Thinking Theater NYC

Proud Written by Judd Lear Silverman Directed by Eric Parness Co-presented by the 14Y Theater and Rising Sun Performance Company at the Theater at the 14th Street Y 344 E 14th St, Manhattan, NYC February 10-26, 2023 L to R: Rick Benson, Elliot Colby, and Duane Chivon Ferguson. Photo by David Anthony Wayne Anderson. A band of peacocks parading down a Philadelphia expressway presents, on the one hand, a comic juxtaposition, but on the other hand, these birds on blacktop also evoke the ruinous conflict between human practices and non-human nature that is a central concern of Rising Sun Performance Company's world premiere play Proud . Running in repertory with Rising Sun's Untitled Calamity Jane Play and based on an actual 2018 incident, Proud follows a quartet of peacocks who escape the Philadelphia Zoo and spend part of their several days of freedom walking along the interstate. This journey, imagined as a secret mission, has personal implications for each bird at the same...

Photo credit: N-K Photography Beginning May 3, 2019, award-winning  Rising Sun Performance Company presents a new comedy/drama, Friendly's Fire , under the direction of Akia Squitieri, at the 14th Street Y , 344 E 14th St. between 1st and 2nd Avenues, Manhattan, NYC. Friendly's Fire , written by John Patrick Bray, had its world premiere in 2017 and has won and been nominated for several awards. The synopsis reads: "In a cabin in Alaska, Guy Friendly, a Gulf War veteran and bee-herder, has just had a tooth stolen during casual sex. His best friend Todd, a pawn-shop owner dressed as an astronaut, finds Friendly in a fevered state. Trapped by the snow, Todd has little choice but enter Friendly’s fevered dream, to unravel the events of the night before – and the events of the Gulf War that led Friendly to becoming a shut-in. An homage to Western movies, He-Man action figures, and the playwright's belief as a child that the Sesame Street Muppet Guy Smiley was in fa...