Past Projects
Hitting By: Christian Thompson (2022)
You Are Not Gay
A New Musical By:
Timothy Thomas Leech & Alexander Ronneburg
Reading Series
June 2, 2025
Pearl Studios - Studio 314 and VIrtual
You Are Not Gay is a courtroom musical inspired by a landmark civil rights case that challenged the fraudulent practice of conversion therapy. Using a blend of rebellious pop-punk, gospel, and musicalized court proceedings, we follow Team Plaintiff as they develop their consumer fraud case and bring it to trial. Over the course of the show, our queer heroes (or “queeroes”) must overcome disingenuous defense attorneys, fundamentalist protestors, and even their own conversion therapists as they fight for gay rights and reclaim their identities.
The Machine Stops: A Musical Warning
Music By: Matthew Nassida
Book & Lyrics By: James Powers
Writer's Room
May 11-12, 2025
ART/NY Spaces at 520-Studio G
What happens when two people refuse to compromise their beliefs? When upholding systems of power become more important than human lives? When The Machine that provides for us all ceases to function? Based on the short story by E. M. Forster, internationally-produced composer Matthew Nassida and returning TU artist James Powers presents a retro-futuristic musical warning that investigates the influence technology has on our lives and the power structures around it.
Disremembrance
A New Immersive Play By:
Cati and David Brunell-Brutman
Writer's Room
April 27-28, 2025
ART/NY Spaces at 520
A global disaster. A group of young artists stuck inside. Strange weather patterns. The year is 1816. A teenager named Mary Shelley is trapped with her friends while a storm rages outside. When their host Lord Byron suggests a scary story contest, he inadvertently resurrects the friends’ monstrous interpersonal drama – and sparks something in Mary that will change literature forever. Played in a liminal immersive space between the 19th century & the 21st, Disremembrance draws the audience into the maelstrom of grief, betrayal, & creativity that gave birth to Frankenstein.
Why Taylor Swift is Gay:
A Presentation
By: Lilly Camp
Reading Series
March 31, 2025
Open Jar Studios and Virtual
A playwright and self-proclaimed “Gaylor” takes us through a presentation on why they are convinced that Taylor Swift is gay (and leaving clues to out herself to queers), interspersing lecture, songs, and scenes of Taylor and her supposed relationships with three women. But what begins as their exploration of Taylor’s career, public life, and possible secrets is interrupted by Taylor hijacking the presentation and staging moments with the playwright’s own ex-lovers, until the playwright is faced not with the truth about Taylor, but instead with the reality of why they so badly needs her to be gay.
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User Agreement
By: Ben Holbrook
Reading Series
May 13th, 2024 - 7pm
Open Jar Studios - 11L and Virtual
Set in the near future. Sy and Theo, two souls, potentially soul mates, attempt to navigate their bond in a world enhanced by the wonders of technology, AI, and the occasional talking octopus. Building a relationship based on good music, deep conversation, and strong boundaries feels natural to them, but their beautiful bond finds itself struggling against a world turned upside down by the demons of human nature and the need for capital, causing them to wonder if, in a society designed to be more complex and visible than ever, it is possible for two simple souls to truly connect.
Little Hugs, Tiny Kisses
By: Catherine Bloom
Writer's Room
May 19th-20th, 2024
A.R.T./NY Studios @ 520
Nora has just hopped off her plane at LaGuardia to get to her new job as a live-in nanny in a great big house in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. But when Nora is tasked with fully raising the family’s recently adopted middle school girl, all hell breaks loose, questioning the reality of who are the adults in the household.
The Castle of Ghoul Hammond and How It Fell Into the Void
(Part One: The Castle)
By: M Sloth Levine
Reading Series
March 18th, 2024 - 7pm
Open Jar Studios - 11J and Virtual
Ghoul Hammond is a fearful and fantastic laboratory creation hunting for personal meaning, eternal stardom, and a satiated hunger. In part one of this ridiculous penny dreadful epic, Ghoul’s life escorts us through queer shame, gender dysphoria, mental illness, cannibalism, loneliness, folk religion, oral sex, movie musicals, werewolves, confetti cake, and death.
James Powers and Friends
featuring music by James Powers
Concert Series
April 29th, 2024 - 7pm
404 Broadway, New York, NY 10013 and Virtual
The Interrobangers
By: M Sloth Levine
Reading Series
June 12th, 2023 - 7pm
Ripley Grier - Studio 2B and Virtual
Four groovy teens and a dog search the woods in their van to solve a mystery while exploring drugs, queerness, and the fear that men in rubber masks are scarier than monsters. The four question the world they know, looking into the parts of their history they would rather avoid.
Hit the Pavement or Hoboloboactive
By: Imani Alyse Redman
Reading Series
April 24th, 2023 - 7pm
Ripley Grier - Studio 2B and Virtual
Dive into the world of homeless street crew The Mysfits. As tensions run high and the mystery of a member's disappearance looms, each Mysfit must figure out what they want to fight for. Survival? Themselves? Each other? How much are they willing to lose in the process? They stay armed with their stories and dreams, some drugs, and some knowledge. Turns out they're much smarter than the world gives them credit for - and some of them refuse to be dismissed any longer. Through a fusion of music, dance, and poetry Hit the Pavement or Hoboloboactive explores survival and stories about what keeps us alive when we are at the highest of lows.
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Alamo: A New Musical
By: Gavin McGinnis
Young Playwrights in Residence
March 11th, 2023 - 5pm
Open Jar Studios and Virtual
We are proud to present our first ever Young Playwrights in Residence presentation featuring a young artist from our education program Actor’s Professional Theatre Conservatory, Gavin McGinnis! Gavin has spent a full year writing and refining this piece and it will now open our 2023 Reading Series!
Unfinished
By: James Powers
Reading Series
Harlem Studio
September 19th, 2022 - 7pm
Unfinished is an absurdist musical comedy tackling the issues that many young adults find themselves in today. When life is suddenly halted and you are left wondering, “What do I do now?” In this world, we are introduced to Dude, a young person trying to become a writer. While he is trying to finish his song, many of the unfinished ideas, moments, and relationships from his life come to him and demand that he finish their part of the story first. In the process, we discover his own personal failings and feelings of inadequacy that have led him to this point in his life.
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Hitting
By: Christian Thompson
Reading Series
Harlem Studio
May 23rd, 2022 - 7pm
Hitting is a play that examines our relationship to the homeless, our family, ourselves, and to the culture of subway dancing in NYC. In a journey that uses movement, direct, address and a lot of heart. We follow the Tru Crew on their quest to find solid footing in a world that keeps moving.
The Firebird
By: Amanda Faye Martin
Reading Series
Harlem Studio
June 20th, 2022 - 7pm
In The Firebird, an 80 year old Byelorussian immigrant named Basya hosts Passover 2019 at her farmhouse in New Hampshire. Tensions rise as ghosts (both figurative and literal) arise to confront Basya and her granddaughter, Natasha, who discovers that her ex-girlfriend is now engaged to her cousin Alex. Both women attempt to run, but are forced to reckon with their respective histories before the holiday is over. The Firebird is a semi-magical living room tragicomedy that deals with displacement and nostalgia; the experience of being forever haunted by a past that calls you back to it.
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Concert Series: Julia Hoffman
featuring music by Julia Hoffman
Concert Series
Virtual
April 6, 2021 - 8pm
Concert Series: James Powers
featuring music by James Powers
Concert Series
Virtual
November 21, 2021 - 8pm
...but you could've held my hand
By: JuCoby Johnson
Reading Series
Virtual
April 30, 2021 - 8pm
Four ten-year olds meet at a wedding. Little do they know, they will become the center of each other's lives for decades to come. Jumping through time, the play uses dance, music, and poetry to explore sexuality, gender, race, and love. You know, the big stuff. Life stuff.
Best Friends
By: Lilly Camp
Reading Series
Virtual
June 25, 2021 -8pm
Total loner Elle Summers only has room in her life for her graduation plan– getting into Harvard– until acquaintance Matt Durand asks her to take care of his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, Haley Moore. Haley are quickly bonded, with their own hashtags, school-wide rumors about their relationship, even plans to move to New York together after high school. Both fiercely believe that no one else understands them– their abusive homes, their grand cross-country ambitions, their desperate need for one another… but they also believe that they are on the same page, even after Elle realizes she’s in love with Haley, and Haley doesn’t feel the same way. A coming of age story, Best Friends tracks three teenagers over their senior year of high school as they struggle to define themselves and their relationships to each other, and shows how coming out in the Internet era has only made things more complicated.
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Well Intentioned White People
By: Imani Vaughn-Jones
Reading Series
Virtual
October 25th, 2021
Upon moving to Atlanta, Nia, a Black aspiring writer, must find a way to navigate the unexpected racial landmines of her white in-laws, her career, and society at large while trying to keep her interracial marriage and herself intact. It’s after a racist encounter with an industry professional that her marriage faces the ultimate test, and Nia is forced to choose between her relationship and herself. A play that’s meant to be both read and seen, Well-Intentioned White People explores police brutality, allyship, Blackness, and the inherent violence of whiteness.
Claire: circa 2007-2016
By: Vinny Mraz
Reading Series
February 17, 2020
Open Jar Studios
Claire Circa is a play set in an art studio in the middle of a library. Andrew, the 20-something teacher who is still figuring his way out in the world, leads a class of senior citizens through the basics of painting and drawing all while dealing with the ghosts of past relationships and his fear of failure. One of the students, Pam, faces Andrews fears head on. She pushes him towards a more authentic and meaningful life instead of one spent just "doing the right thing." Pam along with her compassionate friend Margaret are joined by Arlene, a widower with a more puritanical outlook, as well as Claire and John an older couple who are there to challenge themselves to something new. Claire Circa explores identity and the meaning in our lives at opposite ends of the spectrum. We see a young teacher who just wants his life to mean something and a group of 55 + adults who have the knowledge and experience to know that the path to a meaningful life is not found by doing what's expected of you. Claire Circa celebrates and examines the vitality of senior citizens as holders of knowledge and as people who even in their advanced age can continue to grow and change.
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The Voice of Broadway
By: George Strum
Main Stage
January 22-26, 2019
Hudson Guild Theater
I Sold You That Shirt: Stories of the Side Hustle
Directed By: Kate Wilson & Leah Pye
Music Direction By: Nick Place
Cabaret Event
January 6, 2019
The Green Room 42
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The Whale Play
By: Kati Schwartz
Main Stage
November 4-6, 2018
The Drama Book Shop
The morning after November 8th, 2016 was a dark one for many of us in America. What happened? How could THIS person be elected leader of the free world? Where do we go from here? That very same morning, De Salle decided to do something he had never done, take a walk on the beach. What he discovered would also alter the way he viewed the world. What could these creatures be, and why is he so eager to discover what they have to say? When our world becomes unrecognizable, where do we look for meaning? Where do we find answers, and what answers do we find?