May 21 at 8pm

Tickets: FREE
Location: Lenfest Center for the Arts 615 W. 129th St., New York, NY 10027
Ticketing Info: https://www.showclix.com/event/npf8-howto-gildan-eagle

A.A. Brenner (they/them) is a playwright, dramaturg, and New Yorker. Their writing blends naturalistic dialogue with heightened realism to explore queer, Jewish, and disability themes, challenging both societal power structures and theatrical form. A.A.'s plays have been produced or commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, National Disability Theatre, CO/LAB Theatre Group, Shakespeare Theatre Company (Fellows Consortium), Three Muses Theatre Company, Young Playwrights Inc., The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University, Mason Gross School of the Arts @ Rutgers University, and The Hangar Theatre Lab Company; their play for all audiences, EMILY DRIVER'S GREAT RACE THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (co-written by Gregg Mozgala), was featured on the 2020 Kilroys List. Additionally, A.A. was a Finalist for the 2020-22 Apothetae & Lark Playwriting Fellowship, the 2021 Platform Presents Playwright's Prize, and the 2021 Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series. Currently, A.A. lives on Lenape land in Brooklyn, NY, and is an October 2021 graduate of the MFA Playwriting Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. Website: www.aabrenner.com

Julián Mesri is a New York-based Argentinean-American composer and writer who makes multilingual plays and musicals in the US and around the world. Recent work includes music directing/arranging Songs about Trains with Radical Evolution/Working Theater and Brian Quijada's Somewhere Over the Border at Syracuse Stage. He is a current member of The Public Theater Emerging Writers Group and received a 2020-2021 EST/Sloan Commission. Upcoming work includes Favaloro (EST /Sloan First Light Festival). Mesri has been an Emerging Artist of Color Fellow at NYTW and a Van Lier fellow at Repertorio Español. www.julianmesri.com

i??Zizi Majid (she/her) is a playwright whose plays advocate for a shared humanity. This play How to Gild An Eagle was a Finalist for Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series as well as a Semi-Finalist for the O'Neil National Playwrights Conference. Zizi is a recent fellow of WP Theatre's Lab and presented her play They Came In The Night, at the Pipeline Festival 2022. Other plays include Return to Fall (Finalist, Blue Ink Playwriting Award; Semi-Finalist, the O'Neil National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival); Cost (Climate Change Theatre Action Commission 2021); Being in Time (International Human Rights Arts Festival 2019); How Did the Cat Get So Fat? (nominated Best Play, Life! Theatre Awards, Singapore); Yusof (Festival Commission, Pesta Raya, Singapore). For five years, Zizi was Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra (Singapore), successfully breaking into the mainstream during her tenure, tripling audiences and garnering multiple awards. Currently, an Instructor of Drama at Syracuse University; she received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was also a fellow of the International Fellows Program at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. This summer, Zizi will be developing her play To Raqqa With Love with a residency at the Catwalk Institute together with two Columbia Alumni, Logan Reed (Directing) and Elizagrace Madrone (Dramaturgy).

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