Begins Tomorrow, Runs Through July 27
This year marks Queens Theatre’s 25th Anniversary Season which coincides with the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs.
In celebration Queens Theatre will produce the world’s fair play festival, a presentation of ten original ten-minute plays inspired by the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs. Both World’s Fairs brought families, friends and total strangers together from around the country and across the world to experience a vision for the future in performances, exhibitions and art.
The Theaterama, in which Queens Theatre is housed, is one of only three buildings constructed for the 1964 World’s Fair that is still standing.
The world’s fair play festival will play eight performances only July 18-27, at Queens Theatre (14 United Nations Avenue South, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368). Performances are Friday, July 18, through Sunday, July 27. Tickets are $18 available online at www.queenstheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at 718-760-0064. Tickets may also be purchased inperson at the Queens Theatre Box Office, Monday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Senior discount available.)
The festival will celebrate the rich, vibrant history that continues to animate Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the borough of Queens, and more broadly – New York City. The Festival is produced by Queens Theatre Managing Director Taryn Sacramone, Director of New Play Development Rob Urbinati, and Festival Director Brant Russell. The Festival will feature six actors and three directors and a small ensemble of actors. Brant Russell remarks, “The Festival will invite audiences to look into the future with the same optimism and hope–even in the face of significant challenges–that the World’s Fairs inspired in its visitors.”
Queens Theatre has commissioned new plays from celebrated national, international and local playwrights. Participating writers include Todd Almond (Lear deBessonet’s The Tempest at the Public Theater, Girlfriend); Deen (Public Theatre Emerging Writers Group; Draw The Circle, Queens Theatre and elsewhere); Kristoffer Diaz (Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety, Welcome to Arroyo’s, Queens Theatre and Lark Play Development Center); Halley Feiffer (How to Make Friends and Kill Them, Rattlestick I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, O’Neill); Craig Lucas (twotime Tony nominee for Prelude to a Kiss and The Light in the Piazza); Wendy MacLeod (The House of Yes and premieres at the Goodman Theater and Playwrights Horizons); Harrison Rivers (2011 GLAAD Media Award for When Last We Flew, Van Lier Fellow at New Dramatists); Caridad Svich (New Dramatists alumna; OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement); Theatre 167 (Jackson Heights Trilogy); Lauren Yee (Ching Chong Chinaman, Pan Asian Rep: The Hatmaker’s Wife, Playwrights Realm).
“I’m very excited to see new works by many playwrights who have long histories with Queens Theatre, and to welcome new writers to the QT family,” said Rob Urbinati, Director of New Play Development.
The multiplicity of cultures and ideologies that were on display at the World’s Fairs and that populate Queens today will play an integral part in the WFPF. “Queens Theatre had its first life as the Theaterama in 1964,” states Managing Director Taryn Sacramone. “We can honor the great history of our venue by producing great new work now and in the future. I am really excited and proud of this Festival.”
