OUR LITTLE SECRET to Premiere At Playwrights Horizons in June

Play and screenwriter Rollin Jewett will return to the Downtown Urban Arts Festival with a dark comedy involving breaking and entering. Lydia Kalmen & Thamer Jendoubi in OUR LITTLE SECRET with Vincent Ticali as Lt. Banks. Production directed by Jay Michaels.

Friday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater @ Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, NYC. Tickets at DUAFNYC.com.

Picture it: A lonely young girl decided to put on her sexiest nightie (just because) and sits in her apartment watching horror movies. There's a knock on the door. On the other side of that door is a towering muscular stranger wearing all black and brandishing a gun. That's only Page 1 of OUR LITTLE SECRET, a dark romantic comedy involving an unlikely relationship between Darlene (Lydia Kalmen) and Sam (Thamer Jendoubi) and a plot to save his son from an abusive stepparent. No crime is complete without the appearance of a clever detective (Vincent Ticali).

Rollin Jewett - whose forte is dark humor (American Vampire on film and Socky Tells All and The Big Dream on stage) supplies a witty script filled with red herrings and New York theater notable, Jay Michaels directs with fast-paced caper comedy.

The world premiere is presented by the Downtown Urban Arts Festival (DUAF), an annual multi-disciplinary arts event held in New York City, presenting new groundbreaking performance and visual art from storytellers from America's burgeoning multicultural landscape and from around the world who share their stories that interpret our history and our times.

Theatre/Film/TV mainstay, Lydia Kalmen heads this cast. She was heard screaming and being possessed by demons in The Dark Offerings, the first horror movie to film during the pandemic (currently on Amazon). She won high-praise for her work in a recent New York revival of A Doll's House as Nora. This is her second collaboration with Rollin Jewett and Jay Michaels as she created the role of Nurse Todd in Socky Tells All, which premiered on Theatre Row last year. She also appeared as Lucy in Dracula in New York.

Thamer Jendoubi earned his MA in Acting from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK and - upon returning to New York - continued his training with the Maggie Flanigan Studio in Manhattan. He created the role of Omar in Mohammed Saad Ali's drama, A Lonely Night in Coney Island, in New York in 2017.

Vincent Ticali, a celebrated NY actor, singer and musician, recently appeared in the premiere of By Its Cover (benefit performance for Trevor Project) and Delta in The Sky With Diamonds (starring Austin Pendleton). Film: All the Little Things We Kill, The Forest Hills, Ali and the Queens, The Hat Man. Television - The Blacklist, Blindspot, Ways and Means (CBS pilot). Vinny also enjoys his work in front of a microphone as bassist/vocalist in the popular NY party band, Current Affair!

Jay Michaels is an award-winning director/producer with a specialty in promotion. His acclaimed series of wildly successful Shakespeare productions utilizing unique production schemes put him solidly in the New York theatre scene. As Event Producer: the Drama Desk Award-winning American Theatre Exchange and Broadway productions: Guys & Dolls (1992), Damn Yankees (1994) The Vagina Monologues starring Eve Ensler (2003) and Beginnings (2017) plus live events featuring James Earl Jones, David Canary, Tovah Feldshuh, Vera Wang, Jon Stewart, Heather Headley, Daryl Roth, Barry Weissler, Bill Oberst, Jr. and Hillary Clinton. As a National Tour Manager: Cats, Edwin Drood, LES MISERABLES. His boutique promotional firm, Jay Michaels Communications/Channel I creates visibility through an internal multi-level platform of content driven print and TV programs for independent artists and their productions in New York and nationally. Michaels is also a commentator for the FearCon Network, The Boston Sci-Fi Channel, and other programs.

Rollin Jewett is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, singer/songwriter, poet, author and photographer. His screenwriting credits include "Laws of Deception" and "American Vampire". His short stories, poetry and photography have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and his plays have been produced all over the world including several premieres Off-Broadway. This is his third collaboration with Jay Michaels at the DUAF. Mr. Jewett's novels, poems and short stories are available on Amazon.com and his chart-topping tunes can be found on Spotify.com.

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