DINNER PARTY Will Make New York Premiere at The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute

The StrasbergWorks 2026 production of Dinner Party will run May 7-9 at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. (115 E 15th St. New York) Written by Reina Macias, Dinner Party was first performed in Los Angeles and now makes its New York premiere.

Dinner Party begins with a familiar setup: six friends, one table, and a night meant for celebration. The energy is easy, the jokes are fun and the rhythm feels like a classic hang. But then the cracks start to show. 

Beneath the laughter sits unresolved grief, cultural tension, and a shared history that can't stay buried. What starts with the feeling of a sitcom slowly deepens, revealing fractures around womanhood, race, masculinity, and the quiet pressure placed on young Black and Brown adults to hold it together. Over the course of a single evening, secrets surface and old wounds reopen, forcing each guest to confront who they've become and who they fear they might be.

StrasbergWorks is designed to give students space to take creative risks and bring original work to life. Each year, a student-written play is selected for production on one of the Institute's main stages. The chosen playwright leads the process, collaborating with fellow students who step into roles across the creative spectrum, from acting and directing to stage management and design. The result is a fully realized production shaped by emerging artists at every level.

"When selecting the play for this year, the choice was obvious," said Victoria Krane, President of The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. "Reina Macias is not only creative, but driven. She has earned this opportunity to showcase her growing talent. It's exciting to watch her and the Strasberg team bring this story to life alongside director Tyrel Jackson Williams."

Williams shares that enthusiasm, noting his and Macias' shared love of classic sitcoms like Martin, Frasier, and The George Lopez Show. That influence shows in the play's quick pace and sharp comedic timing. But the goal was never just to tell funny jokes.

"To me, this show is about the ways we hurt each other, whether we realize it or not," Williams said. "There's something both funny and devastating in that. Finding that balance is what makes it interesting."

Dinner Party began as a short play developed for The Lee Strasberg Institute's No Rights Reserved Short Play Festival, where students build work from adaptations of public domain texts. After a strong response, Macias expanded the piece into a full-length production. She starred in and directed it in Los Angeles in May and August 2025, where all three performances sold out.

For Macias, the play began as something personal and grew into something communal.

"I created Dinner Party because I wanted to see myself and my community reflected in the stories I was studying," she said. "We're often trained on classics, but those worlds weren't always built with us in mind. This piece reimagines those structures through a modern, intersectional lens. We laugh until we cry, and cry until we laugh. It's messy, it's communal, and it asks what it really means to sit at the table with one another."

While this marks an important step for Macias as a playwright, she is already an experienced performer. Her stage credits include Twelfth Night at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Buena Vista Social Club at the Atlantic Theater Company, Travels at Ars Nova, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. A Hollywood Music in Media Award winner, her work spans theatre, music and movement, with collaborations that include Nipsey Hussle and Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire.