The Village Theater Group To Present Inaugural WINTER ONE-ACT FESTIVAL

The Village Theater Group will present an inaugural “Winter One-Act Festival,” a powerful evening of live theatre featuring one original one-act play and two classic one-acts reimagined by today’s rising voices. The program will begin with Interview by Jean Claude Van Itallie, followed by A Most Theatrical Kidnapping of Jeremy Strong by Courtney Taylor, and The Groves of Acadame by Mark Stein. Previews are Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12 at 7:00pm. The official opening is Thursday, February 13th at 7:00pm at The American Theatre of Actors - Sargeant Theater (314 West 54th Street – between 8th & 9th Avenues) and performances continue through Sunday, February 22, 2026.

The company presented their inaugural Off-Broadway production of Arthur Miller's The Price at The Theatre At St. Clement's last February to critical acclaim and are set to follow up this year with a program which aims to showcase the growing ensemble behind The Village Theater Group. It will also begin the tradition of a bi-annual One-Act Festival showcasing original playwrights. This Winter One-Act Festival is not just a show—it’s a platform for passionate young artists, new playwrights, emerging directors, and the professional talent of this new company to take the stage and make their mark.

“Our goal with this program is to create a platform for rising playwrights through a night of quality theater, states Andrew Beregovoy. “What we're creating with The Winter One-Act Festival is just that.”

The evening will include:

INTERVIEW by Jean-Claude van Itallie

Directed by Richie Byrne
The topic under examination is an employment interview treated in a satirical, imaginatively stylized, darkly humorous way. Four interviewers interview a scrubwoman, a house painter, a banker and a lady's maid, While commonplace enough, suddenly the most innocent state- ments are foreboding, revealing absurd bureaucracy and dehumanization. The interviewers are trying to destroy the dignity of the four clients, and the latter fight to hold their self-respect. We, the audience, are thrust into awareness.

A MOST THEATRICAL KIDNAPPING OF Jeremy Strong by Courtney Taylor

Directed by TBA
Two unhinged theatremakers kidnap Jeremy Strong on opening night of their new play, "A Centaur Comes At Night." A dark comedy about what we'd do to make our art transcend.

THE GROVES OF ACADEME by Mark Stein

Directed by Sean Hoagland
In the cramped office of Professor Bill Groves, is visited by Paul Morris, a rather quirky undergrad who asks to be admitted to an honors seminar on comedy. In a series of quick-changing scenes which span the school year, the two discuss Paul’s academic record, the subject of his term paper and, as they become more at ease with each other, their private lives and feelings. Paul’s opinions and behavior are gradually influenced as much by Groves’ individual qualities as by his intellectual attainments. Highly amusing and sharply observant, the play conveys much about the academic “treadmill,” but even more about the special strengths that can be nurtured when student and teacher reach beyond the formal relationship that, so often, is all that exists between them.