Lori Fischer's New Play PETIE to Open Theatre East's 2017-18 Season; Lineup Announced!

Theatre East announces its 2017-2018 Season.

The season will open with Lori Fischer's new play, Petie. This World Premiere production will run at Urban Stages, 259 West 30th Street, September 22nd through October 7th. Petie explores redemption and the oftentimes turbulent relationship between faith and mental health through the eyes of a mother and daughter.

The production will be followed up with the Boogie Down Loud Series on Sunday, October 29th. Boogie Down is an all-day spin-off of the Neighborhood Reading Series born out of the growing demand to foster new plays.

On December 11th, Theatre East will present what has become a holiday tradition, a reading of Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol.

Then on February 11th, the company will share a public reading of Divya Mangwani's new play, For Sale.

In April, the 5X5 Drama Series will return with expanded programming. The 5X5 Drama Series selects 5 new plays from open submissions to take to all 5 boroughs that make up New York City and produce them in non-traditional spaces such as breweries, schools, and neighborhood taverns. Last season's plays tackled issues of transgender identity, personal fears, suicide pacts, and also great joy.

Theatre East will host the Laurette Taylor Award in May as their annual fundraising event. And the season will close out by partnering again with Pride NYC on June 18th for a special installment of the Neighborhood Reading Series.

Theatre East stirs the human side of current issues by fostering new plays of social relevance through New York and World Premieres. The 501(c)3 non-profit theatre company's mission is to advance the dialogue of the shared human experience through works that utilize simple storytelling, providing their community with a platform to deepen their understanding of themselves, each other and the world they share.

The company was founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife producing partners Judson Jones (Artistic Director) and Christa Kimlicko Jones (Associate Artistic Director), along with Joseph Mitchell Parks, after producing such hits as the premiere of Christopher Durang's The Vietnamization of New Jersey (NY Times Critic's Pick), and the premiere of Texas playwright David W. Crawford's Harvest (BackStage Critic's Pick, Smith & Kraus Best New Plays of 2008), as well as earning a spot as producers to watch in 2008 on PBS's Theater Talk. Since its founding, Theatre East has mounted such critically acclaimed New York and World Premieres as Tim Blake Nelson's Eye of God, Cyndi Williams' A Name for a Ghost to Mutter, Daniel McIvor's The Soldier Dreams, Bennett Windheim's Normalcy, Megan O'Brien's The Jungle Book, and Devil and the Deep with original music and lyrics by Air Supply's Graham Russell.

For more information visit www.theatreeast.org.