United Solo Theatre Festival’s new spring festival comes to Theatre Row in New York City from March 7 through March 26, 2023. The spring season offers over three dozen shows in the genres of comedy, tragedy, performance art, dance, music, storytelling, puppetry, cabaret, and multimedia. Featuring artists from all over the U.S. and other countries including Canada, Mexico, Germany, Israel, Iran, South Africa, and South Korea, the spring festival will debut 18 world premieres, 11 New York City premieres, and four U.S. premieres. The rich variety of stories touch on themes of addiction, family sagas, current events, historical figures and more. The full lineup of shows is featured at www.unitedsolo.org/shows.
Completing the ten-week fall festival that will run later this year, the new spring festival will offer a three-week run for audiences enthusiastic about the 14th annual season later this Fall. “We expanded the United Solo Festival to include a spring season based on the tremendous response we got from artists and audiences in the Fall of 2022. Projects from around the world that were developed during the pandemic are ready to be shared with our New York audience in a space that has been joyfully celebrating solo theater for over 13 years,” said Festival Founder Omar Sangare.
The season offerings this spring include a lineup of new talents as well as well-accomplished solo performers. Mitchell Anderson, celebrity chef from Atlanta and Emmy nominee for For After Forever (Amazon Prime) appears in You Better Call Your Mother. The team of writer Gil Kofman (McDowell Fellow and Feature Award winner, Edmonton International Film Festival for his film The Memory Thief), director Richard Caliban (Obie and Outer Critics Circle Award winner), and actor Jodie Markell (Obie Award-winning actor and director) present the world premiere of Leni’s Last Lament. Poet Karen Eilbacher, GLADD Media award winner, and actor from the national tour of Fun Home, introduces the show t)re(equilt. Tom Shillue, actor, writer, and comedian known for his appearances on The Daily Show, Comedy Central, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and Fox News presents Spontaneous Combustion. Dahéli Hall, best known from MADtv, and a finalist in the HBO short films awards, brings her show Spadura to the festival. Dikelo Mamiala’s cabaret performance Next!!! Auditions are not for the Faint of Heart raises “questions of identity, belonging and opportunity in an industry dominated by white performers.” Tales of A Blerd Ballerina, by Valoneecia Tolbert is a choreopoem centered on the Blerd (Black Nerd) superhero that weaves concepts from the Afro-Diaspora and style of Jazz Aesthetics into stories of growing up as a Blerd child of the 90s. Maria Kemp presents The World is a Carnivorous Plant (winner of Best Play, Best Director, and Best Actress at the 4th Cairo International Monodrama Days Festival, Egypt) a self-fictional solo told through body percussion, tap and Mexican sign language.
The festival will close on March 26, 2023, at 7:00 PM, with a two-act Gala recognizing not only the work of the festival artists at Theatre Row, but for the very first time also recognizing outstanding work from United Solo Screen, an online solo performance streaming service.
Visit www.unitedsolo.org for the full lineup of shows and to purchase tickets.