Get in on the ACCESS
An Off Stage Access Pass gives you on demand access to Off Stage projects as they are released through 2021.
Here’s what’s coming to OFF STAGE
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Becket
Directed by Scott Elliott
Beckett’s revolutionary dramatic vision of living in perpetual uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety and loneliness is refracted through the day-to-day realities of our current moment of perpetual uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety and loneliness. This work will feature Ethan Hawke (Vladimir), John Leguizamo (Estragon), Wallace Shawn (Lucky), Tarik Trotter (Pozzo) and Drake Bradshaw (Boy).
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.
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.
I Need Space
Written & Directed by Donja R. Love
A multi-episode web series
After their engagement went viral, Malcolm and his fiancé quickly became social media’s go-to couple for relationship advice. But Malcolm ended the relationship, and he still doesn’t know why. Now alone and throwing himself into online hook-ups, he’s having to look at what drives him away from people, with millions of followers watching. Told entirely through a series of video encounters, I Need Space offers a frank and voyeuristic look into one man’s struggle with love and loneliness.
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.
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.
Now playing only for Access Passholders:
The Reunion Reading Series
A collection of pre-recorded digital broadcasts featuring the original casts of iconic plays from The New Group’s first 25 years. Reunion Readings were originally broadcast live beginning in Summer 2020. Now Available to Watch Here
The Jacksonian by Beth Henley
with Juliet Brett, Ed Harris, Carol Kane, Amy Madigan, Bill Pullman
The Spoils by Jesse Eisenberg
with Erin Darke, Jesse Eisenberg, Kunal Nayyar, Annapurna Sriram, Michael Zegen
The True by Sharr White
with Austin Caldwell, Edie Falco, Glenn Fitzgerald, Michael McKean, John Pankow, Peter Scolari, Tracy Shayne
Aunt Dan and Lemon by Wallace Shawn
with Marcia Stephanie Blake, Thomas Bradshaw, Liam Craig, Melissa Errico, Kristen Johnston, Layla Khoshnoudi, Carlos Leon, Emily Cass McDonnell, Maulik Pancholy, Stephen Park, Bill Sage, Lili Taylor
Evening at the Talk House by Wallace Shawn
with Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry, John Epperson, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, Claudia Shear, Annapurna Sriram, Michael Tucker
Want even more access? Members of The New Group Patron Ensemble receive an Off Stage Access Pass, the best seats in the house when The New Group returns to the stage, and exclusive content and event invitations only available to members. Learn More Here .
And when The New Group returns to the Stage….
The Fever
By Wallace Shawn
An anonymous narrator wakes up in a war-torn country with a terrible fever, unable to reconcile the privilege he has enjoyed with his current surroundings. Shawn’s prescient play, a solo piece, examines the links between the affluence many Americans take for granted and the horrors of poverty and suffering that haunt the lives of millions.
Black No More
Book by John Ridley
Music and Lyrics by Tarik Trotter
Choreography by Bill T. Jones
Music Supervision, Orchestrations and Vocal Arrangements by Daryl Waters
Directed by Scott Elliott
With John Clay III, Jennifer Damiano, Brandon Victor Dixon, Tamika Lawrence, Tracy Shayne, Theo Stockman, Tarik Trotter and Maimouna Youssef.
Black No More is a musical adaptation of George S. Schuyler’s satirical Harlem Renaissance-era novel. It’s June 1928 in New York City, and Howard University graduate Dr. Junius Crookman promotes a mysterious machine that promises to remove the burden of race from any person of color by turning them white — Crookman’s plan to “solve the American race problem.” Black No More is an examination of race, identity and the very nature of love. Originally announced and slated for Fall 2020.
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.
The Off Stage Access Pass does not include tickets to the live stage productions of The Fever and Black No More. Pass holders will receive discounted tickets and priority booking to these shows before tickets go on sale to the general public.
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.
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.