The Alcove
New Play Development Program
Digital Stage
Public-facing, global streaming readings of new works-in-progress either commissioned by the Alcove program and/or showcasing the works of affiliated artists.
American Nightmare
By Hassan Abdulrazzak
Directed by Donnacadh O’Briain
Dramaturgs: Callan McCarthy and William Gregory
Sam, a young American diplomat on the rise, has one job: get the world’s richest man to sign. The hurricanes are coming, the clock is ticking, and Sheik Hammed, brilliant, unreadable, and utterly in control, has other ideas about what it will take to put pen to paper.
What begins as a routine negotiation in a Dubai conference room becomes a dangerous game of power, desire, and complicity, as two men circle each other across the widening gulf between empires in decline and empires on the rise. Sharp, seductive, and unflinching, American Nightmare asks how far we’ll go, and what we’ll become, when the cost of doing the right thing gets too high.
Streaming October 5-19
Highlights from the Digital Stage:
Racist Actor
The Alcove at the Lucille Lortel Theatre presents a clip from “Racist Actor” by Daniel York Loh.
‘I tried really hard to be an actor I tried really hard to be a writer Then I just talked about food and myself But I was always an ‘actor’ This is my story Asking again Who can be an actor…’ Where representation is an industry When activism is an act Where grifters and graspers and chancers and chasers play snakes and ladders on the gravy train of social justice… A fierce and dark satire on what’s fraught and fake in the frenzy of today’s media landscape.
Developed by The Alcove at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, directed by Lucy Jane Atkinson. Performed by Siu-see Hung and Daniel York Loh, and produced by Caridad Svich.
Cast: Siu-see Hung and Daniel York Loh Digital Reading Premiere: October 16, 2023
Caridad Svich (Artistic Director of New Play Development) is a playwright, translator, screenwriter, and lyricist whose recognitions include a 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement, a 2018 Ellen Stewart Career Achievement Award from ATHE, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama. Her signature plays include 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart, Red Bike (NNPN Rolling World Premiere), Guapa (NNPN Rolling World Premiere), Spark (National Latino Playwriting Award), and The House of the Spirits(ATCA Primus Prize). Her play In the Time of the Butterflies is currently running at Repertorio Espanol in NYC. Her play Eva Luna (world premiere: 2022) receives regional premieres at Teatro Dallas (2026) and GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington D.C. in 2027. She was also a co-screenwriter on feature film FUGITIVE DREAMS, streaming on Apple TV and more platforms.