May 21 – June 1, 2008

Set in South Philadelphia, Mastrosimone’s debut work is about an unlikely couple of half-crazy loners looking for love in a world gone mad.  Rose, a shy cashier prone to daydreaming, meets Cliff, a rough-edge trucker with a solitary life.  These two lonely souls are drawn to each other despite their mutual fear of commitment.   As the skeletons in their closets are revealed, they somehow manage to find comfort in each others’ uniqueness.

“A touching duet that travels from defensiveness and distrust, parrying and deception, to real contact!”  --  The New York Times

September 18 - October 7, 2007

Walnut Street Theatre, Studio 5

Two lost souls come together in this compelling play from one of America\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s premier playwrights.  Sunshine works in a peep show booth.  Nelson is a paramedic.  Isolated by their professions, they have lost the capacity to care for others and both desperately seek care themselves.  When their paths unexpectedly cross, the emotional walls that surround them dissolve in an unexpected and powerful way.

“Sunshine is gutsy, touching and true – a smoothly paced dance of suspicion and attraction.” 

-- The New York Times

Mumpuppet Theatre

An explosive melodrama about a would-be rape and a woman’s stark revenge.  Alone in a rural New Jersey farmhouse, Marjorie is accosted by an intruder but manages to narrowly escape and turn the tables on him.  By the time her roommates come home, she has taken the law into her own hands.  This Outer Critics Circle Award-winning play deals with the pathology of rape, the inequities of the justice system, and the unlikely relationship between victim and attacker.

“A white knuckle psychological thriller.”  -- USA Today

New City Stage Company is thrilled to announce the 2007-08 season of contemporary works, after an exciting inaugural season featuring the world premiere play “Angel, a Nightmare in Two Acts” by Jo Davidsmeyer. This new season consists of three provocative plays by acclaimed and local playwright William Mastrosimone.  This Rutgers M.F.A. graduate has produced a body of work that truly speaks to the local Philadelphia community in addition to modern American society.  In keeping with our mission to produce works by local playwrights, we have chosen three of Mr. Mastrosimone’s most provocative plays, including a Philadelphia premiere.

This is what M.E. Comtis, founding head of the Playwriting Program at Rutgers University, has to say about William Mastrosimone:

“William Mastrosimone’s plays are audacious.  This is not all they are of course, but they challenge us, sometimes to recoil in shock or at least become unsettled … his grasp of the potential of the stage is clear and masterful … he has an open-eyed and open-hearted vision of humanity.”

We are thrilled to bring this collection of intriguing theatre by one of own local contemporaries this coming season.

September 12 – October 1, 2006
Studio 5 at the Walnut Street Theatre


New City Stage Company is proud to announce a PHILADELPHIA PREMIERE of Angel: A Nightmare in Two Acts by acclaimed playwright Jo Davidsmeyer.  Based on the harrowing account of Auschwitz survivor Olga Lengyel, the play tells the true-life story and trial of Irma Grese, the “blonde Angel of Auschwitz”.  Using the setting of the Holocaust the play explores contemporary values, the question of personal responsibility versus universal guilt, and the seductive appeal of evil.
Angel: A Nightmare in Two Acts is a drama based on the trial and execution of real-life Nazi war criminal Irma Grese. Grese became a concentration camp guard at the age of sixteen, was prosecuted by the British in the Belsen trials, and was executed at the age of 21 for her crimes against humanity. A strikingly beautiful woman, she was dubbed by the international press as “The Blonde Angel of Auschwitz.” During the play, Irma’s prosecutor falls under her fatal charms. He is drawn, along with the audience, down into a private nightmare where the tables are turned and he becomes the accused. Also dragged into the nightmare is Olga Lengyel, a survivor of Auschwitz, who teaches the prosecutor a lesson about dignity and survival.

May 7 – 24, 2009

Walnut Street Theatre, Studio 5

After a highly successful season of his work, New City Stage is producing the newly revised version of Mastrosimone’s first play, originally titled The Understanding.  Set in the 1970s, Italian-American patriarch Agostino Malatesta is told he must move out of the Trenton home he built with his own hands to make room for a new highway.  When he refuses to leave, his estranged son and new fiancée show up, and the battle of the wills begins.  Long before eminent domain became a legal debate, this play deals with the emotional ramifications of progress overtaking tradition.

“A powerful, intergenerational dramedy, with ideas and characters that deliciously inform each other.” – Variety

April 9 -26, 2009

The Second Stage at the Adrienne

With his wife pregnant and his best friend living on his couch, Wendell takes in a rooster to train for an illegal fight in the Bronx.  As they discover that cockfighting is not for the faint of heart, this dysfunctional family comes to blows before the fight ever takes places.  A devilishly written comedy that investigates power, community, and loss, and searches for grace in the most unlikely places.  This play was commissioned and produced last year in by Sopranos star Michael Imperioli at his Studio Dante in NYC as a workshop production. New City Stage is thrilled to be bringing the first regional production to the stage.

“It’s the sort of play that makes you want to go home and take a long, hot shower.” – The New York Post

December 5, 2008– January 11, 2009

The Adrienne Theatre Mainstage

Straight from its Broadway debut, New City Stage is thrilled to bring the first regional production of Eric Bogosian’s revised 1987 hit to Philadelphia.  On the eve of his show going national, caustic Cleveland shock-jock Barry Champlain is fielding calls from his adoring fans and using their own idolization of him against them.  As the parade of typical nut-job insomniacs call in throughout the night, the conversation gets crazier and Barry’s commentary gets harsher. A unique theatrical expression of American media culture, this play garnered several Tony Award nominations and a Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for lead actor Liev Schreiber.

“100 minutes of pure theatrical adrenaline!” – Time Out NY