BREAKING THE TRUST to Make New York Premiere at Theater For The New City DREAM UP Festival

Theater for the New City’s Dream Up Festival, under the leadership of Executive Director Crystal Field, will present the New York premiere of Breaking the Trust, a darkly humorous and emotionally resonant new play by Bill Rogers, directed by Gerald vanHeerden. Performances will run September 2–7 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue.

Set in the deteriorating living room of a small-town Midwestern home, Breaking the Trust follows four sisters who reunite after the sudden death of their younger brother. As they navigate their grief, a stunning revelation disrupts their reunion: their seemingly aimless and usually unemployed sibling has left behind a $4 million estate—and a trust that benefits only two of them. Questions mount over how he acquired the fortune and why he disinherited the other two.

As emotions rise, old rivalries will reignite and new betrayals will come to light. With the aid of an eccentric history professor who may be losing his mind and a brilliant but devious ex-con, the sisters embark on a spirited and often comical journey to confront the meaning of family and the price of buried truths.

Playwright Bill Rogers draws from personal experience, inspired by his wife’s family’s response to a similar event. “Grief has a way of stirring up what’s long been buried,” Rogers says. “Inheritance can pose painful questions, and unresolved tensions tend to resurface with force.” Directed by vanHeerden, Breaking the Trust balances humor and heartbreak in a compelling look at what we inherit—not just in wealth, but in wounds, wisdom, and the fragile ties that hold families together.

Rogers is a writer and educator who has earned awards both as a playwright and as a teacher of history and English in the United States and Australia. His work includes four full-length plays, two one-act plays, a radio play, several ten-minute plays, and the book and lyrics for Wild and Willful Women, which was presented during the Theatre Resources Unlimited 2014 New Musicals Reading Series. His plays have been produced or developed across the country, earning honors such as a Best Play nomination at the Venus/Adonis Festival (Caldwell’s Bomb), a Beverly Hills Theatre Guild–Julie Harris competition finalist (Broken Strings), and Rockhurst University’s Plays in Progress Competition winner (Breaking the Trust). His debut novel, Mango Black, was published in 2023.