New plays inspired by community gardens to premiere at Communal Spaces Festival
The Communal Spaces Festival, now in its fourth year, will premiere eight one-act plays inspired by and performed in community gardens in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill. The festival will take place on the last weekend in August and the first two weekends in September. Previous festivals have included site specific performances in community gardens on the Lower East Side, East Village, Upper West Side and Harlem. In the past four years, 27 new works have been presented.
“Communal Spaces: A Garden Play Festival started as an attempt to merge the communal aspects of both gardens and theater, to see if plays written for particular public spaces – spaces of history and importance to the audience – could augment and heighten the experience of being in those spaces,” said the festival’s founder, Lillian Meredith. “This year, we’re including the surrounding areas – we’ll give out maps, tell people where they can get food or drinks or coffee, and encourage exploration of new neighborhoods. It’s about the gardens, it’s about the plays, it’s about the power and beauty of site-specific theater.”
The Communal Spaces Festival is being produced by The Motor Company, headed by Meredith and Christopher Norwood. Admission is free, no reservations required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and all plays run approximately 30 minutes.