Red Bull Theater Announces Cast for THE NINTH ANNUAL SHORT NEW PLAY FESTIVAL

Red Bull Theater today announced the cast for their ninth annual festival of 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes, featuring two brand new commissions from Kia Corthron and Marcus Gardley, alongside six brand new plays that have been chosen from hundreds of submissions from playwrights across the country: Kate Abbruzzese, Terry Glaser, Eric Pfeffinger, Bridgette Dutta Portman, David Lerner Schwartz, Sofya Levitsky Weitz, and Matthew Wells.

The 2019 Short New Play Festival will be presented on Monday July 15th (7:30pm) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, directed by Vivienne Benesch and Jade King Carroll. Cast will feature Kate Abbruzzese, Lexie Braverman, Yvette Ganier, Michael Genet, Adam Green, Ron Menzel, Bhavesh Patel, Matthew Rauch, David Ryan Smith, and Soccoro Santiago.

Each year, the company selects new works of heightened language and classical themes from today's top established and emerging playwrights. Six brand-new short plays have been selected from a competitive open submission process and will now be presented in staged readings alongside the commissioned plays.

Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival has generated over 1,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting over 60 of them in a one-night only Festival performance with some of New York's finest actors and directors. In its first eight years, the commissioned playwrights have been: Lee Blessing, Constance Congdon, Lisa D'Amour, Elizabeth Egloff, Amy Freed, David Grimm, John Guare, Tina Howe, David Ives, Arthur Kopit, Ellen McLaughlin, Dael Orlandersmith, Peter Oswald, Regina Taylor, Anne Washburn, and Doug Wright. Winners of the open submission competition have included: K.M. Abbruzzese, Liz Duffy Adams, Mike Anderson, Heidi Armbruster, Matt Barbot, Emily Taplin Boyd, Dave Carley, Fred Dennehy, Dipika Guha, Arthur Holden, Will Kenton, Anchuli Felicia King, Sam Lahne, Tabia Lau, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Wendy MacLeod, Anya Martin, Stephen Massicotte, Dakin Matthews, Elizabeth Miller, Winter Miller, Mark O'Donnell, Eric Pfeffinger, Jason Gray Platt, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Amanda Quaid, Lynn Rosen, Tom Rowan, Aubrey Saverino, Natalia Savvides, Jen Silverman, Tommy Smith, James Still, Matthew Wells, Samara Weiss, Daniel Wilson, and Tim West.

Stage Rights has published a 4-volume collection of the plays from the first 8 years of Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival as RED BULL SHORTS.

Red Bull Theater, hailed as "the city's gutsiest classical theater" by Time Out New York, brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years."

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway Productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Master Classes in classical acting led by veteran theater professionals.

Acclaimed as "a dynamic producer of classic plays" by The New York Times and "the most exciting classical theater in New York" by Time Out NY, Red Bull Theater has produced 19 Off-Broadway productions and nearly 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim, and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.

Red Bull Theater's mainstage production of Mac Beth recently completed its acclaimed, sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

For more information about the Short New Play Festival, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.