Rising Phoenix Rep to Continue Cino Nights with EAST COLFAX, 1/27

Following the sold out performances and overflow crowds for its original Cino Nights presentations (including new plays by Gary Sunshine, Mando Alvarado, Courtney Baron, Florencia Lozano, Kristen Palmer, Emily DeVoti, Lucy Thurber, Jessica Dickey, Adam Szymkowicz, Laura Eason, Daniel Reitz, Megan Mostyn-Brown, Dael Orlandersmith, Keith Reddin, Crystal Skillman, Charlotte Miller, Brooke Berman, Cusi Cram, and Daniel Talbott), Rising Phoenix Rep continues the series with three new plays, starting on Sunday, January 27th with East Colfax by Diana Stahl.

East Colfax follows two pen pals as they discuss soul mates, Kerouac, Miller, food and marriage in a Colorado basement. East Colfax will be directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh and features Clea Alsip, Joby Earle, Lesley Shires, and Micah Stock.

Inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino-one of the original birthplaces of Off-Off-Broadway theatre and early home to such writers as Doric Wilson, Robert Patrick, John Guare, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, and William M. Hoffman-New York Innovative Theatre Award-winning company Rising Phoenix Rep has commissioned twenty-two playwrights to write new, full-length plays for the Seventh Street Small Stage, the intimate back room space at Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village, where the company has mounted critically acclaimed and award winning productions of new plays for the past seven years.

Rising Phoenix Rep artistic director Daniel Talbott described the series as a place to tap into the raw, inspired, inventive, and pioneering work of the Caffe Cino, where the love of theatre and new plays was joined with a scrappy, do-it-yourself work ethic. All shows are rehearsed for a week and then fully mounted and produced, warts and all, for one night only with free admission.

The Cino Nights series celebrates the spirit of indie theatre as a home for new plays and theatre artists as well as hopefully honoring what has been said of the Caffe Cino: "the first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism." The two other plays currently scheduled in the series are by Micheline Auger on February 24th and by Halley Feiffer on May 12th.

The New York Theatre Experience has published the first of two volumes of the Cino Nights plays, and they are available on Amazon, local bookstores, and online at Indie Theater Now.

Diana Stahl (Playwright) is from Milpitas, California and moved to New York to write and act in plays. Her play Associations of Hip was developed and produced by the Overturn Theatre Ensemble, directed by Kristy Dodson. Less Talk, More Efficiency performed as part of Rattlestick's Theater Jam III, directed by Melissa Chambers. Recently her play Helping People was read as part of Rattlestick's F*cking Good Plays series and will be performed this summer as part of IRT's 3B series, both directed by Melissa Chambers. She has assisted playwright Heidi Schreck, musician Suzanne Vega, and is a Literary Associate at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. As an actor she's worked with The Lark, New Georges, Rattlestick, MCC, OTE, Half Moon Theatre, StrangeMen & Co., and more. BFA Purchase College.

More Articles by This Author...