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THE NEW COSMOPOLITANS
NEW QUEER WORKS
New Queer Works was our "pandemic project": a development program for playwrights from the queer community, in order to amplify the diverse voices of queer theater work.
Throughout 2020 & 2021, the workshops and readings were held virtually, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each piece was wildly unique, and each spoke to the moment in profound ways.
This program is currently on hiatus while we pursue in-person, fully-staged projects. With more funding and the right collaborators, we hope to bring New Queer Works back soon!
scenes from an unfinished work
(later, the bottoming process)
by: Nicholas Pilapil
read: 3/30/20
Dramaturg: Stephanie Lim
Cast: Brandon English, Ryan Hartley, Andrea Somera, Hunter Spangler
Stage Manager: Stephanie Graves
In this work-in-progress, two writers fall in love over witty banterabout pop culture, coming out, and cultural differences. But willtheir professional ambitions keep them from staying in love? Pilapilre-imagines the rom-com format for a queer world.
2020
Jamestown/Williamsburg
by: Adam Ashraf El-Sayigh
read: 4/6/20
Dramaturg/Director: Karishma Bhagani
Cast: Greg Cuellar, Noor Hamdi, Ryan Hartley, Nikki Massoud, McLean Peterson
Stage Manager: Stephanie Graves
In 1619 Jamestown, Agnes arrives from England for an arranged marriagewith the local lord. In 2019 Williamsburg, Diyala, a grad student, isseeking American citizenship through a green card marriage. El-Sayighexplores the voyages and traumas of two immigrant women.
BANANA
by: Sam Hamashima
read: 9/23/20
Dramaturg: Gaven Trinidad
Director: Gregory Keng Strasser
Cast: Sam Hamashima, with Aaron Banes & Jo Ellen Pellman
Stage Manager: Pichteeda Taing
Sam Hamashima blends their queer and half-Asian identities to craft a bold look at personal authenticity within a racist society...during a global pandemic.
Complicit
by: Charlotte Rahn-Lee
read: 10/8/20
Dramaturg: Nathaniel Foster
Director: Carly Nazaryk
Cast: Alyssa Baumgardner, Kayla Emerson, Madaleine Felder, Hakwon Hawkins, Jose Nateras, Kerrie Seymour, Bruce Shaw
Stage Manager: Stephanie Graves
Five years after the election of an authoritarian president, Mel leaves New York City and returns to her hometown of Geneva, NY, after her girlfriend, a trans woman, is forcibly committed to the anti-LGBT Institute for Safe Families. At home, Mel finds her mother rehearsing politically subversive plays with her community theater group in the barn. When the playwright and her mother are arrested for crossing the censors, Mel finds herself in a desperate campaign to protect her friends and family and make authentic art. But can you truly escape complicity in a rotten system?
Blaxploitation
by: Zachariah Ezer
read: 10/21/20
Dramaturg/Director: Dominique Rider
Cast: B Alexander, Kieran Anthony,Travis Artz, Assata, Michelle Bonebright-Carter
Stage Manager: Pichteeda Taing
At a midnight movie screening, Roxie Spectacular exhibits their cult classic, "A Time to Die." In the film, a martial arts master and a genie try to go back in time to prevent both slavery and a zombie apocalypse, all before they're thwarted by an operative from the end of history. Ezer uses the titular film genre to explore Afropessimism and gender.
Polar Bears, Black Boys, & Prairie Fringed Orchids
by: Vincent Terrell Durham
read: 11/19/20
Moderator: Josh Irving Gershick
Director: Nic Few
Assistant Director: Coby Rogers
Cast: Samuel Brock, Karese Frizell, Jada Henry, Brit Hope, Jamil Akim O’Quinn, Indy Wilson
Stage Manager: Pichteeda Taing
A liberal white couple opens the doors of their renovated Harlem brownstone to host a cocktail party in honor of the Black Lives Matter movement. A night of cocktails and conversation spark emotional debates ranging from under-weight polar bears, Lana Turner, global warming, gentrification, racial identity, and protecting the lives of black boys.
Silence is a Sound (workshop)
by: Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko
read: 02/19/2021
Dramaturg: Madison Mae Williams
Director: Sis
Cast: Hakwon Hawkins Devin Troy, Christian Kidd.
Stage Manager: Pichteeda Taing
Producer: Brian Knoebel
Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko continues to explore the politics of gender in the Black community, in response to the senseless killings of Black trans women. Our private reading focused on the first act of this gripping new work.
2021
a white haunting
by: Brian Dang
read: 05/06/2021
Dramaturg: Ryan Hartley
Director: Nic Few
Cast: Cesar Cipriano, Jared Corbin, Brian Knoebel, Stephanie Lim
Stage Manager: Harrison Harper
Producer: Pichteeda Taing & Dylan Thai
Darren and Tchai find themselves at odds on how to survive the night, when a masked intruder wielding an axe accidentally gets invited into their date. Dang explodes the horror tropes in order to expose the ways in which white supremacy continues to seed mistrust between queer people of color.
Eye, divisé(e)
by: Ezequiel González Camaño
read: 07/05/2021
Dramaturg: Victor Cervantes, Jr.
Director: Ryan Hartley
Cast: Jose T. Nateras, John Anthony Torres, Dan Lovato
Stage Manager: Harrison Harper
Producer: Brian Knoebel
Latinoamérica is dead, que viva Latinoamérica.
Through three fragmented narratives and seven characters played by two actors, González Camaño imagines the stories of Latin Americans that loved and fought before. The audience is forced to grapple with the politics of masculinity and revolution as we imagine a future after colonialism, climate change, and collapse. When we sink beneath the waves, however, what is waiting on the other shoreline?
The Asexual Romance Fantasy Play
by Ben M. Jones
read: 08/23/2021
Dramaturgs: Anne Karyna Bakan & Nathaniel Foster
Director/Stage Manager: Ryan Hartley
Cast: Veronica Duffy & Itai Vagner, with Ryan Hartley
Producer: Dylan Thai
A chance meeting between two artsy people at an upscale gala leads to a lightning jolt of a romance. As our two protagonists get to know each other better, however, they soon find their fantasies going off the rails. Jones examines the stories we tell ourselves about romance and reckons with the very real consequences those stories have.