Twenty-somethings trapped in a cave discover a creature who takes on the appearance of LGBTQ+ icons. A spelling bee champion navigates her relationship with her crisis counselor. The wives of NFL players prepare themselves for a new season. Polyamory upends a Shakespearean royal court.
These are just some of the stories that will come to life at the Fall 2024 Broke People Play Festival running this weekend from Dec. 5-8 in the Goldberg Theater. Founded in 2016, the Broke People Play Festival is an entirely student-run organization that showcases productions from participants across NYU’s schools.
Due to a 50% increase in submissions this semester, the festival has expanded to present a multitude of performances, including four full-length plays, six one-act plays, and two developmental full-length plays where actors will have their scripts in hand. Broke People also hosted three workshops this semester in the Dean’s Conference Room where actors read in-progress scripts to allow writers to continue refining their plays.
Broke People’s Artistic Director Katie Brown, a senior at Tisch School of the Arts and the College of Arts & Science, said the performance selection process isn’t just about choosing the best work.
“It’s about picking what makes sense in the lineup and what student artists are already interested in working on,” Brown said. “We want to build teams and create an experience where people feel like they’re making connections and working on something that’s meaningful to them.”
She added that she is particularly proud of the variety of plays this year and hopes audiences will see the heart and passion behind the work.
One of the full-length plays is a spunky Shakespeare-inspired show titled “Kingdom-Polyamory-Play,” written by Lu Davis, a junior at Tisch and Broke People’s Director of Wellbeing. Davis, who has been involved in the festival since their first year as a playwright and performer, said they enjoy letting other people interpret their work.
“I love not having a say and seeing what other people see in my writing,” Davis said.
They explained that they appreciate the festival’s flexibility which allows writers to decide how involved they are in their plays.
“Kingdom-Polyamory-Play” is Davis’ first full-length play to be presented at the festival, and the production is as fun as the title suggests. The play follows Johanne (Ashley Pierre), a chamberlain of the royal court, who gets caught in a love triangle between the king (Christian Dinsmore) and queen (Sawyer Evans). The play bridges the new and the old with sequences like a fight that oscillates between a physical brawl and a dance battle. It also features a plucky instrumental rendition of “Good Luck Babe!” by Chappell Roan. Although the topic of queer polyamory appears to be modern, the play’s use of old-fashioned language highlights that struggles in love are as old as time.
Davis said they felt drawn to writing about a queer polyamorous couple because of the lack of representation.
“Queer people always have to have such sad stories,” Davis said. “No, we’re here to be sexy and fun! I want to give people the scenarios they want to see.”
The play’s director, Barry-Suzanne Collins, a senior at Tisch, added that audiences are already intrigued by the subject.
“You don’t see plays about this,” Collins said. “You don’t see Black people on the covers with stories like this.”
Collins thanked the team at Broke People for aiding the project with intimacy and fight choreography that allowed the play to become a reality.
As the festival continues to grow, it remains a vital space for NYU’s emerging artists to collaborate and take creative risks.
The Fall 2024 Broke People Play Festival runs from Dec. 5-8 at the Goldberg Theater, located on the seventh floor of 721 Broadway. Tickets are available on Eventbrite and, for sold-out plays, a waitlist is available. The plays will also be streamed via YouTube.
Contact Sawyer Gouw Ranzetta at [email protected].