Your resource for New York City theater Off- and Off-Off-Broadway.
Theater Reviews
EDITOR’S NOTE
Spark Theatre Festival to feature new play
Observant, a new play by Pamela Weiler Grayson, will headline the Emerging Artists Theatre’s biannual Spark Theatre Festival NYC at the Chain Theatre. The play, a semifinalist in the National Jewish Playwriting Competition, focuses on three generations of Jewish women after a mass shooting in their community raises tensions among families. Directed by Shellen Lubin, Observant will run Sept. 12–28 at the Chain (312 West 36th St., 3rd floor). For tickets and more information, visittickettailor.com/events/sparktheatrefestival/1320824. —Edward Karam
Theater for the New City’s award-winning Street Theater Company will open its 2024 annual tour on Aug. 3 with The Socialization of a Social Worker or The Fight for Social Justice. The original musical, about a humanitarian case worker fighting red tape, has book and lyrics by Crystal Field, who also directs a cast of 25. The music, which encompasses bossa nova, hip-hop, and classical cantata, is by Peter Dizozza. Free performances will tour parks, playgrounds, and closed-off streets throughout the five boroughs through Sept. 15. For the schedule of performances, click here. —Edward Karam
Life and Trust, a new theatrical event from Emursive, which produced the Punchdrunk hit Sleep No More, takes as its inspiration the Faust legend and mixes it with the 1929 stock market crash, the structure of A Christmas Carol, and glimmers of Citizen Kane. As with Sleep No More, attendees wear masks and performers do not, and silence is the rule. The audience, too, plays a part: The evening begins in a cavernous lobby with red-marble columns at “Conwell Tower” (formerly City Bank–Farmers Trust), half a block from Delmonico’s in lower Manhattan. A placard announces the date, Oct. 23, 1929, and the event: Life and Trust Bank’s Prospective Investors’ Fête. The audience is the “investors.”