The New Group Off Stage features theatrical expressions in different media. This new venture develops and presents original projects at the intersection of art and social engagement, and explores the possibilities of cross-pollination among forms. Projects will be available as they are completed throughout the year. Release dates and streaming information will be announced in the future.
Coming Up next from Off Stage…
I Need Space
Written & Directed by Donja R. Love
A multi-episode web series
Isolated in his childhood bedroom and connecting only through video messages, Marcus begins to lose touch with the people that most are important like his fiance and best friend. Will online hookups or couple’s therapy or even auditions offer any kind of way forward? Or can he even remember who he is anymore? Told through a series of video messages, I Need Space offers a frank and voyeuristic look into one man’s struggle with love, loss, and loneliness. More HERE.
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Bernarda’s Daughters
An audio play inspired by Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba
By Diane Exavier
Directed by Dominique Rider
It’s summer in Flatbush; streets are hot with protest, and the Abellard sisters are trapped in their mother’s house. In this aural exploration of private and public grief, Black women’s voices call out in a complex chorus of big frustrations and small joys in a moment where physical touch remains beyond reach.
A developing archive of the play’s experiments and iterations can be found at www.bernardasdaughters.club.
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Future Off Stage Projects….
Lypsinka Must Be Destroyed… Again
Written & Performed by John Epperson
Directed by Chloë Sevigny
Lypsinka, Goddess of Showbiz, finds herself once again in a state of limbo. Will she be able to manage another interior crisis? Only her hairdresser knows for sure. Downtown legend Lypsinka – the surrealist stage creation of John Epperson – returns with this brand new work in a whole new medium. New Group alum Chloë Sevigny steps into the director’s chair bringing her own instinctual depth and glamour to this singular work.
Singing Heads
Written & Composed by Richard Thomas
Directed by Monet
In his signature outrageous, exuberant style, Richard Thomas follows The New Group bow of his Jerry Springer – The Opera with this series of one-person micro musicals based on real-life, almost unbelievable events, blending stand-up with show tunes. Singing Heads: the weird, the glamorous and the phenomenally ordinary.
The Dinner
Produced in collaboration with WalkRunFly Productions and Shariffa Ali
Written & Directed by Warren Adams
Music & Lyrics by Brandon Victor Dixon and Michael Olatuja;
Rap lyrics by Ronve’ O’Daniel
Poetry by Daniel J. Watts
With Brandon Victor Dixon and additional casting to be announced.
Six college friends pledged to each other to come together around a table every June 19th to celebrate their bond. In 2019 they come together for their nineteenth dinner. A year later everything has changed.
What I Did for Love
Directed by Alexandra Shiva and Scott Elliott
Produced by Frank Marshall and John Ridley
An adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull by Thomas Bradshaw
Starring Edie Falco with additional casting to be announced
Documentary filmmaker Alexandra Shiva follows a group of New York theater folk, led by director Scott Elliott and actor Edie Falco, who, missing their work and each other so terribly, can’t help but turn their lives upside down in order to rehearse Thomas Bradshaw’s incredibly timely take on Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull – itself about people tortured by their dependence on art and career. This meta mash-up of play and process tells the tale of this incredibly fraught but vibrant moment in time: the attempt to rebuild the beloved theater community, against all odds, and the portrayal of how necessary it is for survival of the human spirit.
Off Stage Projects in 2020/21
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Beckett
Directed by Scott Elliott
Beckett’s revolutionary vision of perpetual uncertainty, anxiety and loneliness is refracted through our current moment of perpetual uncertainty, anxiety and loneliness. Bringing together a roster of lauded artists from across the cultural spectrum, this experimental exploration of a storied play combines theatrical invention and innovative filmmaking. The New Group Off Stage’s Waiting for Godot is at once both a faithful realization of a classic work and an artistic expression of now.
This work features Ethan Hawke (Vladimir), John Leguizamo (Estragon), Wallace Shawn (Lucky), Tarik Trotter (Pozzo) and Drake Bradshaw (Boy).
Waiting for Godot began streaming on May 6, 2021 and ended on July 25, 2021.
Projects and artists are subject to change. Additional information for projects including casting, release dates, and streaming will be made available at a future date.
Waiting for Godot, The Dinner, Lypsinka Must Be Destroyed…Again, Singing Heads and I Need Space will be co-produced by MiLa Media.
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is presented through special arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. on behalf of The Estate of Samuel Beckett. Generous support for Waiting for Godot is provided by The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.
The Dinner is supported, in part, by The Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
Black No More is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts and the MAP Fund.
The New Group Off Stage is generously supported by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.