Red Bull Theater Unveils Selections for Short New Play Festival 2025

Red Bull Theater has revealed the winning selections for Red Bull’s SHORT NEW PLAY FESTIVAL 2025. Six brand new 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes inspired by this year’s theme, “Defiance,” have been selected through an open submission process. These selections will premiere alongside commissions from Will Eno and Anna Ziegler.

This year’s winning playwrights, selected from hundreds of blind submissions from playwrights across the country, are Michael Carozza, Isis Elizabeth, Dana Leslie Goldstein,  August Guszkowski, Amy Jo Jackson, and AJ Layague.

The Short New Play Festival will be held on Monday June 23rd at Symphony Space Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). The premieres will be directed by Evan Yiounoulis and this year's Drama League Directing Fellow, Zoë Adams. Red Bull Theater’s 15th annual Short New Play Festival is made possible by the leadership support of The Noël Coward Foundation.

"This year's line up of new plays is extraordinary! Each of the 8 short plays draw on the classics of our past in innovative, imaginative, and insightful ways - learning into our theme of defiance. I hope you will join us to hear these new voices and celebrate our 15th year of short new play festivals!,” exhorts Artistic Director Jesse Berger.

This year's winning selections:​

The Weight of the Sun

by Michael Carozza

Sisyphus, doomed to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, gets a surprising visit from Persephone, the goddess of The Underworld, prompting them to question if they can break free of their prisons, or if they are prisons at all. ​

Crown of Smoke

by Isis Elizabeth

Crown of Smoke is a poetic exploration of identity and self-empowerment. The play follows Uri, a young Black woman who rejects societal pressures to conform to white beauty standards by choosing to embrace her natural hair. As she navigates the weight of family expectations and history, Uri finds strength in claiming her true self. Her grandmother, Mama Ya, embodies wisdom from past generations, while her older brother, Devon, represents the struggles of deferred dreams and fear of change. Through their interactions, Uri confronts the complexities of legacy, family, and personal growth.  Crown of Smoke is a powerful celebration of Black resilience and the courage to live truthfully​

D.O.J. (not that J.)

by Dana Leslie Goldstein

After the events of their respective Shakespeare plays, Desdemona, Ophelia and Jessica are judged for their actions. Should their stories end with their final scenes, or do they deserve a sixth act?

Kate, Once

by August Guszkowski

Out of concern for the moral rectitude of his students, the dean of an unnamed Massachusetts college has declared a moratorium on male theater students playing women's roles onstage. The student newspaper's arts critic reviews the final act of female impersonation at the college (a production of The Taming of the Shrew) and is caught between his expressed moral values and his feelings for the man who played Katherine.​

The Aurora Method

by Amy Jo Jackson

Julie and Eric have been best friends for years, but a mysterious spiritual guru named Aurora threatens to come between them. She preaches the benefits of celibacy and ascending beyond material goods, but Eric insists she's a sex maniac scamming Jules for her money. What will it take for him to get her to turn her back on her teacher? What will it take for her to see Aurora for the con artist she truly is?​

Anteros Was Here

by AJ Layague​

An Old West retelling of the Greek myth of Meles and Timagoras, narrated in verse by The Cowgirl.  Timo and Mel are young cowboys in the 19th century. Timo, born enslaved but now freed, and Mel have been best friends since childhood. When the powerful Big Z has his grandson, Anteros, arrange Olympic-style games, they recruit Timo and Mel for the (almost) no-holds-barred Pankration. The game goes awry when Mel breaks one of the few contact rules, which leads to a confrontation that turns surprising and tragic.

This year's commissioned plays:

The Ending of Lear

by Will Eno

The basement of the theater has flooded, the show is closing, and Cordelia and Lear, sullen and furious, respectively, are miles apart about the meaning of the last scene and almost everything else. And there is their cue. 

Devil and the Lemon Tree

by Anna Ziegler

A washed up poet meets a mysterious German man who offers him success—and maybe the love of his life—in exchange for the one thing no one has seemed to want anyway: his authorship. A cautionary tale about selling out, starting over, and citrus trees.