15th Anniversary Fresh Fruit Festival Coming to the wild project This July

The Fresh Fruit Festival - now in its 15th year - is presented by All Out Arts to celebrate the LGBTQ community's unique perspective, creativity & diversity, and to build links between the LGBTQ artistic communities, be they local or international.

The 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival celebrates its 15th Anniversary at the wild project, 195 East 3rd Street.

Featured productions this year including the following:

AN ALL-STAR CAST CHOSEN FOR Doug DeVita'S PHILLIE TRILOGY, PREMIERING AT THE 2017 FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL. THE FESTIVAL RUNNING JULY 10 - 23, IS CELEBRATING 15 YEARS THIS YEAR.
Opening night: Wednesday July 19 at 6:30; Saturday July 22 at 4:30; Sunday July 23 at 3:30, performing at The Wild Project

Growing up gay in the "fabulous" 70s was no picnic for the precocious Phillie McDougal. Through nuns, priests, bullying classmates, parents and - years later - the realization his best friend may not be the person he thought she was - he lived to tell the tales, with results no one bargained for... including him. This first fully-staged and designed production features in the cast: David Sabella, who created the role of Mary Sunshine in the Broadway revival of Chicago; Carole Monferdini, winner of an Obie Award for The Club, directed by Tommy Tune, stood by for Diana Rigg in The Misanthrope on Broadway, and appeared in Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, off-Broadway (to name a few); with Terri Kelsey who won a Fresh Fruit Award of Distinction for her performance in Doug DeVita's play, The Fierce Urgency of NOW at last year's Fresh Fruit Festival and celebrated cabaret artist, Karen Irwin. The youngsters of the cast are equally prominent: Bonale Fambrini, was one of the Royal Children in the recent Lincoln Center revival of The King and I; Maeve Press appeared in Before Your Very Eyes at The Public Theater in New York; and featured is film actor, Daniel G. Cunningham.

"In the canon of works that include The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy, and Falsettos, DeVita's play, The Phillie Trilogy, will stand proud... and equal" writes noted former columnist and reviewer, Bob Green, about Doug DeVita's play, which receives its first full production at the Fresh Fruit Festival this summer. The Phillie Trilogy won the 2016 Winner, Scrap Mettle Arts Playwrights Program Competition and inaugural presentation for The Great Griffon Series: Seeking The Queer Voice. Once again, celebrated director Dennis Corsi will helm one of DeVita's plays. Corsi spearheaded award-winning productions of DeVita's the Fierce Urgency of NOW and Nell Dash. He was also associated with the original staged reading of Phillie for Scrap Mettle. Mr. Corsi just received a Broadway Alliance Award for his production of The Commedia Cinderella.

ALL MIXED UP
BY JOHN J. ENRIGHT, DIRECTED BY Rob Belchere

Cast: Andre Ozim, Habi Coulibaly, Jordan Fassina, Ana Marie Calise

FRIDAY 7/14, 5:30PM; SATURDAY 7/15, 4:30PM; SUNDAY 7/16, 8PM

This modern comedy explores the challenge of maintaining love and trust in an era of nontraditional relationships. Beth and Carrie, an interracial couple on the brink of parenthood, had agreed to have a mixed-race baby - i.e. using a white sperm donor. But days before the very pregnant Beth is due, she reveals she secretly found a black donor. When their fight is interrupted by the donor himself, hi-jinks ensue. The situation is all mixed up! (Even if the baby isn't.) A comedy about love, betrayal, trust, and the things that keep us apart.

THE DIPLOMATS
THREE FRIENDS ... TWO DAYS BEFORE ONE NEW REALITY; WRITTEN BY NELSON DIAZ-MARCANO
Performance schedule: Wednesday, July 12 at 7:00 pm; Saturday, July 15 4 at 2:30 pm; Sunday, July 16 at 6PM

November 2016 seems sooo long ago. Annie was thrilled to see her dear friend, Carlos, during his first visit back to NYC since moving to Florida... and he hasn't changed a bit! But he brought Gary with him ... Annie's estranged friend. It can only take one person to change world events - but at this reunion two days before the 2016 Presidential election - it's world events that do the changing.

CUSTODY
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE: MONDAY 7/10, 8PM; THURSDAY 7/13, 7PM; SUNDAY 7/16, 4PM
CUSTODY OPENS THE 15TH ANNUAL ALL OUT ARTS FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL ON MONDAY JULY 10TH AT 8PM AT THE WILD PROJECT NYC, FESTIVAL HEADQUARTERS.

In CUSTODY, by award-winning playwright Patrick Thomas McCarthy, three men pursue one woman... and each other ... for CUSTODY of their memories, photo albums, and their children. CUSTODY depicts the hot-button topic: straight women who love gay men and the straight men who love the straight women but try to be more like gay men to get the straight women to love them back. CUSTODY asks the question of who's in or out of the closet. Award-winning playwright Patrick Thomas McCarthy returns to the Fresh Fruit Festival with another season opener (Fresh Fruit Festival Outstanding Playwright 2012 for PRIDE RIVER CROSSING & 2013 for sExtOrtiOn).

CHARLES CURTIS' POWERFUL DRAMA, STRINGS.
MONDAY 7/17, 7PM; TUESDAY 7/18, 9PM; THURSDAY 7/20, 8:30PM

"Strings" is about the secrets - the strings - that bind a modern day vigilante and a lawyer with an ulterior motive. Curtis' engaging, thought-provoking ... and unapologetic ... drama explores the many hidden levels of being an African-American man in the 21st Century.

Charles Curtis' play has challenged him in its creation and will challenge his audience - to make us all evaluate our own prejudice and stereotypes - ultimately understanding that we all are more alike than we realize.

"I wrote this piece to give voice to the scores of men of color gunned down in the street. Young men like Trayvon, Philando, Akai, and others with so much to live for, and so much left to do," says playwright and actor, Charles Curtis, whose work was featured at the 2011 National Black Theatre Festival, selected for full performance at the 2014 DC Black Theatre Festival, and the 2016 Atlanta Black Theatre Fest (with "Strings").

Creating dynamic tension on stage is John Cosentino as Derek, the lawyer; and Charvez Grant as the former detective, turned man living by his own law.

Established in 1991, All Out Arts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to bringing together the diverse artistic, organizational, political and financial resources of the LGBTQ community in order to fight intolerance. All Out Arts fulfills its mission by supporting arts organizations within the community through fiscal sponsorship, events, contests, collaborations, networking events for emerging artists, and by sponsoring productions, concerts and exhibitions of visual arts. We confront homophobia through the humanizing influence of the arts, and the Fresh Fruit Festival is the primary expression of the All Out Arts mission.