ABOUT THE SERIES

The time comes in every play’s life where it needs an audience to grow to its full potential. That’s what Theatre East’s Play Room Series is all about! Fresh drafts of full-length plays developed in our writer’s room are presented for an audience for the first time in this reading series of new works in progress. Readings are followed by a moderated talkback with the playwright. Tickets are available by suggested donation.

Previous Play Room readings included work by Oliver Palmer, Lizzy Jarrett, Stephanie Fagan, travis tate, Dan O’Neil, Lori Fischer, and Julia Rae Maldonado. EDIE SAVES THE BIRDS (2022) and MUSES (2023) both went on to be presented as a Theatre East Main Stage Production.

FOUR NIGHTS ONLY!

BROKEN ARPEGGIO
Monday, January 22
7PM

EXTINCTION
Tuesday, January 23
7PM

THE PIGEON
Thursday, January 25
7PM

BROKEN ARPEGGIO

Written by Diane Davis
Directed by Miles Sternfeld

Daughter 3, showing promise as a musician early in her life, is jazz in her mother’s classical music family. After an assault by a music teacher, she goes down an emotional rabbit hole trying to survive her feelings. A play about losing oneself within their family, grappling with choices made, and discovering home and family are not always what you think it is.

CAIRNS

Written by Niall Estevan Martinez Ridgley
Directed by Casey Bradley

Cairns is a self-effacing, dark comedy set in modern Australia. It's characters, a diverse motley crew off Gen Z and Millenials who find themselves at the same hostel, are having a touch enough time getting along as it is, let alone when they are suspects in an investigation by local law enforcement. Cultural differences, knives in the dark both literal and metaphoric, and other mischief ensues.

EXTINCTION

Written and directed by C.J. Baer

Extinction is about Louis Ebbings (née Wilder), a brilliant and promising PhD student in the early 1980s, interested in the rising field of feminist biology, who discovers, as the singular female in her advisor’s lab, androcentric bias in her very own backyard. Challenging the sexist narrative within Darwinian theory, Louis discovers just how powerful these forces she’s working against are, and unwittingly becomes the subject matter of her own studies.

THE PIGEON

Written by Riley Jo Payne
Directed by Nick Piacente

Against the backdrop of a prestigious MFA Drama program in New York, The Pigeon, thrusts a group of aspiring artists to explore the multifaceted and complex relationships artists forge with themselves and their art. This contemporary adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, challenges these all too familiar characters to collide with the modern day struggles of being a working artist through various stages of life.

DIRECTIONS

Theatre East's permanent home is at 44-02 23rd Street in Long Island City! 15 minutes from Times Square!
Right under the 7 train - closest subway is the 7/E/G/M at Court Square or the 7/N/W at Queensboro Plaza
Look for the loading dock beyond the GIANT GREEN GATE!

Content Warning

Broken Arpeggio includes depictions of drug use and pedophilia.
Cairns includes depictions of racism & police violence.
Extinction includes sexual aggression represented in this work.
The Pigeon includes discussion of death and suicide.