Enjoy eight world premieres in one night. This event is the latest installment of our renowned annual new play festival. The evening will bring you works by some of the most exciting writers from across the country, penning classically inspired ten-minute plays. This year's festival includes new, commissioned plays by Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Crazy for You) and Betty Shamieh (Malvolio, Roar). alongside six plays from up-and-coming playwrights selected through an open submission process: Sabrina Caruso, Nate Currier, Nadel Henville, Nick Martorelli and Justin Muschong, Karen Ogle, and Chris Browne Valenzuela. Directed by José Zayas and Tatiana Baccari
This year’s theme? REFINISHED
The 16th Annual Short New Play Festival is made possible by the leadership support of The Noël Coward Foundation.
THE PLAYWRIGHTS
THE PLAYS
Of Force
by Sabrina Caruso
Just before Act 2, Scene 3 of Henry IV, Part 1 begins, Lady Percy arrives onstage a moment too soon. In a private moment, she discovers something impossible: the audience can hear her thoughts-a privilege usually reserved for Shakespeare’s more prominent characters. In the play as written, she cannot stop Hotspur from leaving for war. But if the audience can truly hear her… perhaps he can too. As the familiar Shakespearean scene unfolds, Lady Percy searches for a way to reach her husband between the lines of the text, testing the fragile boundary between character and will, script and choice. Tonight, she may have the chance she has never had before-to try to change what has already been written.
Thirteenth Night
by Nate Currier
Vengeance is a dish best served yellow and cross-gartered.
Here Lies the Hydrangeas
by Nadel Henville
Ophelia, stricken with grief after her father's death, attempts to kill Gertrude.
Macvolio
by Nick Martorelli
After exiting Twelfth Night, Malvolio encounters the Weird Sisters of Macbeth. He hopes they will help him take his revenge, but they only further his misery.
Medea and Jason Get a Divorce
by Karen Ogle
Imagine if divorce were an option. Would Medea still have committed infanticide? Medea and Jason Get a Divorce explores the breakdown of their relationship, the attempt at negotiation and reveals what is most important to both parties. Ah, the civility.
"Enter, Pursued by a Bear"
by Chris Browne Valenzuela
“exit, pursued by a bear” is perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction. The reasons why he chose this seemingly random devise to get rid of Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale are obscured by history, but it was likely at least partly practical: His company probably had a bearskin they wanted to use. The part of “the bear” was therefore (and most usually since) played by a man in a costume.
Enter, Pursued by a Bear follows the man under the bearskin as he unknowingly pursues Antigonus romantically. Strangers to each other in every meaning of the word, they struggle to understand each other as they get lost and found again in translation.
The play refinishes Antigonus’s unceremonious exit as a Queer love story that ennobles both man and bear.
Red Bull Theater’s annual Short New Play Festival has generated over 4,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting over 100 of them in a one-night-only Festival performance with some of New York’s finest actors and directors. In its first fourteen years, the commissioned playwrights have included Larissa FastHorse, Marcus Gardley, John Guare, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jeremy O. Harris, David Ives, Craig Lucas, Dael Orlandersmith, Heather Raffo, Theresa Rebeck, José Rivera, Anne Washburn, Doug Wright, and winning entries by writers such as Anchuli Felicia King, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Lynn Rosen, and Jen Silverman. Stage Rights has published a 5-volume collection of the plays from the first 10 years of Red Bull Theater’s annual Short New Play Festival as RED BULL SHORTS.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Sabrina Caruso (she/her) is a queer actress and writer based in Philadelphia. She studied the Meisner Technique at Rutgers University and is a recent graduate of Shakespeare & Company’s January Intensive. Through Cabaret Theatre, she became involved in new work development and script adaptation, coordinating and writing for the Annual Original Play Festival and contributing to devised ensemble work for the company’s signature projects. She is currently developing a full-length adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla, premiering as a staged reading during this year’s Philadelphia Theatre Week, with a full production in development for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. As an actress, her theatre credits include Dawn (Lobby Hero), Angela (Stage Kiss), Lenny (Crimes of the Heart), and Laura (Significant Other). Her film credits include the upcoming queer horror short Beat Sweet Heart. She won Best Performance at the East Brunswick Film Festival for her role in This Isn’t Working and the Campus MovieFest National Golden Tripod Award for her role in Unsex Me. Sabrina is dedicated to highlighting queer stories and feminist themes, reimagining classic works for modern adaptation and performance, and examining the darker aspects of humanity and the feminine experience.
Nate Currier was born and raised in a west coast Shakespeare theater. His fiction has been published in a number of literary magazines and nominated for a Pushcart prize. He recently directed a highly successful production of his original adaptation of The Epic of Gilgamesh. He enjoys tennis, the woods, and convincing his nieces he's cool.
Nadel Henville (She/They) is a multi-hyphenate actor, playwright and producer that resides in New York City. As a first-generation immigrant from St. Lucia, they’ve found a place for themselves and who they can be within the Arts. They found their path as an actor through National Theater Institute's Theatermakers program in 2021, where they became a Miranda Family Fellow and now alum. They have always been a writer first before they fully immersed themselves in the arts, and are extremely grateful that you’re taking the time to witness their words at this moment in life.
Ken Ludwig may well be the most performed playwright of his generation. He has had six productions on Broadway and eight in London’s West End. His 34 plays and musicals are staged throughout the United States and around the world every night of the year. They have been produced in over 20 languages in more than 30 countries, and many have become standards of the American repertoire. His first play, Lend Me a Tenor, was produced on Broadway and in London by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It won two Tony Awards and was called “one of the classic comedies of the 20th century” by The Washington Post. Crazy For You was on Broadway for five years, on the West End for three, and won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical. It has been revived twice in the West End and is currently touring Japan. Since its European premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2022, Ludwig’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express has had hundreds of international productions. In addition, he has won the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theatre, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Charles MacArthur Award, and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award for writing the Kennedy Center Honors. His other plays include Moon Over Buffalo; Leading Ladies; Baskerville; Sherwood; Twentieth Century; Dear Jack, Dear Louise; A Fox on the Fairway; A Comedy of Tenors; The Game’s Afoot; Shakespeare in Hollywood; and Moriarty. They have starred, among others, Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Tony Shaloub, Joan Collins, and Kristin Bell. His book How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, published by Penguin Random House, has been a bestseller and is out this year in a new, expanded edition. It won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year. His essays on theatre are published in the Yale Review, and he gives the Annual Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. His first opera, Tenor Overboard, opened at the Glimmerglass Festival in July 2022. His most recent world premieres were Lend Me A Soprano and Moriarty, and his newest plays and musicals include Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, Beginner’s Luck, and Easter Parade. He has been commissioned to write plays by Agatha Christie Limited, the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Globe Theatre, and the Bristol Old Vic.
Nick Martorelli and co-writer Justin Muschong met at a short film festival and began collaborating almost immediately. Their play Make Gold of That was performed as part of the Red Bull Theater Short New Play Festival in 2022, and The Tragedy of Prohibition Brought to You by Beamers Beer was a part of the Chain Theatre’s 2025 Winter One-Act Festival in New York City. Separately, Justin has earned recognition from the Eclipse Awards, the Snowtown Film Festival, and Project Twenty1, while Nick’s work has been performed at the Delaware Fringe Festival, and as part of one-act festivals in Philadelphia.
Karen Ogle holds an BA in drama from Vassar College and an MFA in acting from Ohio University. She has performed regionally at the Cleveland Playhouse where she originated the role of Miss Rendelbaker in Seth Greenland's Jungle Rot. In New York she performed in full productions with Aegean Theatre Company and Folding Chair Classical Theatre Company and has been involved in readings with Drama League of NY Inc and The Drawing Board. She also performed with NY Stage and Film Company. Changing roles, Karen's short play and pilot have both been performed as readings with The Drawing Board.
Betty Shamieh (she/her) is the author of sixteen plays. Shamieh's debut novel, Too Soon, was published by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on January 28, 2025. It has been named PEOPLE Magazine's BOOK OF THE WEEK, the "must-read book of 2025" by the SF CHRONICLE, and a "great book to start of a great year" in OPRAH DAILY. Too Soon was featured as NPR's BOOK OF THE DAY. and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. It was selected for the February 2025 INDIE NEXT LIST and Book Passage's SIGNED FIRST EDITION BOOK CLUB.. A profile of Shamieh's work was published in THE ATLANTIC (February 2025). Malvolio, an irreverent comedy and sequel to Twelfth Night, had its world premiere at the Classical Theatre of Harlem as part of their annual Uptown Shakespeare in the Park at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in July 2023 (co-directed by Ian Belknap and Ty Jones). Malvolio was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick and nominated for ten AUDELCO Awards, including Best Play. Her other off-Broadway premieres include The Black Eyed (New York Theatre Workshop, Director: Sam Gold) and Roar (The New Group, Director: Marion McClinton). Roar was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick and is currently being taught at universities throughout the United States. Shamieh was named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama and Performance Art. Her European productions in translation are Again and Against (Playhouse Theater, Sweden), The Black Eyed (Fournos Theatre, Greece), and Territories (European Union Capital of Culture Festival). Shamieh wrote and co-starred in her play of monologues, Chocolate in Heat (Director: Sam Gold), in two sold-out off-off-Broadway runs and over twenty university theatres. As Soon As Impossible was developed with Jamie Farr and commissioned by Second Stage through the Time Warner Commissioning Program. The Machine (Director: Marisa Tomei) was produced by Naked Angels at the Duke Theatre in 2007. She began performing in work-in-progress presentations of The Alter-Ego of an Arab-American Assimilationist (a performance art-lecture) at colleges in 2014. Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies presented the world premiere of a suite of arias from Territories, an opera based on her play. Fit for a Queen had world premiere at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in October 2016 (Director: Tamilla Woodard). In 2017, the New York premiere of her immersive murder mystery The Strangest (Director: May Adrales) was selected as one of the season’s “most promising live events” in the New York Times Spring Arts Preview article, “32 Reasons to Get Out & Get Off the Couch.” Shamieh’s theatre work has been the subject of features in the New York Times, Time Out, American Theatre magazine, Theater Bay Area, the Brooklyn Rail, San Francisco Chronicle, Svenska Dagbladet, Teaterstockholm, der Standard, Aramco Magazine, Kathimeiri, and the International Herald Tribune among others. A cartoon of Roar appeared in the New Yorker’s “Goings on about Town” section. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, Shamieh was awarded an NEA/TCG grant to be a playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre. Shamieh was selected as a Clifton Visiting Artist at Harvard and named as a Playwriting Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. Shamieh has taught playwriting at Columbia/Barnard, Denison College, and Marymount Manhattan College. She is an alumni member of New Dramatists. an affiliated artist at the New Group, and a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Recently, she was named the Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem and a Denning Visiting Artist at Stanford. She was commissioned by Noor Theatre with support from Pop Culture Collab to develop a comic TV pilot, inspired by her play Roar. Her works have been translated into seven languages.
Chris Browne Valenzuela is an award-winning Chilean actor, playwright and educator based in New York City. His original work has been presented in many houses throughout the city, including A.R.T./New York Theatres’ mainstage, Dixon Place and The Center. His original play #daddy earned The Hispanic Federation's 2025 FuerzaFest award for "Best Play." As an actor, he's led numerous productions in both American and Chilean theatres, including The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Mill Mountain Theatre, INTAR, IATI, JACK, Teatro Mori, and others, as well as being a company member of Teatro Sea.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Tatiana Baccari (she/they) is a director, writer and producer making tragicomic theater and films that explore grief, disability, dissent, and intergenerational change by connecting with audiences through the inexplicable. Select new play directing credits: RADIO MAN by Sarah Groustra (World Premiere/The Paradise Factory), Monstrous by Elle Thoni (ColLABo Residency), Then Act Like It by Savannah Lyons Anthony (Writing Is Live/Brown University), Heaven is Something to Keep You Warm by Kandace James (Carnegie Mellon University), and Daughters of the Sexual Revolution by Dana Leslie-Goldstein (Brave New World Rep). Other production credits include The Taming of the Shrew (NYU Tisch/Atlantic Acting School), Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn (Carnegie Mellon University), LEAR by Young Jean Lee (Carnegie Mellon University) and Animals Out of Paper by Rajiv Joseph (Jobsite Theater/Straz Center). Tatiana has served as assistant/associate director regionally at Asolo Rep, Geva Theatre, Northern Stage, and City Theatre Company. She is a 2026-2028 Drama League Stage Directing Fellow. BFA: NYU Tisch. MFA: John Wells Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. SDC Associate Member.
José Zayas is an award-winning director. He has directed over 100 productions in New York, regionally, and internationally. Credits include: El Perro del Hortelano (Gala Theatre), Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) (En Garde Arts), The Queen of Basel (Studio Theatre, DC), Exquisita Agonía (Repertorio Espanol), The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir (BAM, MASS MoCA, US & European Tours), A Nonesuch Celebration (BAM), Washed Up on the Potomac (San Francisco Playhouse, The Flea Theater), Undocumented (Joe's Pub), Pinkolandia and El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom (Two River Theater), The House of the Spirits (Teatro Espressivo, Gala Theatre, Denver Center, ACE, HOLA, and Ovation Awards for Best Production and Direction), Your Name Will Follow You Home, La Nena Se Casa, Love in the Time of Cholera, In the Time of the Butterflies, In The Name of Salome, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Burundanga (Repertorio Español, ACE and HOLA Awards for Best Production and Direction for the latter two), Corazon Eterno, (Mixed Blood), Southern Promises and Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist (PS 122, The Brick), Useless (IRT), Father of Lies and Vengeance Can Wait (PS 122); P.S. Jones and the Frozen City, Feeder: A Love Story (TerraNOVA Collective); Privilege, Okay, Mrs. Jones and the Man From Dixieland (EST), The Idea of Me (Cherry Lane Theatre), The Queen Bees (Queens Theatre in the Park), Manuel Vs. The Statue of Liberty and Children of Salt (NYMF), Cancun, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gala Theatre, DC), Wedding Dress, The Island of Lonely Men (Teatro Espressivo, Costa Rica). José has premiered works by Stephin Merritt, Hilary Bettis, Nilo Cruz, Caridad Svich, Robert Askins, Thomas Bradshaw, Duncan Sheik, Steven Sater, Taylor Mac, Marco Antonio Rodriguez, Lynn Rosen, Saviana Stanescu, Carlos Murillo, Rob Urbinati, Kristina Poe, Catherine Filloux, James Carter, Gerardo Cardenas, Matt Barbot, Susan Kim, and Jordi Galceran. Notable fellowships and affiliations include: a Drama League Fellowship, Lincoln Center Theater's Directors Lab, SoHo Rep's Writer/Director Lab, and the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors. He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and he was the Resident Director at Repertorio Español from 2008-2018. José was born in Puerto Rico. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Together with Stage Rights we've published five collections featuring the best of our annual Short New Play Festival. This ongoing series features 10-minute plays of heightened language and classical themes by today’s hottest writers, including commissions by established playwrights such as John Guare, David Ives, Regina Taylor, and Anne Washburn, and winning entries by writers such as Mike Anderson, Sam Lahne, Lynn Rosen, and Jen Silverman–-all chosen from a competition that receives nearly 300 submissions each year. In the hands of great playwrights, the 10-minute play is a highly entertaining dramatic form. This collection offers the most delectable of these delightfully compact works – some downright silly, and others powerfully moving.