Dream Up Theater Festival in NY
Theater for a New City Presents
By: Susan HAll - Aug 08, 2025
From August 24 to September 14, 2025, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, will present its thirteenth Dream Up Festival, adventurous drama in New York.
The Festival is directed by the theater’s Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price. This year it offers 22 plays, 15 of which are world premieres. Two are workshops. Audiences can savor intriguing new plays from around the country.
Theater for the New City has consistently been the most inexpensive theater of its caliber and it continues its commitment to affordable tickets with this festival. Dream Up Festival tickets are $15-$20 for all participating productions.
The festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way. It selects works that push new ideas to the forefront, challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of how art illuminates the world around us.
Michael Scott-Price (Curator/Festival Director) has directed in New York City at venues including Chashama, Dixon Place and Collective Unconscious. He has written and directed productions that were presented nationally as well as in Canada, Ireland and England. He is also Curator of TNC’s “New City, New Blood” reading series and “Scratch Night” (works-in-progress). He is Artistic Director of an experimental theater troupe, Asteroid B612 Theatre Company, which made its debut in the 17th Annual HERE American Living Room Series in August 2006. He has studied at the School of Physical Theatre in London, England, at Odin Teatret in Hostelbro, Denmark and in the International School Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in Wroclaw, Poland with Eugenio Barba and company. He is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Theater for the New City.
Theater for the New City (TNC) maintains a commitment to high artistic values and community service. In an effort to make theater accessible to all,
Breaking the Trust examines the unexpected complications arise when four sisters return to their childhood home for their younger brother’s funeral. They are amazed to discover that their shiftless, unmarried brother amassed a fortune worth over $4 million. The sisters soon learn that their brother created a trust that makes two of them rich and leaves the other two virtually nothing. After a promise to share the inheritance more equitably breaks down, the sisters face a crisis that threatens to destroy their family.
Con*Cussed looks at a disabled woman who has suffered a brain injury. Some people who suffer head injuries can suddenly speak French, play a musical instrument, or visualize quadratic equations. Elizabeth kept waiting for that to happen to her. “Con*Cussed” is a hilariously painful and ridiculously true story of healing that explores questions of how we perceive our reality.
First Liar on the Moon imagines that the moon landing was faked and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were not astronauts, but actors. While Buzz rides the momentum of the falsehood to a promising career in politics, Neil’s struggle to come to terms with the lie threatens to tear him — and Buzz — apart.
And many more.
Tickets available at https://theaterforthenewcity.net/donations/dream-up-festival/