Plays

NEW YORK, January 2017 -- What if Lin-Manuel Miranda and Lady Gaga got their hands on Shakespeare? That’s a fueling concept behind this rocking ROMEO & JULIET, the classic love story reimagined for a modern world. At the historic Flamboyan Theatre, enjoy a truly unique theatrical experience where the balcony scene as it’s never been done before, with Juliet’s ambition and sexuality laid bare!

Producers Jaime Lubin and Kalista Tazlin, creators of the acclaimed film In the Cards, team up with visionary director Talley Murphy (lauded for her work on the DC Fringe Festival’s Macbeth in the Basement) to present a ROMEO & JULIET that takes its stylistic cues from the iconic Gaga videos. Journey to a universe where strong women rule: Lady Capulet and Lady Montague head the warring households, and a gender-flipped Mercutio is a dangerous rebel. Throughout the show, a live camera feed operated by the Prince and his lackeys is a constant reminder that no one can escape being watched. 

Tazlin (A Crime to Remember) stars as Juliet with Lubin as Mercutio. The rest of the talented cast includes Jimmy Mason as Romeo, Laura Pruden (Law & Order: SVU, The Daily Show) as the Nurse, Daniel Mitura (Gloria) as Paris, Patricia Black (Pose) as Capulet, Lisa Faith Phillips (Savvy Secrets of Successful Mistresses) as Montague, Raphael Corkhill (Lawless, Sons of Liberty) as the Prince, Wesli Spencer (Harlemites) as Tybalt, Julian Mileta (Royal Pains) as the Chief Watchman, John Michael Hansen as Friar Laurence, Hunter Wolfson as Benvolio, and Kanwar Singh as the Apothecary.

Director Murphy has assembled a design team of some of the city’s hottest young talent. She and designers Elizabeth Schweitzer (lighting), Daphne Liu (set and props), and Sophia Neiman (costumes) have taken Columbia University and Off-Broadway by storm over the past two years. 

Awake at 3 Productions presents:

SHAKESPEARE’S CLASSIC LOVE STORY ROCKED BY REALITY TV!

A VISIONARY YOUNG DIRECTOR LEADS  LADY GAGA-INFLUENCED ROMEO & JULIET

JANUARY 2017

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, An Equity Showcase Production

Directed by Talley Murphy

Flamboyán Theatre at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002

Getting Inside the Skin Game

OOBR REview

Review by Adrienne Onofri

All-Nude College-Girl Revue

By Lisa Faith Phillips, Directed by Todd Stuart Phillips, The Tennessee Project, Samuel Beckett Theatre, 1996 

The All-Nude College-Girl Revue was the beneficiary of $10 million worth of free publicity when it had its New York premiere in 1995, because it coincided with the release of the movie Showgirls. But playwright Lisa Faith Phillips and her brother, director Todd Stuart Phillips, were on their own when they decided to remount the play this year. Since All-Nude's successful run at Synchronicity Space last year, both Showgirls and Demi Moore's similarly overhyped Striptease had bombed, indicating that the market for stories about strippers was merely skin-deep, and that the public didn't buy all that tripe about how stripping empowers women. 

Phillips's script refrains from romanticizing the profession, although Annie, the coed-turned-stripper, does flirt with ideas of empowerment before the line between empowerment and exploitation blurs. The play's take on the subject was more intellectual that Hollywood's, as Annie is an MIT economics major who applies Marxist theory to the job. The play also proved superior to the films by minimizing the sleaze as well as the sentimentality about stripping. Annie may be temporarily enthralled with her new career, but for her co-workers it's just one more unseemly element in lives ravaged by drug addiction, prostitution, and domestic violence. 

In the role of Annie, Sara Knight nicely interpolated the character's brainy tendencies with her growing fondness for the other strippers and didn't play either extreme as a caricature. Knight's co-stars -- particularly Yvonne Lewis and Allison Hope -- did justice to the personalities they portrayed. As a hapless stripper named Ginger, Ingrid Rifler buoyed a confessional scene with her strong emotional range. Also featuring Dory Binyon, Pam Wilterdink, Melissa McGovern and Guelmari Oppenheimer.

The set and costumes in The All-Nude College-Girl Revue were terrific. Director/set designer Todd Stuart Phillips's rendering of a dressing room had all sorts of clever details, while the strippers' costumes by Lisa Faith Phillips entailed an eye-catching array of negligees, bustiers, mini-dresses and themed outfits. 

In the early 90’s I wrote my first full-length comedy, At All Times. It followed the friendship of four Wellesley women from the class of 1964 over twenty years.

I was fascinated by how women’s lives had changed in the United States during that period. The actresses Elizabeth Karr, Patty Murray, Mari Prentice and Theresa Della Valle starred worked with my brother, the gifted director Todd Stuart Phillips, as we developed the play first at Alice’s Fourth Floor on 42nd Street, where I was a participating artist. 

Then it moved to Soho when it was chosen to open the Director’s Festival at Synchronicity Space. What an exciting, rewarding experience!  

NEW YORK, February 2014 --A revival of the epic Del Shores comedy of Texans, trailers, country 'queens' and cheatin' hearts, Sordid Lives at The Duplex.  3A Productions presents: "Sordid Lives" by Del Shores.
 

Del Shores' rollicking comedy of trailers, sinners, tuna fish casserole with Lays potato chips, "DID YOU EVER THINK THAT I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THE TRUTH!", fatal accidents in motel rooms while committing adultery, conversion therapy, and Jane Hathaway and the "precious memory" of Tammy Wynette...

February 22 – March 25, 2014, at The Duplex, 61 Christopher Street @ 7th Avenue, NYC
 

Director: Andrew Loren Resto

Production Assistant/Stage Manager: Jamie Fassone

Cast: (in order of appearance)
Bitsy - Mary Lou Barber*
Ty- Marc McBarron Kessler
Sissy - Barbara Mundy*
Noleta - Ronni Valentine*
Latrelle - JC Sullivan
LaVonda - Kathryne Langford
Juanita - Lisa Faith Phillips
GW - David Purves*
Wardell - Bruce-Michael Gelbert

Odell - John Van Ness Philip*
Dr. Eve - Tina Kobas
Brother Boy - J. Michael Reeds*
Rev. Barnes - Daniel Martin McHenry
Understudy - Valerie David*
*appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association