LGBT Play About Musical Theater MUSICAL CHAIRS Opens Next Month

New York Theater Festival presents a Dragonfly Transformation, LLC production of Musical Chairs, the first play about musical theater, written by Steve Fogelman. Stewart Harrison directs a cast of six, including Kurt Bantilan, Anna Benoit, Corinne Britti, Steve Fogelman*, Alvaro Francisco*, and Danielle Erin Rhodes*. Musical Chairs will be staged for three performances in Manhattan's Lower East Side from October 12-15, 2023, at the Teatro Latea, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002. *Appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.

A new LGBT experimental play, Musical Chairs tackles not only subscriptions we have to services, but also intrinsic things like arcane ideologies of gender roles, marriage, and sexuality. Staged in only four chairs, the story follows musical theater enthusiasts and recent transplants, Tory and Nadine Lovett, as new subscribers of a season of touring Broadway musicals at their local historic theater.  Even before the move, Tory's begun to question his sexual truth, making Nadine desperate to hold their marriage together. But after the couple's flirtatious collision with neighboring subscribers, denial is no longer an option, in this dramatic yet humorous exploration of balancing dreams, vows, and attraction, through a voyeuristic lens of cultural and sexual evolution.

“At some point, arcane beliefs of marriage, society, and sexuality no longer serve a purpose and become impossible to maintain in modern life. Dramatic theater influences the way we think and feel about our own lives and encourages us to take a hard look at ourselves, our values, and our behavior; however, musical theater tends to offer a more idealistic view of life in sweeping spectacles,” says playwright Steve Fogelman. “Musical Chairs creates a compelling structural hybrid with characters inspired by musical theater's simple archetypes, juxtaposed in a focused dramatic setting to heighten the characters' stifled existence.”

Performances for Musical Chairs are Thursday, Oct. 12 at 6:15 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 14 at 2:15 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 15 at 6:00 p.m.