2016 Festivity Archive
A Light In the Dark
“A light so bright you can’t resist”
Benefiting: KittyKind
Playwright: Wendy Mae Shelton
Company/Artist: Wendy Mae Shelton
A Madness of One Act Plays
“Anything can happen in a Madness”
Benefiting: The Ali Forney Center
Playwrights: Cecilia Copeland, Penny Jackson, Glory Kadigan
Company/Artist: New York Madness Directed by Melissa Skirboll
A Stopping Place
“A lone person. An empty room. A red ball.”
Benefiting: MCC Homeless Youth Service
Playwright: Stephen Powell
Company/Artist: Stephen Powell
Ambition
“The Female American Serial Killer Musical”
Playwright: Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Company/Artist: Undiscovered Countries
Antigone
“What do you chose – truth or law?”
Benefiting: Lower East Side Girls Club
Playwright: Sophocles adapted by Melody Erfani and music composed by J.P. Makowski
Company/Artist: LES Shakespeare Co.
Blankets and Bedtime: 3 Restless Plays
“Home is where the hurt is.”
Benefiting: RAINN
Playwright: Erik Champney
Company/Artist: Pixie Theory Productions, Directed by Janet Bentley
The Chaplin Plays
“It isn’t reality that matters. Imagination is everything.”
Benefiting: The Trevor Project
Playwright: Don Nigro
Company/Artist: Nylon Fusion Theatre Company
Conservation Theater: Rater R for Recycling
“Natural and Conservation science takes off its tie and lets its hair down.”
Benefiting: Fundacion Para La Tierra
Playwright: Bricken Sparacino and others
Company/Artist: Conservation Theater
Disability
“It isn’t always the sick who need the most healing.”
Benefiting: WIN (Women In Need)
Playwright: Adapted by Ivan Faute from the novella by Cris Mazza
Company/Artist: Ivan Faute, Portsmouth Theater Lab
Drones
“They made a wasteland and called it peace.”
Benefiting: Food Bank NYC
Playwright: Anthony P. Pennino
Company/Artist: Core Creative Productions
Father-Daughter
“After a public shooting, a dying daughter calls her father.”
Benefiting: Hospice of New York
Playwright: Joshua D. Young
Company/Artist: The Playwrighting Collective
Flow
“A performance-art retrospective piece with plenty of da da.”
Benefiting: The Indie Theater Fund
Playwright/Designer/ Director: Roi Escudero
Company/Artist: Roi Escudero’s ETdC Projects’ Lab
Gideon
“There is no exit when you are waiting for the cable guy.”
Benefiting: NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
Playwright: Judith Leora
Company/Artist: Ego Actus
The Golden Smile
“5 mental patients on a 1950’s ward try to make a play–a vulgar absurdist musical emerges.”
Playwright: Yaakov Bressler
Company/Artist: The Golden Smile
Helvetica
“A play about stories”
Benefiting: New York Public Library
Playwright: Will Coleman
Company/Artist: Rising Sun Performance Company, Directed by Brock H. Hill
Hope You Get to Eleven or What are we Going to do About Sally?
ten times I didn’t kill myself, today
Playwright: Padraic Lillis
Company/Artist: The Farm Theater
How to Succeed as an Ethnically Ambiguous Actor
“Act Tough. Act Out. Act NOW.”
Playwright: Zenobia Shroff and Arpita Mukherjee
Company/Artist: Hypokrit Theater Company
The Illusion of Love
“Is love physical, emotional, or an illusion?”
Benefiting: Joyful Heart Foundation
Playwright: Alex Polanco
Company/Artist: Akadēmeia Theatre
Imaginary Friends!
“Listen to the voices inside your head.”
Benefiting:The Candlelighters NYC
Playwright: Laura Mae Baker, Paul DeSena, Michael Rehse, Xavier Rodney, Rich Wisneski
Company/Artist: Cupcake Lady Productions, Directed by Melissa Farinelli
Infinitely Yours
“An explosive new drama about the hidden cycles of violence in rural Maine.”
Benefiting: Hunker Down Initiative
Playwright: Darci Faye
Company/Artist: Darci Faye
Nix
“Tell a rich man he could lose everything and see what happens.”
Benefiting: Women Make Movies
Playwright: Katherine Brann Fredricks
Company/Artist: Katherine Brann Fredricks
Pilgrim Notes
“give up, give in and learn to settle”
Benefiting: LES Turner ALS Foundation
Playwright: Adin Lenahan
Company/Artist: Adin Lenahan
The Pink Hulk
“An autobiographical one-woman show about finding the funny in adversity”
Benefiting: Mary’s Place By the Sea
Playwright: Valerie David
Company/Artist: Valerie David
The Renaissance Dueling Plays
“Swordplay is on display in these new and exciting short plays.”
Benefiting: Women’s Sports Foundation
Playwright: Michael Hagins
Company/Artist: CAGE Theater Company
Ribs
“But time eyes you up/ beauty only exists at the border of youth and decay”
Benefiting: Girls Inc. of New York City
Playwright: Genevieve Beaudoin
Company/Artist: The Ribcage, Directed by Tyler Thomas
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye: 3 Plays of Verbal Bondage
“Trapped. Seeking escape hatch…”
Benefiting: EMBARQ (World Resources Institute)
Playwright: Natalie Menna Directed by David Triacca and Ivette Dumeng
Company/Artist: Natalie Menna
The Social Avenger
“Don’t get mad. Avenge.”
Benefiting: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Playwright: Lenny Schwartz
Company/Artist: Daydream Theater Company
Who Am I
“What would you do when given a chance with your creator?”
Benefiting: The Audre Lorde Project
Playwright: Rodney Reyes
Company/Artist: Step1 Theatre Project
2016 Staged Readings
d4rkly your retrorockets fl4re
“Where are the time-travelers from our future?”
Benefiting: World Wildlife Foundation
Playwright: Steven Mark Tenney
Company/Artist: The Constellation Project
Defence
“If some longing goes unmet, don’t be astonished. We call that life.”
Benefiting: World Wildlife Foundation
Playwright: Francesco Andolfi
Company/Artist: Francesco Andolfi
Digna
“Sometimes you have to choose between safety and who you are, who you have chosen to be.”
Benefiting: Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition
Playwright: Patricia Davis
Company/Artist: Patricia Davis Productions
Familiar Strangers
“We see them everywhere, on the subway, the stoop, hanging out in the park, sleeping in that doorway— but we don’t really know them at all.”
Benefiting: Coalition for the Homeless
Playwright: Lynda Crawford
Company/Artist: YaYa Productions
HEDY! The Life & Inventions of Hedy Lamarr
“Hedy Lamarr is everywhere – even in your pocket! There were Brains behind that Magic.”
Benefiting: Women In Wireless
Playwright/Performer: Heather Massie
Company/Artist: Heather Massie, Directed & Developed by Joan Kane
Inside the Box
“This play is Baby Boomer meets Millennial, privilege, marriage, feminism, reproductive rights and legacy.”
Benefiting: Planned Parenthood
Playwright: Cecilia Copeland
Company/Artist: New York Madness, Directed by Giovanna Sardelli
Maspeth
“roommates, friends, and occasional enemies”
Playwright: Marco Calvani
Company/Artist: Marco Calvani, Directed by Shira-Lee Shalit
Ocean in a Teacup
“He lost his world but gained his soul”
Benefiting: Doctors Without Borders
Playwright: Joel Krantz
Company/Artist: Joel Krantz
Red Emma
“Red Emma dramatizes the passionate life of Emma Goldman. An immigrant, a woman and a fighter for justice.“
Benefiting: Words of Choice
Playwright: Maxine Kern
Company/Artist: Parity Productions
Suicide by Wife
“Some moments are more difficult to live in than others.”
Benefiting: Safe Horizon
Playwright: Susan Jennifer Polese
Company/Artist: Susan Jennifer Polese
The Waiting Game
“To what extent is a life worth protecting?”
Benefiting: The Candlelighters NYC
Playwright: Charles Gershman
Company/Artist: Snowy Owl
Whence You Came
“Imagination + Alcohol = Life on the Brink”
Benefiting: Third Street Women’s Residence of the Henry Street Settlement
Playwright: Deborah Magid
Company/Artist: Deborah Magid
2016 Film Festival
The Planet Connections Festivity is New York’s premiere socially-conscious arts festival. The Festivity is designed to invoke the power of art in motivating philanthropy, community outreach and social change. Within the Festivity are multiple theater, film and music festivals. Planet Connections’ artists use their work to shed light on the causes that matter, while inspiring audiences to get involved. All of our artists raise awareness for an organization/topic of their own selection. We are also the country’s first eco-friendly arts festivity as all our artists work to create eco-conscious art by revising their marketing, design and rehearsal techniques. Planet Connections artists are introduced to a community of like-minded theater makers, film makers and music makers. The relationships formed during the festivity allow our artists to find new audiences and forge new partnerships
The Planet Connections Film Festival awards honors according to audience and staff voting in both of our categories: Short Narrative Film and Short Documentary Film.
Saturday June 18:
Documentary Shorts – 5pm:
Kazwa – A Million Lanterns – Directed by Samarth Mahajan
Purushwadi is a little-known tribal village in India, which till date remains largely off the electricity, transportation and telecom grids. This remoteness, and the ensuing pristineness, invites millions of fireflies to come out and mate in the forests around Purushwadi at the onset of monsoons. The villagers, who not long ago sang songs of dry famines and hunger, tell us how this surreal natural phenomenon intertwined with their lives. The documentary film, while exploring the untouched spaces of the ethereal village, tells a story of sustainability in changing times
If These Walls Could Talk – Written and Directed by Matthew Spaull
A young man becomes homeless when his mother becomes terminally ill. With the help of a youth agency he is housed in a shelter where he meets other homeless youth. They discover a strong bond in their love for creating music.
Mother’s Cry – Written by Savon Bartley Directed by Lisa Russell
Mother’s Cry is a poetry-based video by Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Lisa Russell, featuring renowned youth poet, Savon Bartley.
GRAFSTRACT: The Bronx Street Art Renaissance – Written and directed by Dan Perez
By enlisting the help of some of the world’s top street artists, J. “SinXero” Beltran has made it his mission to legally beautify the Bronx, the birthplace of graffiti, through his TAG Public Arts Project (The Art of Grafstract).
Narrative Shorts – 6:30
One Day – Written and Directed by Yeganeh Balouchi
A sequence of a desperate family’s life spending one day in Tehran. A girl who is trying to have a pleasant time with her father.
Bombard the Headquarters – Written and Directed by Stepan Grusha
“Bombard the Headquarters” is a topical movie; its plotdevelops around the political situation of the 2014 and, more precisely, the influence of this situation on the minds and actions of the intelligent youth. Russia, St. Petersburg. Summer 2014. Young actors, artists and just some hipsters do nothing, but argue and laugh about Maidan, the right sector and the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic). They get drunk and try to solve their love problems – but, all of a sudden, political hysteria starts creeping into the story from the outside world, and, unexpectedly, it changes the main character, who at the beginning was totally indifferent to politics. From now on, it is not clear to him, where the border between drunken nonsense and frightening reality lies.
Meet me here – Written by Kirsten Russell, Directed by Maria Riboli
After yet another huge, embarrassing public lovers’ quarrel Nestor makes the inconvenient offer to his girlfriend, Jeri to meet him on an abandoned building. Jeri shows, believing this to be yet another reconciliation. And Nester shows with his own version of a truce. And as they have different versions of what could be a remedy for their passionate but combative relationship, they also have different versions of the relationship itself. And here in this building covered in graffiti, is where these two finally meet.
Amateur Dicks: The Series – Written and Directed by Richard Tayloe
We’re not porn. We promise. Although you may not want to google us at work. That didn’t end well for mom. Amateur Dicks chronicles the hard-boiled, half-baked adventures of four pseudo-sleuths as they attempt to solve the various cases they stumble upon. What happens when four broke, unmotivated New York roommates get stoned one day and find their life-purpose in a re-run of Magnum P.I.? A whole lot of dicking around, that’s what.
Documentary Feature – 8:30
Sustainable – Written and Directed by Matt Wechsler
America is facing a food crisis driven by profitability and a lack of consumer education. While the window to transforming our heartland continues to shrink, passionate individuals have emerged who provide hope that the health of our nation might still remain within our grasp. Sustainable is a documentary film that weaves together expert analysis of America’s food system with a powerful narrative of one extraordinary farmer who is determined to create a sustainable future for his community. In a region dominated by commodity crops, Marty Travis has managed to maintain a farming model that is both economically viable and environmentally safe. Through his example and various expert interviews, the film explores options for reversing the issues facing America’s heartland.