14 Faces

Written and performed by Ted Bettridge

What could the stoned-out bus boy, the athlete with cerebral palsy, the street corner poet, and the ex-gang member possibly have in common?   In 14 Faces they, and many others, answer the question, "What makes you happy?" in the voice of one man. Based on interviews of people in East Los Angeles, the show is a funny and poignant look at the diversity and adversity of life in an urban neighborhood. (solo show).

The Baby Monitor

By Jude Albert · Directed by Marc-Anthony Thomas

That can't be the baby! Darlene and Kevin's eavesdropping leads to more than they bargained for. Two way communication multiplies as frequencies cross and secrets are revealed. Can friendship survive? Can love? (comedy)

Birth of a Terrorist

with Amy Shapiro

A rock & roll romantic, an office temp running through the ashes on September 11th, and a single Mom soldier. Each exemplifies the myriad of ways in which life is unfair. The show also look at current news events, such as the war in Iraq and the upcoming Republican National Convention and how they play into the scheme of things.

An excerpt of the show previously caused an audience to riot. Hopefully this time, the only audience participation will be the creation of the sounds of a thunderstorm.

CaribBeing

Written and performed by Tessa Martin · Directed by Bill Van Horn

A menagerie of characters from different islands in the Caribbean interrupt regularly scheduled television programming to bring you excerpts of Caribbean life in New York City (solo show).

By Blake Cass · Directed by Adam Brilliant

Based on a true story, the riveting plight of an exotic anthropoid and a troubled woman is explored. Both are caught in a claustrophobic world, struggling to deal with fears, loss and abandonment -- both are COPITO (drama).

A Cosmic Mishap in an Accidental Universe in America

Written and performed by Aaron Petrovich
Directed by Shana Lee

An alarmingly honest and often hilarious monolog, composed entirely of questions, that occurs in the timeless moment immediately following an incident of mortal revelation (solo show).

Country Dark

By Robert McIlwaine

In this edgy comedy-drama sex is a weapon, and the desperate need for love a dangerous form of blindness.

Cul de Sac Rock (a one-man sorta rock opera)

Written and performed by Jeffrey Marshek · Directed by Darren Katz

A gay Jewish kid in 1980s Cleveland escapes his dysfunctional family by creating his own world of rock-music fantasy (solo show). With the help of rock, disco, rap, grunge, what emerges is an intimate portrait of a five-character family in crisis.

Dead Woman Home

Written and performed by May Nazareno · Directed by Teresa Thuman

This multi-media solo play ricochets between New York and Baghdad, examining the unseen human toll of war (solo show).

Death And Whipped Cream

Written and directed by Kostia Rubchinksy

From the creator of Snow White's Magical Mystery, a new multi-media performance. A surreal night of poker with Death leads a man to reckon his life and find a woman at its heart. With whipped cream to boot! (drama)

Delilah

Book and lyrics by Robin Brownfield · Music by Ken Kurland · Directed by Seth Duerr

This sung-through musical tells the story of Samson and Delilah from Delilah's point of view, and shows how God and religion are used to justify oppression and terrorism by all sides (musical).

Do Not Go Gentle

By Leon Pownall
Starring Geraint Wyn Davies

Critically acclaimed solo show about Dylan Thomas by Welsh-Canadian Leon Pownall, starring Welsh-Canadian Geraint Wyn Davies (star of the recent revival of King Lear with Christopher Plummer, Cyrano de Bergerac currently in D.C., and of TV's "Forever Knight").

Do You Have Anything Closer?

Written by Lawrence Paone & Matthew Aibel · Performed by Lawrence Paone · Directed by Matthew Aibel

An inside account of life and lunacy in a Broadway box office. A surprisingly cheerful ticket seller dishes quirky celebrities, clueless ticket buyers, nutty New Yorkers, and his father-in-law. Broadway veteran Lawrence Paone struggles to maintain his composure when he really wants to throttle the blue-haired matinee lady who insists on using an expired discount for seats in the "dead centah." House Seats! Comps! Tony Randall! It's all here. (solo show). http://www.anythingcloser.com

Ed the Fourth

An Absurdist Comedy by Joe Hartin
BigBottom Productions
Directed by Nancy Larsen

You think getting an apartment is tough now, try getting one when the world population explodes at 20 billion and the Unified Church of the Living Elvis rules! It's 2049 and ED the FOURTH, a freeze-dried 2-celled embryo, is hanging around waiting for Grandpa to kick the bucket and make room for the next generation.

An Evening with Carol Channing Starring Richard Skipper

A loving tribute to one of Broadway's greatest treasures -- all live, no lip sync! (solo show)

Fear Junkie

Written and performed by Pandora Scooter

An exploration of fear, consumerism and why we sleep with the lights on.  Inspired by Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, this witty and sharp solo show asks why we're all so anxiety-riddled and delves into the power of being optimistic.

Finding Pieces

Written and performed by Don Carter

What time you got?  What are you doing there?  Where the hell is Tripoli?  In Don Carter's FINDING PIECES, a very unlikely collection of characters search for and discover pieces of themselves and the world around them.  As they explore themes of time, space and connection, the characters reveal that maybe we really aren't so different after all. (solo show).

Written and directed by Jesse Schmitt · In Touch Theatrical Productions

An unexpected pregnancy sets in motion a chain of events for a young couple who are unprepared for married life, causing their perfect union to slowly dissolve into an estranged marriage. Years later, they are forced to deal with the results of their neglect as their alienated teenage son come to realizations of his own (drama).

Written and performed by Fiona Walsh · Developed with Kirsten Ames and Virginia Scott · Directed by Virginia Scott

A small-town Irish girl looks to find excitement in New York City ("Saturday Night Fever Country") (solo show).

Hearing Voices (Speaking In Tongues)

Written and performed by Michael Mack · Directed by Manny Frenz

Michael Mack was five years old when his mother was struck by schizophrenia, and his solo show chronicles a complex illness and a family's spirit to prevail. Desperation, poignancy, tenderness, and delight find equal time in this drama, which took over ten years to complete. A "breathtaking performance" (Minneapolis Star Tribune), Voices tells one family's true story of madness, love, and redemption. "Exquisite" (NPR) (solo show)

Icons: The Lesbian and Gay History of the World, Vol. 1

Written and performed by Jade Esteban Estrada · Directed by Jeff Wills · Vicarious Productions

This new musical takes the audiences on a whirlwind tour though gay history, with a look at such figureheads as Sappho, Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Ellen DeGeneres, and Sylvia Rivera, a street hustler who was there on June 27, 1969, the day of the Stonewall Riots in New York City.

Inside Cherry Pitz

Co-written and performed by Cyndi Freeman · Co-written and co-created by Zack Stratis · Directed by Cheryl King · musical director: Hector Coris

Two-time FringeNYC award-winner Cyndi Freeman returns in a new one-woman show - wigs and costumes fly in this epic tale about a plucky heroine who escapes her home town of Nowheresville USA to become a mega-wattage star in Tinseltown. But are the magazine covers, action figures, pink Cadillacs, a diamond-encrusted swimming pool and the 43 pool boys enough? (solo show)

In Spite of Myself

Written and performed by Antoinette LaVecchia
Directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser

A Recipe for a Good (Italian) Daughter...

    2 cups of guilt
    1/4 cup of Agita (ah-gee-dah)
    A dash of Misunderstanding
    Season with Love and Patience

Mix all ingredients. Bake for 9 months.

Yield: one good Italian daughter. Mangia!

In Spite of Myself is a one-woman show that examines the hysterical and universal struggles between an immigrant Italian mother and her Americanized daughter. Funnier than ever, the newly revised In Spite of Myself returns after its 2003 sold-out performances at Urban Stages.

Insomnia

Book, Music and Lyrics by Charles Bloom · Based on an idea developed with Lee Lucas · Directed by Allison Bergman · Musical Director: David Snyder

Musical comedy about a gay screenwriter who wrestles with his personal demons during a sleepless night.

Julianne Caesar

By David Starkey

When Julianne loses the role of Brutus in an all-female production of JULIUS CAESAR to her hated rival, opening night brings both murder and vengeance. A no-holds-barred black comedy filled with Valley Girl slang, media satire and unforgiving hostility in this amusingly skewed, yet not unrealistic view of the struggles of young women fighting to make a name for themselves.

Love Scenes

By David Pumo · Starring Moe Bertran

2003 GLAAD award nominees and 2004 OOBR Award-winners for AUNTIE MAYHEM, Bertran and Pumo present a series of touching, insightful and laugh-out-loud monologs that look at six gay men, ages 19 to 59, falling in and out of love in New York City. Theatre Reviews, Ltd, called the piece "honest and genuine" while Next Magazine said "Bertran uses chameleon-like skill to effortlessly assume the personality of each diverse character."

Mind the Gap

By Tom Grady · Directed by Keith Oncale · Featuring Annmarie Benedict · Actors Stock Company

MIND THE GAP captures a moment in time, specifically the twilight before Ground Zero becomes filled in, built up, and lost to what it is now. A panoply of unexpected characters, all portrayed by Annmarie Benedict, haunt this pilgrimage to downtown NYC to gaze upon the most poignant location in their America.

The Mistake Presents: Swelter

An evening of sketch comedy by the critically acclaimed troupe The Mistake.

A Musical Journey with the music of Brel, Weill, Aznavour, and Blau

With Vickie Phillips · Book by Bob Ost · Directed by Bob Ost · Musical direction by Gerry Diefenbach

An emotional roller-coaster ride through the Europe of Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, Charles Aznavour, and Eric Blau. Brel taught her the bitterness of life. Weill put her closer to her Jewish roots. Aznavour and Blau rounded out a world view that was bigger, richer and more exciting than anything she had known. Join award-winning actress and cabaret diva Vickie Phillips on a trans-Atlantic roller-coaster ride of emotion, music and self-discovery. (cabaret/solo show).

My Life in the Trenches

Written and performed by Jill Dalton · Directed by Jack McCullough

An Army brat goes AWOL and ends up in showbiz! But first she must find the courage to stand up for herself, heal her addictions and follow her dreams. Dalton portrays 23 characters including her father (the Colonel), her mother (the Quaker), her chain smoking therapist (the Warden) and other eccentrics. Three-time MITF participant Jill Dalton returns with her tale of growing up in a dysfunctional Army family and becoming an actress (solo show).

New Voices in Russian Theatre

Time and the Beast
by Marina Shron · Directed by Daniela Varon

A dramatic exploration of myth, history and individual desire.

Panel to follow: "Laughing at Death: The Mordant Russian View of Mortality" sponsored by the Russian American Cultural Center.

Written and performed by Nora Armani ·
Directed by François Kergourlay

Egyptian-Armenian-American Nora Armani tries to come to grips with her multi-cultural heritage and the fact that she doesn't fully belong anywhere. Told in poetry and song, with music from France, Italy, Egypt and Armenia, this marks the New York premiere of this poignant and humorous work (solo show).

Peasant

Written and performed by Susan Ferrara

A tragicomedy where three Italian sisters come to America with dreams of electric light, Jesus and the fate of the family packed in their bags (solo show).

Safety in Numbers

Written and performed by Jan Rudd · Directed by Rod Menzies

Jan Rudd portrays six very different women (an ex-con, a fundamentalist, a ditz, a woman ready to kill herself and an eternal optimist), all searching for a place of safety and belonging in a wildly ineffectual self-help group (solo show).

A Shining Love

Book and lyrics by Greg Senf · Music by Jeremy Rosen and Richard Sussman · Directed by George Reily · Costumes by Thomas M. Harlan

A forgotten figure of early 19th-century America, explorer John C. Fremont could have become president in 1856 had he endorsed slavery.  Instead he stuck to his principles and lost his place in history.  A tale of  honor, sorrow, and the enduring love between Fremont and his wife Jessie -- the woman who was always his champion.

Sometimes Over the Summer

Written and performed by Andrea Kolb · Directed by Kathleen Brant

A self-proclaimed Jewish sex goddess heads to the local Barnes and Noble looking for answers about the changing roles of women (solo show).

Southern Gothic Novel

Written and performed by Frank Blocker · Directed by Gabriel Shanks

One actor breathes hilarious life into a Southern novel of gothic proportions -- in about an hour (solo show).

The Subject Was Roses

By Frank D. Gilroy
Directed by John Capo

A young soldier returns from the war to face his parents' crumbling marriage in this Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play. Timmy Cleary couldn't prove himself on the battle line. Now he's forced to confront the addictions, violence and unspoken slights that have flamed within the family circle for years.

An absorbing character study that bravely skirts issues of spousal abuse, alcoholism and neglect, Gilroy's engaging portrait of a soldier's return from war ends up having strange reverberations in today's real war society (drama)

That Men Do

Written and directed by Adam Perkins

Two saints, a martyr, and the Devil in a pub. What can go wrong? Starring: Joseph Brooke, Ben Curtis ("Dude, you're getting a Dell!"), Sean Jarrell, Justin Levine, and Michael Lowry (All My Children).

Three Faces of Celtic Theater -- panel

"The Three Faces of Celtic Theatre: Irish, Scottish and Welsh" with Thomas Keith, editor of New Directions Publishing; Charlotte Moore, artistic director of the Irish Repertory Theatre; Geraint Wyn Davies, actor; Gwen Jones, actress; Ludovica Villar-Hauser, director; Fiona Walsh, actress.

Written and performed by Elisa DeCarlo
Directed by Roger Danforth

After a drunken party, comedienne Elisa DeCarlo checks her email and discovers a shocking, detailed confession of murder.  The true story from the woman at the center of the case that made front-page headlines.  Actual emails are used as DeCarlo plays thirty characters in "this creepy, comic tour de fouce" - SF Weekly.

Unaccustomed To My Name

Written and performed by Marta Rainer · Directed by Angela Peterson

Life crisis--at 21!  Bookish Sofie fights the misfit blues and the ghosts of her high school past by torturing numbskulls in cow town bars after creating a saucy, Slavic alter ego.   But her new lease on life is foiled when she meets a charming poetry professor, and finds herself in a love triangle with...herself  (solo show).

**** -- The Scotsman; "Unmissable" -- The Guardian; "Hilarious" -- Boston Herald; "Gifted" -- Wendy Wasserstein.

Woman of Flowers (Blodeuwedd)

By Saunders Lewis
Directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser

Welsh Nobel Prize-nominated writer Saunders Lewis's play is translated by Sion Eirain. Sponsored by the Wales International Center -- the official center for Wales in New York and the base for the Welsh Assembly Government, WalesTrade International, and the Welsh Development Agency (panel to follow).