Bay Street's New Works Festival Offers a Peek at What Just Might Be the Next Big Thing

While Bay Street Theater is best known for bringing polished, fully fledged productions to its stage each summer, every spring, Bay Street also offers audiences a glimpse of plays that are at the other end of the spectrum — that is, in the beginning, when they are fledglings.

Now through June 13, Bay Street Theater is presenting four staged readings of new plays (including one musical) as part of “Title Wave: The New Works Festival.” The festival began this past Monday with “Mister Halston,” Raffaele Pacitti’s solo portrait of the iconic designer, and will continue with the second reading on Saturday, June 7, at 2 p.m. — the musical “Curvy Widow: Owning It,” by Bobby Goldman with music and lyrics by Drew Brody. On Monday, June 9, at 7 p.m. Habib Yazdi’s “Ajax” will be the third staged reading, followed by the festival’s final play, Jason Gray Platt’s “U.X.,” on Friday, June 13, at 3 p.m.

Previously, the New Work Festivals ran over the course of a single weekend in early May, but as Scott Schwartz, Bay Street’s artistic director, pointed out in a recent phone interview, this year there was good reason for shifting both the timing and the scheduling of the festival.

“It’s an experiment we’re making this year,” Schwartz explained. “When we did the festival in early May, we had a loyal following and people were excited, but we kept hearing, ‘I want to experience this festival, but I’m not out there yet.’”

So Schwartz realized that by shifting the New Works Festival to June, more summer residents would be able to access the readings.

“I also got excited about the idea of June being ‘New Works Month’ at Bay Street, tying the festival to the world premiere play running now on our mainstage,” he added, referring to Robert Schenkkan’s “Bob & Jean: A Love Story,” which continues its run through June 15. “It seemed exciting to explore how the works speak to and feed each other — an audience seeing the play will be more interested in the readings.

“It’s a different way to think of the festival and make it a whole monthlong celebration of new work, as opposed to what we’ve done in the past, which was four plays over one weekend,” he added. “That was fun and an intensive immersive experience, but because of the mainstage show we couldn’t do that.

“We thought maybe it makes sense to spread it out and fill the full two weeks.”

Schwartz is particularly excited about the festival’s second offering this Saturday — the musical “Curvy Widow: Owning It,” which he actually has a personal connection to through playwright Bobby Goldman.

“Bobby is the widow of James Goldman, a well-known playwright. I met them when I was a kid through my parents,” Schwartz explained. “When Bobby was in her early 50s — she was younger than Jim — he died suddenly and she found herself a widow and on her own. Because Bobby is a very daring, adventurous woman, she thought, ‘I want to get out into the world and into dating.’

“She went intrepidly into the dating world in the early days of social media and dating apps — and she had a lot of experiences with that and wrote a show about it.”

“Curvy Widow” was originally produced as a one-woman play (not a musical) that Schwartz, himself, directed in 2007.

“We did it at Alliance Theater in Atlanta and at Post Street Theater in San Francisco — Cybill Shepherd starred and was dazzling,” he said. “So I did the show and that was that.”

Later, Goldman decided to turn the play in into a musical, which ran Off-Broadway with a limited run.

“It did well. Then Bobby wanted to revisit it,” Schwartz explained. “She did rewrites, met with the composer [Drew Brody] who added a couple new songs. It was very organic. It’s no longer a one-person show, now its five actors — one woman and four men, who play the various men in her life.

“It’s kind of a sex comedy and very funny,” he continued. “Eventually, through the internet, her character finds her way onto adult sites. It’s nothing offensive, but very humorous. It’s also a portrait of a woman reclaiming her own life.”

Schwartz notes that through the New Works Festival, Bay Street is able to give shows like “Curvy Widow”
a new lease on life, as well as a second look from producers.

“It also gives audiences something powerful and funny,” he said. “I think this will appeal to all audiences, but I do think it’s particularly interesting for ages 50 and up because it’s kind of about our life.

“We’ve ended up with an extraordinary cast for this reading — the widow is Astrid Van Wieren, one of the original stars of ‘Come From Away’ on Broadway. She’s stunning and very funny,” Schwartz said. “We also have Howard McGillin, Mark Jacoby, Neal Mayer and Henry Gainza, who are all Broadway leading men. It’s will be a very fun night with good songs, and a wild and a ribald cast. It’s also a woman’s story — what it’s like to be a woman in the second half of your life.”

While “Curvy Widow” is a script that’s in the process of finding its own second life, the festival’s final two plays — “Ajax,” by Iranian-American playwright Habib Yazdi, which will be presented at Bay Street on Monday, June 9, and “U.X.” by Jason Gray Platt, which closes the festival on Friday, June 13 — are new to Schwartz and were selected through the theater’s open submissions process held last September.

“You don’t need an agent or to have the play formerly submitted,” Schwartz explained of the process. “We get so much material sent to us in open submissions, we have to cap it at 300 — literally within 24 hours, we’re done. It’s become a very popular process. We narrowed it from 300 plays to these two — we’re really jazzed.”

“Ajax” tells the story of a clean-cut American who arrives at a peaceful villa in North Tehran with vague intentions in August 1953. The villa’s pool boy, Kambiz, sees a possible escape and is soon lured into the affairs of the strange American and the Shah of Iran, as the shadow of a CIA-backed coup begins to take shape.

“It’s quite funny and it explores American imperialism and attitudes about our relationship to other countries — including Iran,” Schwartz said. “It’s a fascinating culture. I know it doesn’t sound funny in describing it, but it’s quite amusing and satirical. It’s also really interesting and about a time and place that is very different than it is now.

“It feels like ‘Argo’ meets Christopher Durang,” he added. “When I read this one, I said, ‘We’re doing it.’ It’s interesting, fun, weird and cutting edge.”

Schwartz also finds the festival’s final play — Jason Gray Platt’s “U.X.” — funny and thought-provoking as well. The play offers a novel take on Artificial Intelligence, social media and race, exploring how the three might collide in an ultimately unsettling manner.

“I was reading about this new movie, ‘The Mountaintop’ which is a satire of social media owners and company heads gathering when the world is falling apart,” Schwartz said. “This feels like that. It’s a satire of our tech society and the basic idea is a company invents a version of AI in which someone can be another race.

“I won’t say, anymore, because hilarity ensues — and darkness. But that idea is so delicious,” he added. “Then the owners of the company try to make money on this site. It feels very of the moment and touches on a lot of things.”

In addition to the diverse and complex nature of the material that will be presented on the Bay Street stage in the week ahead, Schwartz makes note of the fact that the New Works Festival is a veritable bargain these days. Admission to each of the readings is just $15 — “no more expensive than a movie,” he said. “This is cutting-edge work — you get to see where playwrights are right now.

“I think that’s so exciting and I’m so proud that Bay Street can bring that to the community.”

Tickets for “Title Wave: The New Works Festival” are $15 at baystreet.org, 631-725-1700 or the Bay Street Theater Box Office on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor. The festival will also bestow awards on high school winners of its young writers competition, with winning plays being performed for students at a later date and Hope Villanueva, Bay Street’s literary manager, leading a seminar for students.