Red Bull Theater Announces Line-Up for Short New Play Festival

Red Bull Theater (Jesse Berger, Artistic Director/Jim Bredeson, Managing Director) today announced that their seventh annual festival of 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes will feature two brand new commissions from Dael Orlandersmith and Arthur Kopit, alongside 6 brand new plays chosen from hundreds of submissions from playwrights across the country. The 2017 Short New Play Festival will be presented on Monday July 24th (7:30pm) at Lucille Lortel Theatre, directed by Craig Baldwin and Evan Yionoulis. Casts will include Tina Benko, Bill Buell, Robert Clohessy, Emily Donahoe, Clifton Duncan, Teresa Avia Lim, Joan MacIntosh, Nadine Malouf, Howard W. Overshown, Alfredo Narciso, and Linda Powell.

Six brand-new short plays have been selected from an open submission process and will now be presented in staged readings performed by great actors alongside new short plays by two commissioned writers, Arthur Kopit (Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, Wings, Nine) and Dael Orlandersmith (Beauty's Daughter, Yellowman).

Each year, the company selects new works of heightened language and classical themes from today's top established and emerging playwrights. Plays were selected based on: relevance to Red Bull's mission; incorporation of this year's theme, "Delusions of Grandeur;" and excellence.

This year's chosen writers are Charlotte Ahlin, Uriah Celaya, Justin Halle, Rachel Leopold, Jason Gray Platt, and Christian Simonsen.

Using the theme "Delusions of Grandeur" writers were asked to submit a short play of no more than 10 minutes in length that makes use of any, or all, of the following: heightened language or verse; a classical theme or style; a classical story.

The 2017 Short New Play Festival is made possible by the generous support of The Noël Coward Foundation.

Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival has generated over 1,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting nearly 50 of them in a one-night only Festival performance with some of New York's finest actors and directors. In its first six years, the commissioned playwrights have been: Lee Blessing, Constance Congdon, Lisa D'Amour, Elizabeth Egloff, Amy Freed, David Grimm, John Guare, David Ives, Ellen McLaughlin, Peter Oswald, ReGina Taylor and Anne Washburn. Winners of the open submission competition have included: Kate Abbruzzese, Liz Duffy Adams, Mike Anderson, Heidi Armbruster, Matt Barbot, Dave Carley, Dipika Guha, Arthur Holden, Will Kenton, Anchuli Felicia King, Sam Lahne, Tabia Lau, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Wendy MacLeod, Stephen Massicotte, Dakin Matthews, ElizaBeth Miller, Winter Miller, Mark O'Donnell, Eric Pfeffinger, Jason Gray Platt, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Lynn Rosen, Tom Rowan, Aubrey Saverino, Natalia Savvides, Jen Silverman, Tommy Smith, James Still, Emily Taplin Boyd, Matthew Wells, and Tim West.