Directors, Cast Announced for NYM's Season Launch with Neil LaBute

NYMadness Season Launch, RACIAL MADNESS with Featured Guest Neil LaBute (The Way We Get By, Bash: Latter-Day Plays, Outer Critics Circle Award for Fat Pig, Independent Spirit Award for In the Company of Men, Reasons to be Pretty, Reason to be Happy, American Academy Arts and Letters.)

Directors: Marco Calvani, Cecilia Copeland, Shira-Lee Shalit, Roberto Cambeiro, Michele Travis, Illana Stein, Lucia Bellini, and Rebecca Nyahay will join writers Neil LaBute (Featured Guest), Cecilia Copeland, Michael Panes, Dennis A. Allen II, Judith Leora, Micheline Auger, Tanya Everett, and Joshua Young.

Cast: Lucy DeVito*, Shayna Small*, Amy Gaipa*, Shaun Bennet Fauntleroy*, Tocarra Cash*, Andy Lucien*, Celestine Rae*, Stephen Dexter*, Caitlin Cooke, Charles Everett, Michael Markham* (Head of Acting), Galway McCullough*, Clinton Lowe*, Stacey Raymond*, Joel Stigliano, John J. Concado*, Marissa Wolf, Erin Cherry*, and Eric Percival*.

*Performing Courtesy of AEA.

NYMadness brings together a fierce lineup of artists to create an evening of new plays based on a Theme selected by the Featured Guest Playwright. The collective works by all the writers form a kaleidoscope of this cultural moment focused through the theme, which is announced just one week before the show. The plays are presented hot off the press, fully staged, script in hand. This gender parity and diverse season will mark NYMadness's Sixth since inception where established playwrights donate their time to support emerging artists.

The full lineup of Featured Guest Playwrights in Season Six includes Neil LaBute, Migdalia Cruz (Fur, Miriam's Flowers, Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright's Award, Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays for Another Part of the House, McKnight Fellow, New Dramatists, NEA Fellowship),Qui Nguyen (Vampire Cowboys, Sundance Fellowship, Emmy Award Winner for Peg+Cat, Helen Merrill Playwright Award, Distinguished Playwright Award for She Kills Monsters, New Dramatists, Ma-Yi Playwrights Lab), Francine Volpe (Lanford Wilson Prize, Finalist-Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Good Motherand The Given, New Dramatists, Lecomte du Nouy Foundation), Mariah MacCarthy (Baby Mama, Youngblood Member EST, Lysistrata Rape Play, Magic Trick, NY Innovative Theatre Award, Indie Theatre Hall of Fame.)

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Revival of a Play - Top 3

1. Death of a Salesman

28.9% of votes

2. Every Brilliant Thing

27.4% of votes

3. Oedipus

9% of votes

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