NYC PROGRAMMING

From our home base in New York City, we serve artists through the course of the full calendar year, and throughout the life cycle of their projects. Our NYC Reading Series at Barnard College features free public readings of work in progress every 6-8 weeks during the school year. The Winter Season offers workshops, readings, and residencies to several projects simultaneously, and presents them free to the general public.

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We will resume our NYC Readings in September. For summer programming at NYSAF, click here for information on our annual Powerhouse Season.

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NYC READING SERIES

The Coast Starlight

written by Keith Bunin

directed by Tyne Rafaeli

One morning, a young man boards the Coast Starlight, the long-distance train that runs from Los Angeles to Seattle. He’s got a secret that can land him in terrible trouble, and he has roughly one thousand miles to enlist the help of his fellow travelers – all of whom are reckoning with their own choices in search of a way forward. Keith Bunin’s new play is a smart, funny and compassionate story about our capacity for invention and re-invention when life goes off the rails.

Monday, April 8th | 7:00 pm

The Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center
Barnard College

3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

NYC READING SERIES

Nike

Or

We Don't Need Another Hero

written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu

It’s the end of the world

Again

And the only person who can save us is a lil black girl named Vicki

Only she’s not a lil girl 

She’s the grown ass Greek Goddess of victory named Nike 

And there’s a thousand year war between the Olympians and Titans that

she need to come handle 

Nike Or We Don't Need Another Hero is a black ass Fantasia about a young woman who learns what it means to be a hero.

Monday, March 18th | 7:00 pm

The Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center
Barnard College

3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

featuring Dramatic Dyalekt, Latoya Edwards, Dominique Fishback, Shelley Fort, Eric Graise, Nathan James, Patrice Johnson, J.D. Mollison, Mustafa Shakir, Timothy Stickney, Marquise Vilson

THE WINTER SEASON

Pictures from Home

written by Sharr White

directed by Daniella Topol

In 1981, photographer Larry Sultan set out to create a portrait of his parents, Jean and Irv, tracing his family’s journey from postwar Brooklyn to California’s San Fernando Valley. A decade later, the resulting work, Pictures From Home, combined home movie stills, interviews, and Sultan’s own photographs — both candid and staged — of his often aggrieved, but always complicit parents. The work had grown to become an epic exploration of twentieth-century American optimism, deceptively banal, deeply personal. As adapted by Sharr White, Pictures From Home adds another layer to Sultan’s exploration: that of a volatile and loving relationship between parent and son who employ image as their proxy for an Oedipal struggle over dominance. 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 | 4:00 pm

The Lark | Barebones Studio

311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor

featuring John Doman, Kristin Griffith, Greg Keller

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THE WINTER SEASON

the bandaged place

written by Harrison David Rivers

directed by David Mendizábal

Jonah is a dancer.
Jonah is injured.
Jonah has an ex-boyfriend.

A brutal and lyrical play about the things we hang on to and the price of moving forward, the bandaged place tells the story of one man’s attempt to free himself from the abuses of his past. Jonah is forced to turn to his precocious daughter and tough love grandmother for support when a former lover resurfaces, re-opening a painful wound.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 | 7:00 pm

The Lark | Barebones Studio

311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor

featuring James Cusati-Moyer, Harriett D Foy, Paige Gilbert, Brandon Gill, Blake Morris

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THE WINTER SEASON

Saying Goodbye to the People I Love From My Bathtub

written by Halley Feiffer

directed by Trip Cullman 

In a desperate desire to find some semblance of peace, Clara summons her loved ones to the only place on earth where she feels remotely safe: her bath. 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4 | 7:00 pm

The Lark | Barebones Studio

311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor

featuring Jon DeVries, Halley Feiffer, Maren Heary, Paula Lázaro, Alfredo Narciso, Deborah Rush, Ryan Spahn

NYC READING SERIES

soft

written by Donja R. Love

directed by Awoye Timpo

Mr. Isaiah, a recent hire at a disciplinary boarding high school, is ready to make a difference in the lives of his six male students. When one of his boys commits suicide he is plagued with the questions: Where do Black and Brown boys go when they die?; and what makes someone’s struggle so unbearable that they'd take their own life? While seeking answers to this question, he sees the sorrows that each of his boys dances with - and is reminded of his own.

OCTOBER 29, 2018 | 7:00 pm

featuring Gabriel Diego Hernandez, Galen Ryan Kane, Russell G. Jones, Andy Lucien, Joshua E. Nelson, Cristina Pitter, Namir Smallwood, Ryan Jamaal Swain, James Udom

NYC READING SERIES

...and the horse you rode in on

written and directed by Zach Helm

...and the horse you rode in on tells the story of Ben, a young hacktivist. Federally incarcerated for digital civil-disobedience, Ben attempts to bring the entire US Judiciary to its knees from inside prison as a warning on totalitarianism... all while his mother, in scant visits, attempts to negotiate for his freedom and mental health.

...and the horse you rode in on is the first of a proposed five play cycle entitled Fun Times. Drawn as an analog of real events of the past decade, the full cycle comprises characters and stories that expose recent international and domestic espionage and the human lives it has torn apart.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2018 | 7:00 pm

featuring Sean Carvajal, Clifton Duncan, Harriet D. Foy, Kevin Mambo, Blake Morris, Reynaldo Piniella, Brian Quijada, Constance Shulman

NYC READING SERIES

Moving Forward

by Bill Bradley

Moving Forward is Bill Bradley’s American Journey: from a small town in Missouri on the banks of the Mississippi River to Princeton and on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, followed by ten years in the NBA with the New York Knicks then 18 years in the U.S. Senate and in 2000 a run for President of the United States.  This autobiographical piece deals with Bradley’s three passions – basketball, politics and self-discovery.  It shares insights about all three as well as life generally, while being funny and deeply moving. It speaks to each of us as human beings and Americans. 

Monday, September 23rd | 7:00 pm

The Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center
Barnard College

3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

NYC READING SERIES

Tent Revival

by Majkin Holmquist

directed by Teddy Bergman

The story of Ida, a young woman on the road with her parents as they preach the good word during the faith-healing revivalist tradition of the mid-20th century. While they spread miracles from one small Kansas town to another, Ida wrestles with doubt and struggles to find her own voice on the wide midwestern plains.

 

featuring

Mary Bacon, Abby Corrigan, Brad Heberlee,

Megan Hill & Elise Kibler

Monday, October 28th | 7:00 pm

The Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center
Barnard College

3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

NYC READINGS SERIES

Mother of  Exiles

by Jessica Huang

directed by Tyne Rafaeli

In 1898 California, a pregnant Eddie Loi faces deportation. In 1998 Miami, her grandson Braulio decides who stays and who goes. In 2098 somewhere on the ocean, their descendants sail toward a new country, fleeing climate crisis. Mother of Exiles follows the Loi family’s journey through America across 200 years, as they are ushered along by the spirits of their ancestors.

 

featuring

Camila Canó-Flaviá, Alejandra Escalante, Wei-Yi Lin, Jodi Long, Peter Rini & Ricardo Vazquez

Monday, November 4th | 7:00 pm

The Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center
Barnard College

3009 Broadway (at 117th Street)

NYC READINGS SERIES

The Lost Or, How to Just B

by Keelay Gipson

The Lost Or, How to Just B is a story about a Black boy trying to find his wings when the world tells him he has none. And Love. Told through hip hop and spoken word, we follow B as he discovers himself, through the city that raised him and the city he has never known.
 

featuring

Paige Gilbert, James Jackson Jr, Anthony Merchant, Avir Mitchell-Townes, Carter Redwood, Xavier Reyes, André Smith, Kara Young

Monday, November 18th | 7:00 pm

NOTE NEW LOCATION:

The Mainstage Theater

416 West 42nd Street

SPECIAL EVENT

Portraits of Religion in

Modern Theater

There are an estimated 4,200 religions worldwide, and although American theater focuses on telling stories about followers of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, some important questions are to be asked. What kind of portrayals are we making in our theater stories, and are these holding truthful to realities of the people who follow them? While some playwrights choose to ridicule organized religion, others seem to focus on one specific belief or perspective of that belief.

Join us for our November panel where will explore the ways various religions are portrayed on stage, and hopefully draw closer to what it means to represent religious faith, its doctrines, and their followers on the theatrical stage.

Panelists will include Will Arbery, Kareem Fahmy, Majkin Holmquist and Kim Snyder.

Friday, November 22nd | 7:00 pm

DGF Music Hall

356 West 40th Street, 2nd Fl