Nancy Bannon has written/directed five short films. Original feature screenplays have been recognized by festivals, contests, labs including: Nicholl Fellowship (quarterfinalist 2018, 2017), Sundance Screenwriters & Episodic Labs (second round qualifier multiple years), NYWIFT development lab (fs2p), Slamdance Film Festival (grand prize finalist), more. Her short screenplay, Blood was published in The Southampton Review. Original theater work (she conceived, wrote, directed) includes: Cornfield, Puncture, The Pod Project (immersive events, NYC). As movement director: Romeo and Juliet (w/ Orlando Bloom) on Broadway, more. Off-Broadway includes: Occupied Territories, a play (nominated for five Helen Hayes Awards) which she co-wrote and plays a leading role. Nancy is the recipient of three Princess Grace Awards, a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award, multiple prizes and scholarships and is a graduate of The Juilliard School. Faculty: SUNY Purchase, Rutgers University, American University and The Studio Acting Conservatory. Nancy was a professional dancer for over a decade. nancybannon.com
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Cheers to a closing of our 2022 Summer Season!
The 2022 New York Stage and Film Summer Season presented over 25 public performances of new works-in-process with our partners at Vassar's Powerhouse Theater and Marist College.
Many thanks to the incredible artists, staff, supporters, and audiences that made this season of artistic exploration and discovery possible.
Don, an astrophotographer, returns home to reconnect with his estranged Vietnamese father only to discover that the communication gap between them has grown even wider in the wake of his father's recent deafness. Hoping that sign language will provide a bridge to overcome that distance, Don begins taking lessons. But the closer he gets to being able to communicate with his father, the further he seems to get from actually understanding the man, leaving Don to realize that mastering a language means very little if you're not willing to speak from the heart. Performed in English, Vietnamese and Sign Language, THE WORLD IS NOT SILENT is a multilingual play that explores how language simultaneously divides and unites us.
When the prospect of a far off place called Home seems more appealing than the terrors of Earth, Marcus, a down and out teacher, launches himself on a journey across planets and centuries. Marcus risks everything, and a dysfunctional space crew will stop at nothing to discover Home. But as they encounter mysterious alien figures, Afro-Bots, and a very uncertain future, Home may not be all that they expected. SWEET CHARIOT is an Afrofuturistic exploration of the sorted line between escape and resilience, posing the question: is true liberation only possible for Black people beyond Earth?
Allen and Kay are approaching sixty-five when their only daughter is killed in a car crash. Now parents without children, the two struggle to renegotiate their identities and their marriage, as the entrance of two young people revives a painful longing for what’s been lost: their family and their futures.
After a five-year trek to become the next Supreme Ruler upon the death of his grandfather, Prophet, Young Boy finds himself in an unfamiliar home as he’s soon reunited with his best friend and first love only to find out that his grandfather wasn’t the man he once thought him to be.
On November 3, 1979 five communist labor organizers were murdered in broad daylight in the streets of Greensboro, NC by a group of KKK and Nazis. All five of the victims had committed their lives to fighting the rule of the capitalist class. One year later in Greensboro, César James Alvarez was born into the survivor community and named after two of the victims, César Cauce and James Waller. Thirty-six years after that an “entertainment” company paid César to write a musical about it, but it turned into a seance full of dance moves and big queer feelings and some stuff about how to recuperate from trauma that happened to you before you were born, and also capitalism.
Revolve…evolve…to solve the question. Depart and start to chart a new answer. Only for you, the answer isn’t just what you do, the answer is who you are! So who are we? SUN SONGS is an existential musical from the universe reminding us that we are all, ultimately, stardust. Seamlessly bringing musicians into the narrative, SUN SONGS by Deborah Cowell (book) and Katie Madison (music & lyrics) is an ensemble piece that follows two entities of light trying to find their place in time. Guided by their ancestors and a “narrator” of sorts, their relationship to the natural world inspires memories they thought they had lost. From the past through the present, inspiring endless possibilities of the future, we re[turn] to learn who we are is never far from who we were and who we’ll be. You, like me…see.
At a neuro-diverse summer camp tucked in the woods of the Catskills, teenage camper Hank gets swept up in his first summer love-- immediately transfixed by fellow camper and dog lover Ella. The only problem-- his bossy yet rebellious younger sister Ruth has decided to join the camp as a counselor this year, really hindering Hank's studliness and getting herself into all sorts of trouble with toxic lifeguard Roger, who is unfortunately afraid of the water and fish of all kinds. Based on her brother's real life first summer love, MY BROTHER IS BETTER AT LOVE THAN ME highlights a new kind of romantic lead, ultimately revealing which sibling is actually teaching the other the most important lesson of all-- how to love.
A young Colombian American scientist, Alondra travels back to her family's homeland of Colombia after her mother's passing. Her goal is to study the country's rich biodiversity. Through her informative and often comedic travels, she discovers the healing power of nature and the deeper meaning of returning "home." This play is the first commission of NUESTRO PLANETA, a ten-year-long new works initiative based on environmental justice and stories of climate change in Latin America.
How do we learn to forgive? When two people are brought together after the death of a creative genius, they must confront the myth of their idol and the limits of their own ability to forgive. In this new play by Josh Radnor, the lies we tell ourselves can be more painful than the lies we tell each other.
MODERN GENTLEMAN: After his partner of five years abruptly ends their relationship, 28-year-old Adam must navigate the world of dating for the first time since coming out as a trans man. But Adam’s hopes for a fresh start are quickly derailed when a chaotic new girlfriend, the return of his ex, and long-ignored personal demons force him to finally confront his complicated relationship to his own identity.
When the death of their patriarch draws family members home, they must reckon with grief and the haunting realities that death often brings to the surface. A surreal dark comedy, demons. is a meditation on the reality of getting older, of losing a parent, and that ever-elusive quest to exorcise the trauma a family can pass down through the generations.
LOVE ALL tells the story of the rise of tennis icon Billie Jean King against a backdrop of the social upheaval and countercultural revolutions of the 1960s. A tale of tough competition on the court and gritty teamwork in the world, it asks what it takes to be a champion and what more it takes to change the course of history.
Scroll the calendar below to July and August to see our performance offerings this summer.
The 2022 Summer Season is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; by funding from Dutchess Tourism and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson; and by major support from the Shubert Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and the Board of Directors of New York Stage and Film.