CreateTheater ETC & The Prism Stage Company present
New Works Festival
April 20 – May 15, 2022
Six new musicals. One new play.
All developed in-house with CreateTheater’s Experts Theater Company members.
Coming to Theatre Row at 42nd Street, NYC
RETRACTION By David Gutierrez on NYC’s Theatre Row: A Review
In Retraction, the hard-hitting new play by David Z. Gutierrez, Roya Shanks plays Wendy Cohen Dennison, an award-winning metropolitan journalist working for a popular, highly influential magazine called Heartbeat. The stimulus for the drama in Retraction, directed by Jen Wineman, comes with the news of a lurid sexual assault of a seemingly naive student named Lacey (Aurora O’Greenfield) on a South Carolina college campus. Specifically, the assault was a purported gang rape in a fraternity house.
April 20 2pm
April 23 3pm
April 28 2pm
April 29 2pm
April 20, 21, 22, 23 8pm
April 24 3pm
April 27 8pm
April 30 8pm
May 6 8pm
May 14 3pm
April 26 7pm – Canceled due to Covid
April 29 8pm
April 30 3pm
May 1 3pm
May 4 8pm
May 8 7pm
April 28 8pm
May 1 7pm
May 3 7pm
May 4 2pm
May 6 3pm
May 7 8pm
May 11 2pm
May 12 8pm
May 14 8pm
May 5 8pm
May 7, 8 3pm
May 10 7pm
May 11 8pm
May 13 8pm
Help us as we develop new plays and musicals.
Adjudicators
Ed Levy
Steve Marsh is a dramaturg, director, playwright and actor who proudly served as a member of the Drama Desk Awards nominating committee during the 2014-15 New York theatre season. He holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from the Stony Brook University and earned a BFA in Acting from New York University, where he studied with acting teacher Lee Strasberg. He helped found and served as literary manager for the John Gassner New Play Competition at Stony Brook, where he was Director of the Graduate Program in Dramaturgy from 2003 – 2012. His twenty year college teaching career includes his favorite courses in Dramaturgy, Play Analysis, Arts Entrepreneurism, Acting and Improvisation. He was a long-time associate of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, specializing in teaching improvisation to enhance the communication skills of scientists. He has been a workshop leader at major universities and science organizations throughout the USA. He served as literary manager for the Science Playwriting Competition at the Yang Inst
Neal Rubenstein
Ed Levy is a librettist and lyricist. Trained at Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), and the Dramatists Guild Institute. Member of the Dramatist Guild and BMI.
Wrote the libretto and lyrics for Bystander (Best Short Play or Musical, NY Summerfest, Hudson Guild Theater, 2017, Sound Bites 5.0, Best Music, Signature Theater, 2018). Published by MTI. Wrote lyrics and libretto for Uncomfortable Sex (Players Theater Short Play Festival, 2017). Had 3 short musicals produced at Lincoln Center Across a Crowded Room, 2017 and 2015). Picket Line, 1936 was produced at the Association for Theater in Higher Education conference Currently working on a 35 minute horror-comedy musical called Lucy, Bluebeard’s Last Wife and a full-length musical, Strike!
Steve Marsh
Three-time Emmy winner, five-time nominee. Broadway: On The Town (TONY, Drama Desk noms.), Heidi Chronicles, Hedwig, Disgraced, Of Mice and Men, Cripple of Inishmaan, Velocity of Autumn. Off-B’way: 39 Steps, Tail Spin, Handle With Care, My Life Is A Musical. West End: Memphis, Beautiful. Nat’l Tour: Hedwig, Beautiful. Film: Ron & Laura Take Back America (Exec. Prod.); Upcoming: Trojanz Not Required – the real story of Lysistrata.
Chris Sherman is a New York City playwright and Founding Member of CreateTheater. Her writing credits include book and lyrics for the Newark Production of JACK: A MUSICAL FANTASY produced at The Theater of Universal Images in Newark, NJ in cooperation with The Henry Street Settlement, with excerpts performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Her first play THE INFERNO was a semi-finalist in the Screencraft Writing Contest and was chosen for the 2020 New York Theater Festival. Her second play LIFE ALERT was performed at the Embers Theater in Columbus, Ohio in November, 2021. Chris was Executive Director and Founder of The Newburyport Community Players in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and wrote a humor column for the Newburyport Daily News. She has been published in Penguin’s Book of Italian-American Humor edited by Regina Barreca, and currently writes essays for The Villager and The West Villager newspapers. Chris has an undergraduate degree from Emerson College and earned her Master’s Degree from New Jersey City University, and is a member of CreateTheater, the Drama League and the Dramatist Guild.
Chris Sherman