A Deafening Silence

Athena Theatre presents a one-night-only Benefit Performance of
A Deafening Silence, Part 1
an evening of ten-minute plays by Athena Writes 2019
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre @ Symphony Space
Wed, May 15th @ 7PM
Tickets now on sale HERE!
All proceeds go toward supporting these new works written in residence

Directed by Chris Roe
Assistant Director: Onyx Espri
Production Stage Manager: Taylor Jo Poer
Assistant Stage Manager & Assistant Director: Mary Cate Mangum
Lighting Designer: Mary Greene
Sound Designer: Andy Evan Cohen

Starring: Esther Chen, Kara Green, Amy Jo Jackson, EmJ Nelson, Nico Piccardo, Cyndee Rivera and John Anthony Torres

BETA TESTING by Jenny Lyn Bader
A team of scientists has a year to build a robot with human qualities, but one of them gets a little ahead of schedule — with surprising results.

35 by JD Stewart
How can America be called the land of the free, when there are thousands of children in thirty-five states who are put through conversion therapy?

GENUINELY HERE by Kate Thomas
When two strangers get married at first sight for reality television, they struggle to define their own reasons for getting hitched outside of cameras rolling.

MIMO by Luis Roberto Herrera
A death in the family brings together a brother and sister after years of estrangement, giving them the closure they’ve been looking for.

TV MAN by Joey Massa
When Mags wakes up in a strange place she doesn’t know, Ani takes it upon herself to find Mags and make her feel safe.

WISHBONE by Yasmine Lever
Lily and Jane have been running a downtown theater company for several years while maintaining an impurely platonic relationship. They both have very different feelings about the new job Jane gets offered writing a film script.

SUPER BLOOD WOLF MOON by Jared Michael Delaney
Two people meet up for a online date in New Orleans on the night of the super blood wolf moon, an actual astronomical phenomenon. But odd things can happen under such a moon, when a seeming stranger reveals a dark past and an even darker present.

Athena Writes 2019 Playwrights:
KATE THOMAS (Resident Dramaturg) is a Brooklyn-based theatre writer. She is a 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, and the book writer and lyricist for her musicals with Joey Contreras, Ring Around (Provincetown Playhouse, NYU, IWU, O’Neill NMTC Finalist) and Forget Me Not (The Dare Tactic). She is currently an Athena Theatre Company Playwriting Fellow, and her plays include Dirty July (Monsterpiece Theater Collective, The Eddy, New York Theater Festival) and Shooting Janine (Athena Theatre Company, Symphony Space). She received her MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from Tisch School of the Arts.

JENNY LYN BADER frequently works with This Is Not a Theatre Company, where she co-authored Café Play (Cornelia St. Café) and wrote The International Local (2018 NY Int’l Fringe Festival), a “phoneplay” available on the app Subway Plays. Jenny Lyn’s other plays include None of the Above (New Georges); In Flight (Turn to Flesh Productions), and Manhattan Casanova (Hudson Stage), winner of the O’Neill Center’s Edith Oliver Award. One-acts include Miss America (NY Int’l Fringe, “Best of Fringe” selection) and Worldness (Humana Festival). She co-founded Theatre 167, where she co-wrote The Jackson Heights Trilogy. A Harvard graduate, she belongs to The Dramatists Guild. www.jennylynbader.com

JARED MICHAEL DELANEY is a playwright & actor based in Philadelphia PA. Full-length productions: The Hand of Gaul, produced 2013 (Inis Nua Theatre), Noli Timere (Don’t Be Afraid) premiered 2017 (Theatre Conspiracy). Upcoming: Voyager One, New Jersey Repertory Company, 2019. Readings: Paint It Black, You Devil, Strange Sun Theatre, Best Medicine Rep; Child of Lions, HRC Showcase Theatre and “Honorable Mention” New Works of Merit; The Cannibal of Ajax, Best Medicine Rep, Vintage Theatre New Comedy Play festival; Voyager One, New Jersey Repertory Company, Khaos Theatre Company and Azuka Theatre and semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2018 National Playwrights’ Conference; Falstaff & the Endless Machine, Philadelphia Artist’s Collective, semi-finalist for the inaugural Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition. His short play “Fortune’s Fool” was selected for Aberrant Theatre’s first Ghost Light Anthology and New Jersey Repertory Company’s Theatre Brut Festival and was published in a related anthology. M.F.A. Creative Writing, Queens University of Charlotte; M.A. Theatre Arts, Villanova University. Member, AEA; Dramatists’ Guild. He has appeared as an actor off-Broadway and regionally across the country.

LUIS ROBERTO HERRERA is a Miami based playwright with a Bachelors Degree in Acting from the University of Florida. He was a resident playwright in the GREENHOUSE Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. He has had work produced at the Fort Lauderdale Fringe Festival, and the New York Summer Theatre Festival. He has also had readings produced by Main Street Players and South Dade Cultural Arts Center. His full-length plays include; Pale Blue Dot, BANG BANG, and Poolside Glow. Poolside Glow was most recently chosen for the New Year New Works reading series at Fantasy Theatre Factory on January 26th.

YASMINE LEVER is an award-winning writer and Equity actress with am MFA from NYU. Her short plays have been produced at theaters all over London and New York including The Cherry Lane, The Signature, The Flea, Nylon Fusion, Theater 503, Pensive federation among others. Her full lengths have been accepted and workshopped in both countries including schemes with Stratford East, The Arcola, The Belgrade among others. Her full lengths have been produced at numerous festivals including The New York International Fringe Festival, The Midtown International Fringe Festival among others. She is thrilled to join Athena’s Emerging Writers group.

JOEY MASSA is a writer/director and a graduate of Brown University where she studied Writing for Performance under Erik Ehn, Lisa D’Amour and Elmo Terry-Morgan. Her work explores gender and sexuality, often by looking at family dynamics. She is interested in themes related to motherhood and women’s positions as caretakers. She recently moved to New York and is thrilled to be participating in Athena Writes 2019.

JD STEWART is a gay Scottish writer and performer who splits his time between New York and the UK. He received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, ‘17. He is writer/performer of his acclaimed one man show, GAY BOY. He was a recipient of a Dewar Arts Award for Scotland in 2016 and is the Executive Story Editor for the upcoming web series, Tech Bae (created by Fikile Kani). His work has been performed and developed in South Korea, New York, and the UK.

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The playwrights will also be considered for full production by Athena Theatre Company in its next season. The playwright group will be meeting twice a month, beginning in mid-January, for three hour sessions, to discuss the year’s theme, share new work, talk playwriting and the business of theatre. The meetings also comprise of discussion about individual playwrights’ projects, as well as readings of new work, where playwrights will hear their work read aloud. Athena Theatre believes that a play cannot be fully understood until the words hit the ear of an audience. This process allows playwrights to deepen their understanding of their own work, as well as glean ideas and approaches from their fellow playwrights.