EATfest Blossoms With New Work This Spring

Emerging Artists Theatre presents a slate of new work long and short in its annual EATfest, running March 7-20 at TADA Theatre.

This year’s festival features seven new short plays presented for the first time in New York City, a full-length comedy, and six (free) staged readings of works in progress by EAT playwrights.

The Series A one-acts are: Staying Put, by Kathleen Warnock, directed by Vivian Meisner, with Laura Fois and Desmond Dutcher; The Takeover, by Barbara Lindsay, directed by Kelly Johnston, with Blanche Cholet, Richard Cottrell, and Caitlin Johnston; and Clean, by Audrey Cefaly, directed by Troy Miller, with Glory Gallo and Matt Stapleton.

An all-woman playwright lineup (and an all-male lineup in Series B) were a coincidence, according to EAT Artistic Director Paul Adams: “I was just putting them together the way they seemed to fit best, and it turned out that one night was all women playwrights and one was all men.”

Series A runs Monday and Thursday nights at 7pm, and Saturdays at 9pm.

Series B features four plays: Just Us, by Jon Spano, directed by Barbara Grecki, with Erin Hadley and Tommy Day Carey; Reservations Cancelled, by John Zygmunt, directed by Nicola Sheara, with Matt Boehtin, Bernard Burlew and Valerie David; Assisted Living, by Jeffrey Newman, directed by Greg Redlawsk, with Deb Armelino, Angus Hepburn and Paul Herbig; and Matchpoint, by Chris Widney, directed by Derek Jamison, with Elizabeth Bell, Augustine Hargrove, Irene Longshore and Brook Zelcer.

Series B runs Tuesdays and Fridays at 7pm, Sundays at 4pm.

Series C is a full-length play, Mark Finley’s The Chiselers, directed by Melissa Attebery. Featuring Marie Wallace (Dark Shadows) as the grand dame of a Sacramento publishing empire, Karen Stanion as her ice-sculptress daughter, Chuck Saculla as the scheming gigolo, Eric Chase as the ambitious husband, and Andrea Alton as the youngster accused of… murder (or WAS it?), this dead-on farce takes us back to the days of the “go go ‘80s” and the dark places in all our souls.

The Chiselers will be performed Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 7pm, and Friday at 9pm.

All performances at TADA Theatre, 15 West 28th St. 2nd Floor (betw Broadway and 5th Ave.) Tickets are $18 (reduced price available for students and seniors). Tickets may be purchased prior to the show at the box office and online at http://www.emergingartiststheatre.org/, or by phone at 800-838-3006 (Brown Paper Tickets/Brownpapertickets.org)