Tag Archives: Zena Group

BUUNNI INWOOD & ZENA GROUP presents CAFÉ PLAYS: AN EVENING OF SHORT PLAYS

CAFÉ PLAYS is a site-specific eclectic evening of short plays by Brian Leahy Doyle, Niveka Hobaichan, Roy Koshy, Judith Leora, Josh Liveright and Louise Schwarz.

In Dining for One, Super Bowl Sunday finds disgraced college professor Simon having a final bittersweet goodbye dinner with his former graduate student/lover Cilla.

In Caffeine Dreams, a cup of coffee in the morning helps a lot of people start the day but sometimes they’re just what we need to feel better.

In Milk Down, two co-workers share a coffee break that involves a reckoning of their romantic feelings, their coffee preferences, and haiku poetry.

In The Maybe Tree, a couple-with-kids tries to have a successful date night, but discovers that an annoying children’s book, a weirdo waiter and a teeny tiny thing called the patriarchy are their biggest obstacles.

The Button is a roller coaster ride through absurdity, amorality, hypomania, madness and an explosive hankering for a ham sandwich.

In Can I Go Now? sensitive parents dread sharing some heartbreaking news with their daughter only to find themselves desperate to get any reaction from her at all.

 

Brian Leahy Doyle earned his MFA in Theatre with emphases in Directing and Dramaturgy from the University of Utah, and he has had his work as a writer and director produced in New York, Chicago, Wisconsin, Utah, Massachusetts, and California. He is the author of Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses and teaches film and communications at Mercy University. Niveka Hobaichan, a playwright and actor, aims to tell stories regarding mental health and overcoming traumas we don’t usually talk about in society. Her goal is that her work will help people heal by letting them know they’re not alone. Roy Koshy is an actor, writer, director based in Washington Heights NYC. His short film Latex Lorenzo was featured in the 2023 Nightmares Film Festival and the 2023 Shock- A-Go-Go Film Festival. Roy has acted in videos for Adult Swim and Fast Company, and regularly performs with the Shakespeare theater company Hamlet Isn’t Dead. Judith Leora’s recent productions includes The Further Adventures of Tent Girl and Nazi Barbie in the Great Whatever at Hillsborough Community College; Showpony at the Victory Theatre Center (LA Times Critics Choice); Elijah at Victory (LA Times Critics Choice)/BVT; WIT 2022, Project Y Theatre; You, Me and Margaret Atwood (short play), Together LA Festival on TwitchFounding Member/ED NY Madness; Proud member of Honor Roll and The Convening. Josh Liveright is an actor, director, producer, baker, plant enthusiast, hypnotherapist and writer of two award winning short plays, Mississippi Sundown and The Suicide Society. Louise Schwarz’s award-winning plays have been produced and developed at the Mark Taper Forum, New York International Fringe Festival, Stage Left Theatre, Pandora’s Box, Horizon Theatre, Playwrights’ Round Table, Shakespeare on the Sound, and Railroad Playhouse, among many others. Residencies include the Edward Albee Foundation, Blue Mountain Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts and Hambidge Center for Creative Arts. M.F.A. Playwriting, Columbia University.  B.A. Drama, University of Georgia.

 

Buunni Inwood – Zena Group: A free reading of Emily Adler’s play, FACE

Zena Group is presenting a free reading of Emily Adler’s play, FACE, featuring Florencia Lozano and Nicholas Michael McGovern. Josh Liveright is directing.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/face-play-reading-tickets-746193895027?aff=erelexpmlt

Sometimes you can be lost just at the moment you think you know exactly where you are.

A younger man and his older lover blur the lines of fact and fiction is this emotionally and sexually charged play about love and power.

Synopsis: Josh prepares himself for a night with his lover, Valerie. When she arrives, he initiates a psychologically complex mother/son role-play in which she gradually gains the upper hand. As Josh struggles to regain his power, they continue to engage in the erotically charged role-play as the lines between fact and fiction become more and more blurred. In her final move, Valerie becomes both mother and lover as she unearths his incestuous past, pushing past the parameters of their taboo relationship in an attempt to heal old wounds and propel them both forward into a hopeful unknown.

Emily Adler is a playwright, screenwriter and published author from New York City, whose plays include The Frog in the Flipper, Trumpet of the Swan, Supernatural Playboy, Face, Love Story in 3 Phases, and Andromeda Speaks. Her work has been seen at The Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis, MN; Hartford Children’s Theater in Hartford, CT; The Overtime Theater in San Antonio, TX; The NJ Rep in Long Branch, NJ; The Danny Kaye Playhouse, the cell, Urban Stages, The New York New Works Theater Festival, and The Actors Studio in NYC. In 2015, Emily was nominated by industry professionals for The Kilroy’s List for Notable Female Playwrights and in 2021, she was a quarterfinalist in the Screencraft Horror Competition with her screenplay, Anything for You.

Josh Liveright is the artistic director of Zena Group and provides service to the Inwood community by programming live music and theater events at Buunni Coffee. He’s directed plays for UP Theater, Uban Stages, Interart and Zena Group and won the Excellence in Directing Award at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival for Patricia Davis’s play, Alternative Methods.  He’s also directed several short films including the What If? anti-violence series and Matt Higgins’s The Improvisor.

Florencia Lozano THEATRE: Playwrights’ Horizons (WET BRAIN, PLACEBO), NYTW, Public, Shakespeare in the Park, LAByrinth, MTC, MCC, Clubbed Thumb, Movement Theatre Co., Second Stage, EST, Teatro IATI, Repertorio Español NETFLIX: Keep Breathing, Narcos TV: Bull, The Baker and The Beauty, Kevin Can Wait, Blacklist, Mysteries of Laura, Blue Bloods, Lipstick Jungle, Ugly Betty, Royal Pains, Law & Order (CI&SVU), Gossip Girl, One Life To Live. FILM: Life After You (she also co-wrote &produced), Faraway Eyes, The Ministers, Veronika Decides To Die. Upcoming: Crybaby Bridge. Her play underneathmybed was produced at Rattlestick and won HOLA’s Best New Play Award. BA Brown, MFA NYU

Nicholas Michael McGovern (SAG/AEA) Recent Theatre: Icarus Tries to Catch the Sun (one man show, New Ohio Theater), High Noon (Axis Theatre Company), Welcome to the Fall (Samuel French OOB Festival).  Recent Film/TV: “Fallout” (Amazon), “Liberty” AppleTV release Nov. 21, “Snakeeater”.  Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio.