EAST TO EDINBURGH FESTIVAL, Primary Stages Productions & More Announced for 59E59 Theaters Summer/Fall 2022 Season

59E59 Theaters has announced their Summer/Fall 2022 Season, which will include the in-person return of the East to Edinburgh Festival, as well as two additional productions presented by Primary Stages, On That Day in Amsterdam and peerless as part of their inaugural season as 59E59 Theaters' Resident Off Broadway Theater Company.

The 59E59 Summer/Fall 2022 Season will also include Hooded; Or Being Black for Dummies, presented by Undiscovered Works, with Executive Producers Ruth & William Isenberg and Leah S. Abrams; The Panic of '29, presented by Less Than Rent Theatre; The Memory Exam, presented by Oberon Theatre Ensemble; two productions as part of New Light Theater Project's 2022 New Light New Voices Fall Festival-Ink'dWell & I Wanna F*ck like Romeo and Juliet; and The Unbelieving, presented by Daniel C. Dennett, Linda LaScola and The Civilians. More information about the shows can be found below.

The 59E59 Theaters Summer/Fall 2022 Season will include:

Undiscovered Works, with executive producers Ruth & William Isenberg and Leah S. Abrams, presents

Hooded; Or Being Black For Dummies

By Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm

Directed by George Anthony Richardson

Theater C

Previews begin June 11

Opening Night June 17

Limited run through July 3

Marquis is a book smart prep-schooler living with his adoptive white family in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights; Tru is a street savvy kid from the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap in a holding cell - a first for Marquis, who has been protected by his family's privilege, but all too familiar to Tru. They butt heads, debate, wrestle, and ultimately prove Nietzsche and Tupac were really saying the same thing.

Hooded; Or Being Black For Dummies is a wickedly whimsical story chronicling two polar experiences of growing up black in America.

The cast of Hooded; Or Being Black For Dummies will include Mia Y. Anderson (Black Feminist Video Game) as Officer Borzoi/Apollo, Zachary Desmond (Troglobites) as Hunter/Headmaster Burns, Henry James Eden (Scandusical) as Fielder/Dionysus, Tjaša Ferme (Cocktales - Confessions of a Nymphomaniac) as Prairie/Debra, Emma Nadine Onasch (The War of the Roses) as Clementine, Maddie Small (The ABC's) as Meadow, Lambert Tamin (The Fre) as Marquis and Tarrence J. Taylor ("Wu-Tang: An American Saga") as Tru. trajan clayton (The Hamlet Project), Halima Henderson (The Collision/The Martyrdom), Maddie Thomas (The Tempest) and Keith Weiss (Locked Up Bitchez) will serve as Understudies.

Hooded; Or Being Black For Dummies will feature scenic/environment design by Tara Higgins, costume design by Latia Stokes, lighting design by Nyle Farmer, sound design by Ym, projections by design team consultant Hao Bai and props design by Jess Adams. Josh-Andrew Wisdom will serve as Stage Manager, with Kirk Baltzell as Assistant Stage Manager.

East to Edinburgh Festival

Theater C

July 12-July 31

East to Edinburgh is a unique showcase of 13 New York shows headed to the world's largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, this summer.

East to Edinburgh was created as a way to help shows get on their feet so companies experience the same production constraints that all shows experience during the Fringe, while giving companies a clean, comfortable, and nurturing space to fine-tune their productions just weeks ahead of their Scottish debut. This year's whirlwind festival features thirteen adventurous productions from around New York and across the US.

Primary Stages,

in association with Ted Snowdon, presents

On That Day in Amsterdam

By Clarence Coo

Directed by Zi Alikhan

Theater A

Previews Begin July 23

Opening Night is August 11

Limited run through September 4

In a time when your fate is determined by your passport, Clarence Coo's deeply arresting play captures a transient moment of magic. The morning after a one-night stand, a refugee from the Middle East wakes up next to an American backpacker who is himself the son of immigrants. With only a day until the two young men must each leave Amsterdam, they set off on a romantic journey through the city. Moved by the spirits of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank, On That Day in Amsterdam witnesses these two young dreamers count down their remaining hours together, discovering the meaning of art, love, and loss.

Primary Stages is 59E59 Theaters' Resident Off Broadway Theater Company.

Less Than Rent Theatre presents

The Panic of '29

By Graham Techler

Directed by Max Friedman

Theater B

Previews begin July 23

Opening night is July 31

Limited run through August 20

When the stock market crashes in October 1929, the Roaring Twenties come to a screeching halt, and the lives of people everywhere will never be the same! Dot, the secretary for the VP of the New York Stock Exchange, skips town with a rag-tag band of misfits and embarks on a decades-spanning journey involving financiers, lounge singers, crime novelists, cops, hobos, vigilantes, beekeepers, and even the French. Try as they might, they can't outrun alternate history in this chaotic reimagining of the Great Crash.

The Panic of '29 is a dark screwball comedy with memorable characters, toe-tapping tunes, and featuring... the total collapse of the US of A!

Less Than Rent Theatre is a Co-Op Resident Company at 59E59 Theaters.

Oberon Theatre Ensemble presents

The Memory Exam

By Steven Fechter

Directed by Terrence O'Brien

Theater C

Previews begin September 3

Opening Night is September 10

Limited run through September 25

Set in a future world when the simple act of forgetting can be fatal, vigilante laws turn neighbors, friends, and colleagues into spies and informants. Three people in their autumn years covertly hire an expert who can coach them for the perilous Memory Exam. Failure is almost all but certain - but the coach has devised a method that depends on how well they can recall the specifics of their most enduring memory no matter how factual or fantastic.

The Memory Exam is a play about courage, survival, and the fear of losing your future because you're forgetting the past.

Primary Stages presents

peerless

By Jiehae Park

Directed by Margot Bordelon

Theater A

Previews begin September 24

Opening Night is October 11

Limited run through November 6

A darkly comedic twist on Shakespeare's Macbeth set in the cutthroat world of elite college admissions, Jiehae Park's clever and incisive adaptation, peerless is a comedy...until it's not. This new version of the classic story centers on M and L, twin Asian-American siblings who have given up everything to get into The College. When another classmate claims what they feel is rightfully "their spot," the twins decide they have only one option: murder.

Primary Stages is 59E59 Theaters' Resident Off Broadway Theater Company. Jiehae Park is a 2019/20 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at Primary Stages.

New Light Theater Project presents

Ink'dWell

By Erin E. Adams

Directed by Tabatha Gayle

Theater C

Previews Begin September 29

Opening Night is October 5

Limited run through October 16

Kendra returns to her childhood home on Martha's Vineyard upon learning her brother has died in a terrible accident. While searching for the truth about his passing, she finds herself tormented by a childhood ghost story. As the mystery behind his death is unraveled, she discovers that he was drowning in much more than water. The ghost story, paired with her grief, begins to impact her relationship with her family and to the ocean itself.

Part of New Light Theater Project's 2022 New Light New Voices Fall Festival, Ink'dWell is a poetic look at grief and how love lives on. New Light Theater Project is a Co-Op Resident Company at 59E59 Theaters. Support for this production includes the 59E59 Covid Relief Grant.

Daniel C. Dennett, Linda LaScola and The Civilians present

The Unbelieving

By Marin Gazzaniga

Directed by Steve Cosson

Theater B

Previews begin October 20

Opening Night is October 27

Limited run through November 20

In the classic tale of religious conversion, finding God holds the promise of a life filled with purpose and meaning. But what happens when this transformation occurs in reverse, and a faith you have built your life around begins to fall away? The Unbelieving takes a penetrating look into the lives of practicing clergy members- Catholics, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Jews, Mormons, Muslims-who have stopped believing in God.

Staged by NYC's acclaimed downtown theater company The Civilians in the brilliant investigative-theater style they pioneered, The Unbelieving tells the intimate stories of these faith leaders. Using their actual words, obtained during a groundbreaking study by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett and qualitative researcher Linda LaScola, the play explores the struggles, courage, and great humor of these "unbelievers" as they face the hardest decision of their lives-whether to continue living in secret or to risk everything by telling the truth. Based on the book Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola.

New Light Theater Project presents

I Wanna F*ck like Romeo and Juliet

By Andrew Rincón

Directed by Jesse Jou

Theater C

Previews begin October 20

Opening Night is October 26

Limited run through November 5

Snow in July, comets falling from the sky... the world is thrown into chaos as Cupid rips off her wings and gives up on Love. But her old flame Saint Valentine has a plan to bring her spirit back up; and it involves reigniting the flame between two men, Alejandro and Benny.

Moving from the Heavens to Hackensack, I Wanna F*ck like Romeo and Juliet is a love story of epic proportions that investigates gods and mortals, realism and fantasy, and the shame and joy within Queer love of Color. I Wanna F*ck like Romeo and Juliet is presented as part of New Light Theater Project's 2022 New Light New Voices Fall Festival. New Light Theater Project is a Co-Op Resident Company at 59E59 Theaters.

Full casting and creative teams for the productions will be announced at a later date. For more information on tickets and performance schedules, visit 59E59.org.

ABOUT 59E59 Theaters

59E59 Theaters was established by the Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation in 2004 to grant professional space and expertise to non-profit theater companies premiering their work in New York City. Under the leadership of Val Day, Artistic Director, and Brian Beirne, Managing Director, 59E59 Theaters presents a year-round curated program of Off Broadway plays and musicals that are nurtured and supported through highly-subsidized rental rates as well as production, ticketing, FOH, marketing, and press support.