Theater for the New City Sets Eighth Dream Up Festival

From August 27 to September 17, 2017, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, Artistic Director, will present its eighth Dream Up Festival, a feast of adventurous theater featuring new works from across the country and abroad. Helmed by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price, the festival offers 23 plays, of which twelve are world premieres, four are American premieres and two are New York premieres. An ultimate new work festival, it is dedicated to the joy of discovering new authors and edgy, innovative performances. Audiences savor the excitement, awe, passion, challenge and intrigue of new plays from around the country and around the world. There are four full-blown musicals, four shows on LGBTQ themes, five solo shows, a clown show, two on themes of race in America and one based on visual art. One play is an English language premiere from Iceland. Critics are invited to all the productions.

Theater for the New City has consistently been the most inexpensive theater of its caliber and it continues its commitment to affordable tickets with this festival. Dream Up Festival tickets are $12-$20 for the participating productions.

With this festival, TNC opens itself up to theater from the country at large and to artists from overseas. Its founders, Crystal Field and Michael Scott-Price, feel this is especially needed now in a time of declining donations to the arts, grants not being awarded due to market conditions, and arts funding cuts on almost every level all across the country and abroad. The festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way. It selects works that push new ideas to the forefront, challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of how art illuminates the world around us.

Michael Scott-Price (Curator/Festival Director) has directed in New York City at venues including Chashama, Dixon Place and Collective Unconscious. He has written and directed productions that were presented nationally as well as in Canada, Ireland and England. Currently, he is also Curator of TNC's "New City, New Blood" reading series and "Scratch Night" (works-in-progress). He is Artistic Director of an experimental theatre company, Asteroid B612 Theatre Company, which made its debut in the 17th Annual HERE American Living Room Series in August 2006. He has studied at the School of Physical Theatre in London, England, at the Odin Teatret in Hostelbro, Denmark and in the International School Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in Wroclaw, Poland with Eugenio Barba and company. He is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab.

Theater for the New City (TNC) maintains a distinctive commitment to high artistic values and community service. In an effort to make theater accessible to all, TNC presents an assortment of distinct, exceptional events each year, including the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, which celebrates the artistic and cultural diversity of TNC's Lower East Side community; an annual Village Halloween Ball and an annual summer Street Theater tour that presents a free, live, original musical in thirteen neighborhoods in all five boroughs. Most of these are free of charge to the public.

Theater for the New City is located at 155 First Ave., at East 10th Street.

For a complete listing of shows in the festival, go to: www.jsnyc.com/season/dreamup2017lineup.pdf. For tickets, call Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or go to: www.dreamupfestival.org. For additional info, call TNC box office at 212-254-1109.