CANTO 250 to Make World Premiere at New York Theater Festival
Performances will run July 15, 17 and 19.
The New York Theater Festival will present the world premiere of CANTO 250: A Comedy in 4th Person, the playwriting debut of Connecticut teacher and writer George Krajca at Teatro LATEA this July. Performances will run July 15, 17 and 19.
Directed by Peter Green, CANTO 250 is a sharp, timely new play that is deeply human and explores what history, art, and artistic freedom mean in America as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, arriving at the perfect moment to capture the cultural zeitgeist.
The play centers on 75-year-old artist Phil Stein (Scott Schneider), who has spent half a century creating "The American Cantos"-a monumental, 250-part multimedia installation that captures the complex, unfiltered, and sometimes painful reality of the American experiment.
On the eve of the nation's Sesquicentennial, Phil's newly awarded NEA grant is abruptly rescinded by the newly formed DOGE. Enter Liberty "Libby" Weaver (Penelope Deen), a 29-year-old technocrat and DOGE lawyer hired to slash the NEA budget. Libby offers Phil a chilling compromise: he can have his funding restored under the new state-approved Celebrating America 250 initiative, but only if he agrees to sanitize his life's work into a flattering, state-approved history.
What begins as a routine government interview quickly becomes a passionate and intelligent debate over history, artistic integrity, censorship, legacy, and the role of art in shaping a nation's identity.
Will Phil sacrifice fifty years of artistic integrity for government compliance, or will the veteran artist find a way to outsmart the cold machinery of DOGE's bureaucracy?
Joining Schneider and Deen is Noam Ben Yakir as Marcus Perkins, a seasoned Adult Protective Services case manager who becomes an unexpected voice in the debate over art, memory, and the value of a life devoted to creative work.
Recently, real-world DOGE operatives cancelled over 1,400 previously approved NEA and NEH grants, stripping over $100 million from cultural organizations across the country. In a move that mirrors the bureaucratic coldness of the play's antagonist, these real-life grants were abruptly terminated via late-night emails, with funding diverted away from diverse community projects and toward patriotism-themed initiatives for the 250th anniversary of American independence. The real-world situation escalated to the point where a federal judge recently had to step in, ruling DOGE's AI-driven cancellation of these grants unconstitutional.
Canto 250 is directed by Peter Green, with lighting and sound by Victor Vabuan Jr. and featuring Noam Ben Yakir as senior caseworker Marcus Perkins.
Written by Krajca-making his playwriting debut after a distinguished career as a teacher-the production also marks a full-circle collaboration between mentor and former student. Deen first met Krajca as her high school English teacher and Green as her Middle school Guidance Counselor, and now joins both in bringing Krajca's first play to the New York stage.
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