QUEENSBRIDGE to Make World Premiere at Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City
Playwright Marlin Thomas and director DeMone Seraphin bring the immersive work to life in New York City.
Audiences will soon step inside one of America's most influential-and least understood-communities when Queensbridge, a new immersive full-length play by playwright Marlin Thomas, makes its world premiere for a limited engagement August 29-September 13, 2026 in New York City.
Directed by acclaimed theater artist DeMone Seraphin, Queensbridge is an immersive theatrical experience that dissolves the traditional boundary between performers and audience, inviting theatergoers to become active participants in a story rooted in the lived experiences of residents of Queensbridge Houses-the largest public housing development in North America.
Described as "Thornton Wilder's Our Town meets Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing", Queensbridge examines decades of life inside public housing through memory, bureaucracy, survival, community, and redemption.
Rather than presenting history from the outside, Queensbridge invites audiences into it. Before the curtain rises, performers interact with audience members in character, and throughout the performance actors improvise and respond to the audience, making every performance unique.
"There is no fourth wall," said playwright Marlin Thomas. "The audience isn't watching the story-they become part of it."
Thomas spent twenty-five years living in Queensbridge Houses after his family was displaced from the Bronx due to public construction. His experiences became the foundation for a work that explores not only public housing, but the broader questions of how government policy shapes communities and how ordinary people preserve dignity under extraordinary circumstances.
"Queensbridge is about what it means for the government to define public housing as a project," Thomas writes in his artistic statement. "It is about people coping with social isolation and displacement. It is about characters revealing their humanity. It is about a play that dramatizes an oral history project-and becomes that project."
The production is directed by award-winning theater director DeMone Seraphin, known for blending theatrical innovation with cinematic storytelling and emotional authenticity. His directing credits include Chicken and Biscuits, Sweat, Jitney, and The Gospel at Colonus.
Unlike traditional plays, Queensbridge unfolds through "quanta"-bursts of dialogue and action that build an evolving oral history rather than a conventional sequence of scenes. The production examines institutional systems alongside deeply personal stories, asking audiences to confront questions about displacement, bureaucracy, race, memory, and community.
The work has already undergone several developmental productions, beginning as a 15-minute piece before expanding through staged readings and developmental workshops into its current full-length format.
The production is intended for audiences interested in contemporary theater, urban history, Black culture, public policy, and immersive performance.
Performance Dates & Times
- Saturday, August 29, 2026 - 8:00 p.m.
- Sunday, August 30, 2026 - 2:00 p.m. & 5:00 p.m.
- Saturday, September 5, 2026 - 5:00 p.m.
- Tuesday, September 8, 2026 - 9:00 p.m.
- Thursday, September 10, 2026 - 6:30 p.m.
- Friday, September 11, 2026 - 9:00 p.m.
- Saturday, September 12, 2026 - 5:00 p.m.
- Sunday, September 13, 2026 - 2:00 p.m.
Venue
The Cabaret Theater at Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue
New York, NY 10003
The world premiere will be presented in the Cabaret Theater at Theater for the New City (TNC), the Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural institution that has become one of New York's leading incubators for new American theater. Producing 30 to 40 world premieres annually, TNC has helped launch the careers of celebrated artists including Sam Shepard, Moisés Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, María Irene Fornés, Tim Robbins, Adrien Brody, and many others while championing emerging playwrights and diverse voices from around the world.
Tickets: Available through Theater for the New City.
About Marlin Thomas
Marlin Thomas was born in the Bronx and raised in Queensbridge Houses. Educated at Queens College, Johns Hopkins University, and New York University, Thomas is an accomplished academic and playwright whose work spans literary criticism, philosophy, computer science, and theater. His plays have received national and international recognition, including Reparations, named Best Play in the 2024 International Theater Competition, and The Middleman, a finalist for Best Play at the 2020 New York Theater Festival. Queensbridge draws upon his twenty-five years living in public housing.
About DeMone Seraphin
DeMone Seraphin is an award-winning director, producer, and creative visionary recognized for creating emotionally resonant theatrical experiences centered on memory, identity, Black resilience, and liberation. His directing style combines immersive storytelling with visually cinematic staging and collaborative performance practices.
|
Oldies but Goldies (Extended Run) The PIT Mainstage (7/26-7/26) |
|
A Tom Lehrer Cabaret The Green Room 42 (7/29-7/29) |
|
Broadway Magic Hour Broadway Magic Hour: Magic Show (7/25-1/02) |
|
Broadway Takes On The 80s The Cutting Room (9/14-9/14) |
|
Fool for Love Vino Theater (8/06-8/08) |
|
Oil & Whiskey The Bitter End, Laurie Beechman, Prohibition, The Rat NYC (7/15-8/12) |
|
Rock Never Dies Hard Rock Cafe (5/29-8/30) |
|
SAY MY NAME AMT Theatre (7/23-7/26) |
|
Shangri-La-La, a comedy musical about Siegfried & Roy American Theatre of Actors (ATA) (7/25-7/26) |
|
That Math Show Theater555 (6/11-8/16) |