Drawing from among the best and the brightest in contemporary NYC alt-theater, NYTR's 2008 edition includes three new plays, three original commissioned essays, an extended roundtable chat with six leading NYC theater and performance bloggers, and a sit-down give-and-take with that singular sonic performance onslaught also known as Reggie Watts.
In plays, Taylor Mac's funny, deeply personal and visually stunning The Young Ladies Of seeks out the macho, Texas farm-boy father he never really knew; 2008 P73 Playwriting Fellow Tommy Smith's explosively visceral White Hot rips the calm exterior off a bourgeois couple's seemingly placid existence to expose the despairing core festering beneath; six Asian-Americans from widely different backgrounds share their stories of immigration, migration and cultural identity in Ping Chong&Sara Michelle Zatz' Undesirable Elements.
In essays specifically commissioned for the 2008 edition, Victoria Linchong of NYC's Direct Arts, Zachary R. Mannheimer of Brooklyn's Subjective Theatre Co., and Marya Sea Kaminski of Seattle's Washington Ensemble Theatre contribute fresh takes on the NYC alt-theater of today, and a look back fifty years to where it all began.