Broadway's ONCE Cast Member Lucas Papaelias Joins Theatre For The New City's 17th Annual Lower East Side (LES) Festival of The Arts, 5/25 - 5/27

Lucas Papaelias, of Broadway's ONCE is set to join the line up of the previously announced 17th annual Lower East Side (LES) Festival of the Arts. Papaelias is also known as LPfunK and is an actor/guitarist/composer who was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (Best Original Music in a Play) for his work in Adam Rapp's "Essential Self-Defense" at Playwrights Horizons. Most recently, he co-wrote the rock musical PYRAMIDICA: Songs of Freedom, which takes place live in a pyramid scheme company's "free" orientation, and was presented at the Vineyard Arts Project's New Writers / New Plays Festival. He also conceived of, and composed, the rock opera ITHACA: a Perpetual Shredfest, the story of a Lower East Side rock band performing their final concert, which had presentations at Joe's Pub and Ars Nova.

Other theatre credits as an actor/musician include the musical ONCE on Broadway and at New York Theatre Workshop; Father Comes Home from the Wars by Suzan-Lori Parks at the Public (original music/guitar arrangements); Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway (original music); Romeo & Juliet at the Delacorte (guitar arrangements); and Walk Two Moons at the Lucille Lortel (original music). He has also done extensive actor/musician work as an ensemble member of the Chekhov Company at Lake Lucille since 2004.

Also joining the LES Festival line-up is actress Molly Plume performing a soliloquy for the Fallen Angels Theater Company.

THE LOWER EAST SIDE (LES) FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS celebrates its 17th year of bringing together under one roof, in just three days, over 100 performing arts organizations, local and international celebrities, independent artists, poets, playwrights, musicians, puppeteers, film makers and many others - all of whom reside, work or have their roots in the culturally diverse, willfully anarchistic Lower East Side - for New York City's most diverse free 3-day festival, from Friday, May 25 Through

Sunday, May 27, at Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue, between E. 9th and 10th Sts.) in Manhattan. OBIE Award-winning actress Crystal Field is co-founder and Artistic Director of Theater for the New City.

The 3-day, indoor and outdoor festival of the arts is organized by Theater for the New City and a coalition of civic, cultural and business leaders, and is free to all New Yorkers and its visitors. THE LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS was founded in 1996 to demonstrate the creative explosion of Manhattan's Lower East Side and the area's importance to the culture and tourism of New York City. Last year's festival attracted over 3,000 people.

This year's lineup includes the popular aerial act, Suspended Cirque, plus folk singer Judy Gorman; Tony Award-winning actress Tammy Grimes; Talk-show host Joe Franklin; Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham; excerpts of works from La MaMa E.T.C. and Horse Trade Theater Company, and Take Wing and Soar Productions; The Rod Rodgers Dance Company; Reno; The Mariana Bekerman Dance Company; comic duo Epstein and Hassan (a.k.a. The Black and The Jew); Maya DeSilva Flamenco Dance Company; burlesque from The Slipper Room; a sneak peak at Off-Broadway's upcoming SIREN'S HEART: MARILYN IN PURGATORY; and other participants, to be announced.

There will also be brand-new works, created for THE 17th ANNUAL LES FESTIVAL, by writers Barbara Kahn, Lissa Moira, Larry Myers, Gene Ruffini, and others.

The theme of this year's LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL is "Legalize Freedom: Art is Activism"