A STRAIGHT LINE IS JUST A CIRCLE THAT GAVE UP to Premiere at Spark Theatre Festival
Diane Sykes and Chris Jaymes star in the two-hander directed by Santiago Pinkney at The 28th Street Theatre in Manhattan.
Tickets are now on sale for the world premiere of A Straight Line Is Just a Circle That Gave Up, a new dark comedy by Brian S. Brijbag, presented for two performances only as part of Emerging Artists Theatre's Fall 2026 Spark Theatre Festival NYC. The play will be performed Friday, October 9 at 9:00 p.m. and Sunday, October 25 at 2:00 p.m. at The 28th Street Theatre, also known as TADA! Theater, at 15 West 28th Street in Manhattan.
Amanda Bellamy has placed one unmistakable image on her ten-year-old son's gravestone: Mr. Wobbleton, the crooked, wildly beloved cartoon frog who made Henry feel seen. Then Clive Mercer arrives from MerryMirth Studios with a corporate suit, a laser measurer, and a cease-and-desist letter. The company owns the frog. Amanda owns the grief. Neither intends to surrender.
What begins as an absurd dispute over trademark enforcement becomes a funny and emotionally charged battle over who gets to control memory, how corporations turn affection into property, and whether anything sacred can remain outside a licensing agreement. The approximately 45-minute two-hander keeps its sharp comic edge even as Amanda and Clive discover that the argument is far more personal than either expected.
"The premise is ridiculous until you realize the legal argument is not," Brijbag said. "Amanda is fighting a company over a cartoon frog on her son's gravestone, but she is really fighting for the right to grieve without someone turning it into a transaction. I wanted the play to be funny because grief is often funnier, stranger, and less well behaved than people allow it to be."
The play was recently named one of five finalists for the 2026 Austin Hay One-Act Playwriting Award, selected from 125 submissions.
Diane Sykes stars as Amanda Bellamy. Sykes has played Vivian Bearing in Wit at Generic Theater, Adult Bo in Off the Map, and multiple roles in Kathy and Mo: Parallel Lives. Her New York credits include Katherine in Henry Kissinger: A Romantic Comedy at the NYC Fringe and Dr. Nancy Lind in Unsolvable Riddle. Her screen work includes the festival-winning films Room Service and The End in Slow Motion, along with appearances in Ghost Stories, Forensic Files, and New Detectives.
Chris Jaymes plays Clive Mercer. In 2026, Jaymes appeared in the Off-Broadway world premiere of Censorship of Dreams at La MaMa, the world premiere of Portraits of Gays in Despair at Playwrights Theatre, Sideshow by the Seashore at The Chain, and The Final Stop, winner of Best Play at the Gene Frankel Theater. His film and television credits include Deliver Me from Nowhere, Law & Order: Organized Crime, and Apple TV+'s For All Mankind. His feature directing debut, In Memory of My Father, starring Judy Greer, received more than a dozen international film festival awards.
The production is directed by Santiago Pinkney, a Florida-born, New York-based director and performer studying musical theatre and psychology at Pace University.
Brijbag is an internationally produced and Off-Broadway playwright, actor, director, and author. Named Best Playwright in Tampa Bay by Creative Loafing, he is a BroadwayWorld Award winner and the recipient of the 2026 Verna Safran Prize. His plays have been produced across the United States and internationally, and his writing has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. He is also a Florida trial attorney and applied anthropologist, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Emerging Artists Theatre launched what is now the Spark Theatre Festival NYC in 2006 to give artists a New York platform for developing and presenting new work. The Fall 2026 festival runs October 5 through 25 at The 28th Street Theatre.
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