Emerging Artists Theatre's Spark Theatre Festival NYC Celebrates 20th Anniversary

originally published: 04/04/2026

Human – Layers of Identity choreographed by Charly Wenzel will perform on Sunday, April 19 at 5:00pm.

(NEW YORK, NY) — Award-winning Emerging Artists Theatre (EAT) returns with their bi-annual Spark Theatre Festival NYC, on Monday, April 6 and runs until April 26, 2026 at The 28th Street Theatre (TADA). The three-week festival will showcase over 60 new works in progress, including musicals, plays, solo performances, storytelling, and dance. Theatre luminaries such as TV comedy icon Joyce Bulifant, Tony Award nominee Christopher Sieber, and Emmy Award winner Dorothy Lyman will take part in the Spring Spark Theatre Festival NYC.

This year marks the festival’s 20th anniversary. Originally launched as the New Works Series, the event has grown significantly since its inception—doubling in size and expanding to include genres such as dance, music, cabaret, drag, sketch comedy, and other boundary-pushing performances. The Spark Theatre Festival NYC now presents Spring and Fall festivals, showcasing over 100 new shows each year and giving more than 400 artists the opportunity to perform new work on stage.

During the festival, performances run nightly, with multiple performances on the weekends. Most productions receive one performance, with shorter shows grouped together to form a full evening of entertainment. Short talkbacks with the artists will follow some of the performances. Shows range from staged readings to fully produced productions.

TV comedy icon Joyce Bulifant, and Tony Award nominee Christopher Sieber perform in The Jesus Hickey on Sunday, April 19 at 7:00pm. Emmy Award winner Dorothy Lyman will workshop her new play MY WINDOWS on Sunday, April 12 at 5:00pm.

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Tickets range from $20 to $40. Tickets and the full lineup are available here. All performances take place at The 28th Street Theatre (TADA), 15 West 28th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001.

To see the full lineup, please visit www.emergingartiststheatre.org.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

Twelve short and full-length plays will be presented, including The Jesus Hickey (written by Luke Yankee), in which an innocent Irish lass receives a hickey from the village bad boy in the shape of Jesus, featuring Joyce Bulifant and Christopher Sieber (Tony Award nominated); My Windows (written by Emmy winner Dorothy Lyman), where five longtime friends reunite to plan a fundraiser to save their church; Titanic, Jesus, and Coca-Cola (written by Gena Oppenheim), in which Lucy, a third-generation Titanic fanatic, discovers she may even be related to the man blamed for the tragedy; and Oscar’s Razor (written by Brent Weaver), where, ten years after the infamous Ridgway Razor murders (Green River Killer), a fresh wave of killings unravels the lives of four queer men, with Oscar—the sole survivor of the original murders—at the center.

Nine musicals–both short and full-length–will be presented, including The Scarlet Letter Musical (written by Kenady Sean and Christine Hand Jones), which reimagines the story of Hester Prynne as she transforms her scarlet letter from a mark of shame into a symbol of survival and rebellion, and If I Could Go (written by Steve Engelbrecht) in which a gateway in Dublin leads to the mythical land of Tír na nÓg, launching an extraordinary journey into a magical realm.

Carmilla, featuring Reese Desaulniers, Claire Pennington, Emelyn Urdahl, and Avery Renee will be performed on Thursday, April 9 at 7pm. Photographed by Taylor Craft.

Thirty dance works will take center stage, including Carmilla (choreographed by Danielle Davis and Claire Pennington), a queer love story between an isolated noblewoman and a vampiress disguised as her companion; Canzoni per Papa (choreographed by Taylor Gordon), a dance suite tracing inherited identity through kitsch and romance; and Human – Layers of Identity (choreographed by Charly Wenzel) featuring an international cast of women paying homage to the rich taperstry of human diversity.

Numerous solo shows will be presented, including A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings (written and performed by Austin Jennings Boykin), about a gay masseur navigating sex work, self-worth, and survival; Back Float: A Very Hard of Hearing, Deaf-ish, Bluegrass-Forward Solo Show (written and performed by Jo Brook), in which an actor and musician grapples with hearing loss, isolation, and belonging; and Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown (written and performed by Joe Hutcheson), in which a debutante who chokes to death on a pork rib just before the Civil War suddenly finds herself inhabiting the body of a middle-aged gay man on his way to Provincetown.

Joe Hutcheson in Miss Magnolia Goes to Provincetown performs on Saturday, April 18 at 9:00pm. Photo by NYC Photographer.

This year’s festival features two productions centered on bugs, including the dance piece Sniff My Undies (choreographed by Lulu Munteanu), in which three otherworldly insects explore each other—and themselves—through maximalist, alien movement; and Buzzkill (written by Jordan Knitzer), a darkly comic pop-rock musical anthology that zooms in on the creatures we often overlook—from disease-spreading mosquitoes to praying mantises at prom and even a cicada rock band.

Award-winning Emerging Artists Theatre, under the direction of Founder and Artistic Director Paul Adams and now in its 33th year of producing new work, launched the Spark Theatre Festival NYC in 2006. Since its inception, numerous musicals, plays, solo shows, and dance pieces first workshopped at the festival have gone on to full productions at the Edinburgh Fringe, NYMF, FringeNYC, and Encores!, as well as Off-Broadway and in national and international productions.

EVENT PREVIEWS

Passage Theatre Company to Hold Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for The Larry Hilton Stage on April 8th (TRENTON, NJ) — Passage Theatre Company is proud to host the naming of the Mill Hill Playhouse stage, to forevermore be known as “The Larry Hilton Stage,” in honor of great donor, patron, producer and friend of the company Lawrence M. Hilton. Mr. Hilton was a beacon for Passage Theatre for nearly 40 years and a steward for all art, music, theater, and education in his hometown of Trenton, NJ.