“Wonderful theatre. . . full of humor, heart, and imagination. . . with highly inventive writing.”
Jan 13-Feb 5: JACKSON HEIGHTS, 3AM
A world premiere inspired by interviews, fantasies and late-night adventures in the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the world.
Thank you to everyone who came to see JACKSON HEIGHTS 3AM at P.S. 69 and Queens Theatre. We at Theatre 167 are thrilled that the show was a PBS/Channel 13 Top 5 Pick of the Week. Read more about it in the Daily News! See a rave review in Theatermania… and check out an interview with Founding Artistic Director Ari Laura Kreith. You can also scroll down for more and watch this space for further updates.
Conceived and directed by Ari Laura Kreith
Written by Jenny Lyn Bader, J. Stephen Brantley, Ed Cardona Jr., Les Hunter, Tom Miller, Melisa Tien and Joy Tomasko
A Bangladeshi cab driver working the midnight shift yearns for an Ecuadorian woman who rises at dawn to bake bread, but does not speak her language. A closeted policeman from Long Island comes to Jackson Heights for a date. At Club Atlantis, a drag pageant contestant has a run-in with one of her fans, while farther down Roosevelt Avenue a Russian immigrant discovers that redemption comes in the strangest ways. A rookie cop tries his best to do right by everyone, a beloved dog mysteriously disappears, and in Elmhurst Hospital a heartbroken ER doctor helps her patients fulfill their deepest dreams. Car dispatchers, sex workers, drag queens, E.R. doctors, gamblers, and insomniacs collide in the colorful world of Jackson Heights after hours.
Starring Roberto Araujo, Varin Ayala*, Farah Bala*, Cynthia Bastidas, Rajesh Bose*, J. Stephen Brantley*, Arlene Chico-Lugo, Ross DeGraw*, Nick Fehlinger, Marcelino Feliciano, Andrew Guilarte*, Kevin Hoffman, John P. Keller*, Alex Kip*, Ephraim Lopez*, Neal Mayer*, Nina Mehta*, Sergey Nagorny, Flor De Liz Perez*, Indika Senanayake* and Josie Whittlesey*!
Stage Manager–Sean McCain*; Lighting Design–Kimberly Dowd; Costume Design–Georgie Landy; Projection Design–Andrew Lazarow; Sound Design–Ben Rodman; Set Design–Michael Wilson Morgan
Seven playwrights explored the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the world from 10pm-4am — its brightest lights and loneliest corners — in dance clubs, all-night bakeries, sex shops, laundromats, side streets, and alleyways. They ate arepas prepared by the “sainted arepa lady” and, two blocks away, saw the homeless fed by the local hero a.k.a. “Angel of Queens” under the elevated trains. They interviewed numbers-players, sex trafficking experts, bartenders, cops, and cross dressers. They were invited to dance, to gamble, and to watch an undercover police operation. And they were invited to let their imaginations run dark, funny, sexy, and very very late…
This event is made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts.
Why do you fight for the things you believe in?
Photo by Joel Webber
June 20, 2011
The first public reading of How I Was Radicalized
a new pop/rock musical
music and lyrics by Ben Morss (Cake, Angelina Ballerina)
book by Les Hunter (167 Tongues)
story by Les Hunter, Ben Morss, and Ari Laura Kreith
You Are Now The Owner Of This Suitcase
March 11 – April 3, 2011
Conceived and directed by Ari Laura Kreith
Written by Mando Alvarado, Jenny Lyn Bader, Barbara Cassidy, Les Hunter, Joy Tomasko, Gary Winter and Stefanie Zadravec
Dramaturgy by Angie Balsamo
Starring Patricia Becker, Rajesh Bose*, Kim Carlson*, Arlene Chico-Lugo, Kathleen Choe*, Bernardo Cubria*, Ross DeGraw*, Oscar Fabela, Samuel T. Gaines*, John P. Keller*, Stephanie LaVardera, Waldo Mayo*, Emma Ramos (*member AEA)
Production Stage Manager: Sean McCain
Line Producer: Antonia Fairchild
Production Designer: Michael Wilson Morgan
Lighting Design by Nicole Pearce
Read about 167 Tongues in the New York Times and American Theatre Magazine
Capturing the Vitality of Jackson Heights and Putting It on Stage
by Fernanda Santos, New York Times, May 4, 2010
What made Jackson Heights unique, in Ms. Kreith’s view, was that it had none of the ethnic dividers she had encountered elsewhere, “no bubbles isolating one community from the next,” she said.
