Christina Masciotti's NO GOOD THINGS DWELL IN THE FLESH to Premiere at the Gural Theatre

No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh, a new play by internationally acclaimed playwright and Guggenheim fellow Christina Masciotti, will premiere September 6–23, 2023, with an opening on September 10, at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T/New York Theatres (502 W 53rd St, Manhattan). Directed by Rory McGregor (Buggy Baby, The Lehman Trilogy), No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh centers on an aging Russian tailor who must confront the one thing she can’t alter – her own mortality. Tickets, starting at $30, go on sale in early August at www.christinamasciotti.com.

Set in present-day Queens, No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh features an immigrant master tailor struggling to convince her assistant to take over her business as she loosens her grip on the material world. When her deranged ex-boyfriend begins to stalk her in her shop, she’s forced to reconsider what her legacy can be and make peace with what can’t be fixed, salvaged, or even known.


With No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh, Masciotti continues to “mine the banalities of everyday chatter for heroic poetry,” (New York Times). The play was inspired by a professional tailor in Astoria whom Masciotti once frequented. 

“Whenever I went to see her, I was always struck by something she’d say. And her level of expertise was astounding,” says Masciotti. “Eventually I approached her about wanting to write a play based on her life. Her immediate response was, ‘I always knew this would happen.’ She pulled up a stool, and I spent six months by her side.”

“The tailor shop also appealed to me as a central metaphor,” Masciotti adds. “Particularly for a story about an immigrant woman who’s been denied her humanity in so many ways. Her labor is made invisible, and her artistry is reduced to servility. As someone brutally displaced by the collapse of the Soviet Union, she remains deeply alienated. The shop plunges us into her world of limbo; between two worlds as an immigrant, and at this point in her life, approaching the end of her career. She’s even more obsessed with textiles, the human form, and measurements because the physical world is slipping away. The story is asking: How do we let go of all we’ve ever known? How do we face the ultimate alteration, death itself?”

“Christina is a distinguished writer with a remarkable pedigree. A true master in creating vividly drawn characters,” says McGregor. “I love how the play oscillates between the real and the surreal, how the hyper-realistic scenes in the tailor shop are often bookended with more mysterious and strange scenes with the customers. It probes deeply in some uncomfortable and anxiety inducing areas. The timeless questions of how to build a life, and what we leave behind when we go.”

Details on casting and the creative team will be announced at a later date.

Fourteen performances of No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh will take place September 6–23, 2023, at The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T /New York Theatres, located at 502 W 53rd St in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, September 8, for an opening on Sunday, September 10. The performance schedule is Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 5pm. The anticipated running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets, which start at $30, can be purchased online at www.christinamasciotti.com, which is where the public can also sign-up for the $20 digital lottery.

Please visit www.christinamasciotti.com for more information.

About the Artists

Recent Guggenheim Fellow and one of The New York Times’ Faces to Watch (2015), Christina Masciotti (playwright) has been honored as a finalist for the Princess Grace Award, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Centre Stage New Plays Festival, and the Trustus Playwrights Festival. Her most recent production, Raw Bacon from Poland was a New York Times Critics’ Pick (2017). Her earlier work, Social Security (2015), a five-star-reviewed Time Out New York Critics' Pick, received an honorable mention from The Kilroys, and was named one of the Best Shows of 2015 by Helen Shaw. Her scripts, Adult (2014) and Vision Disturbance (2010), have been selected for preservation in the Permanent Archives of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Vision Disturbance was also cited as one of Time Out New York's Top 10 Shows of 2010, and selected monologues from Vision Disturbance, Adult, and Raw Bacon from Poland have been anthologized by Smith and Kraus' and Applause Theater and Cinema’s Best Contemporary Monologues series (2014, 2016, 2018).

Masciotti’s work has been presented or supported by Waterwell, The New Group, Abrons Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Bushwick Starr, The Public Theater’s UTR Festival; CUNY’s Prelude Festival; Arts Emerson’s TNT Festival (Boston); Duke University’s New Works Lab Series (Durham); Circle X Theatre (Los Angeles); LaStarria 90’s Desorientacion Series (Santiago, Chile); Theater Bonn (Bonn, Germany); the VIE Scene Contemporanea Festival(Modena, Italy); Trienalle Teatro dell’Arte (Milan, Italy); Theater Garonne (Toulouse, France); T2G (Genevilliers, France); Le Maillon (Strasbourg, France); and ZKM (Zagreb, Croatia). She graduated from Brown University (English with Honors in Playwriting) and earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. She is currently a playwright-in-residence at Lincoln Center Theater. For more information, please visit www.christinamasciotti.com

Rory McGregor (director) is a British theatre director currently based in New York City. Most recently, he directed the U.S. premiere of Josh Azouz’s Buggy Baby (APAC). Other recent directing credits include the world premiere of Interior by Nick Payne (59E59 Theaters), Ransom (Arts on Site), Vigil, Conway(Both theaterlab), The Great Divide (Finborough Theatre, UK), Building Pain (First Irish Festival, Origin Theatre), Macbeth (Connelly Theatre). He has served as Associate Director for the world’s leading theatre directors including Sam Mendes, Julie Taymor, Rupert Goold, and Carrie Cracknell. Recent credits include The Lehman Trilogy (Broadway, Ahmason Theatre in LA and London's West End), Ink (Broadway), Sea Wall/A Life (The Public Theater & Broadway) and M. Butterfly (Broadway). He is currently an Artistic Representative on the Young Partner’s Board at The Public Theater. McGregor Rory has taught at Columbia University, Bucks County Playhouse and mentored undergraduate directing students at NYU/Playwright's Horizons Theatre School. He was previously a Directing Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club, a script reader at Roundabout Theatre Company, the Artistic Associate of Classic Stage Company and an Artistic Apprentice at Roundabout. McGregor holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of York and graduated from the MFA Directing Program at Columbia University in 2017, under the tutelage of Anne Bogart and Brian Kulick.
 

About A.R.T./New York Theatres

The A.R.T./New York Theatres are a project of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York) which provide state-of-the-art, accessible venues and top-line technical equipment at subsidized rates, so that the city’s small and emerging theatre companies can continue to experiment, grow, and produce new works. Founded in 1972, A.R.T./New York assists over 500 member theatre companies and independent producers in realizing their rich artistic visions and serving their diverse audiences well. A.R.T./New York accomplishes this through providing progressive services to members – from shared office and rehearsal spaces to technical assistance programs for emerging theatres. Because of this dedication to serving the needs of the nonprofit theatre community, A.R.T./New York has received numerous honors, including an Obie Award, an Innovative Theatre Award, a New York City Mayor’s Award for Arts & Culture, and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre. For more information, please visit www.art-newyork.org.
 

 

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