MCC Theater to Host ARTIVIST TOWN HALL Next Week

MCC Theater has announced a special one-night-only public engagement event, Artivist Town Hall, which will take place at MCC Theater (511 W 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019) on Wednesday May 29, 2024 at 5:30pm.

This year's public engagement has centered independent artists and how to support them. To close out the season, MCC invites back Diep Tran, Editor-in-Chief of Playbill, to moderate a community forum discussing The State of the Theater. Diep is joined by Randi Berry, Executive Director of IndieSpace, and Nicole Johnson, Founder of The Harriet Tubman Effect. 

This conversation aims to address the realities that theatermakers face in this moment and uplift opportunities and calls to action for the future of the field. Join MCC as they celebrate community and imagine the roadmap for the work ahead. 

Doors open at 5:30pm and the community forum will begin at 5:45pm with refreshments and networking immediately following the conversation.

The event is free and open to the public; registration is required at https://mcctheater.org/tix/artivist-town-hall/book/88801/.

MCC is currently presenting the NY Premiere of The Lonely Few, a new rock musical with music and lyrics by Zoe Sarnak (Secret Soldiers), a book by Rachel Bonds (Sundown, Yellow Moon), and direction by Trip Cullman (MCC's Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow) and Ellenore Scott (Titanique). Tickets are available at mcc.theater/thelonelyfew.

ABOUT MCC Theater

MCC Theater is one of New York's leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 by Bob LuPone (1946-2022) and Bernie Telsey, and later joined by co-Artistic Director Will Cantler, as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater's celebrated productions include Jason Robert Brown, Daisy Prince, and Jonathan Marc Sherman's world premiere musical The Connector, Gavin Creel's Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice, Hansol Jung's Wolf Play (Five Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Play); Guadalís Del Carmen's Bees & Honey (Three HOLA awards including Outstanding Play and Outstanding Production); John J. Caswell, Jr.'s Wet Brain, Kate Nash's Only Gold with a book by Andy Blankenbuehler and Ted Malawer; Donja R. Love's soft; Ross Golan's The Wrong Man; Aziza Barnes' BLKS; Jocelyn Bioh's School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play; Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike; Robert Askins' Hand to God (Broadway transfer; five 2015 Tony Award nominations including Best Play); John Pollono's Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo's Really Really; Sharr White's The Other Place (Broadway transfer); Jeff Talbott's The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and All The Ways To Say I Love You; Michael Weller's Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride; Bryony Lavery's Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award nominations including Best Play, Tony Award for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson's Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and musicals including Alice by Heart, Ride the Cyclone, Carrie, and Coraline.  Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world. 

Over the years MCC has worked with thousands of students through the innovative MCC Youth Company, school partnerships, and student matinee programs.

Executive Director Blake West joined the company in 2006. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019, unifying the company's activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming. MCC founding Co-Artistic Director Bob LuPone sadly passed away on August 27, 2022. MCC continues to honor his fierce need for engagement with the art, the artists, and the audience and remember the profound impact he had on everyone who entered its spaces.

BIOS

Diep Tran is currently the Editor in Chief of Playbill. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News, New York Magazine, CNN, Andscape, Broadway News, Time Out New York, among other publications. Diep is a contributor to the book, “RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now,” from Harper Collins. In 2023, she was named on Gold House's A100 list as one of 100 most impactful Asians.

Randi Berry is a theater maker and organizer with over 20 years of service to the performing arts community. She is dedicated to removing barriers to access, coalition building and partnerships. Her leadership led to the merger of the Indie Theater Fund and IndieSpace in 2022, which together has provided over $2.5M in direct funding and countless hours of professional development and real estate advisory and consulting services for the indie theater community. IndieSpace.org

Nicole Javanna Johnson is the Founder of the Harriet Tubman Effect Institute, a human resource center and institute of research for dismantling systemic oppression. DEI Director and Consultant on Passover, Freestyle Love Supreme, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Is This A Room, and Dana H., Lincoln Center and New York Theater Workshop. www.harriettubmaneffect.com. A member of SAG-AFTRA and a leader in the educational theater community, Nicole is a PhD candidate at New York University focusing on storytelling and facilitated dialogue as theater for dismantling systemic oppression. Nicole is currently supporting MCC with organizational wellness and has severed as a DEI Director on several of the shows during the 2023-2024 season.

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