Every day is opening night.

Seven Deadly Sins Press Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Aaron Meier
rick@omdkc.com / aaron@omdkc.com
212 695 7400

Meatpacking District BID Press Contact:
Edith Morris / Marissa Paiano
edith.morris@berlinrosen.com / marissa.paiano@berlinrosen.com
845 204 0649 / 860 670 3008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

PRIDE…

GREED…

WRATH…

ENVY…

GLUTTONY…

SLOTH…

AND LUST…

TECTONIC THEATER PROJECT & MADISON WELLS LIVE PRESENT
“THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS”

THE SEXY & ADVENTUROUS THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE
COMES TO NEW YORK CITY’S MEATPACKING DISTRICT THIS SUMMER

OUTDOOR PERFORMANCES BEGIN WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23
FOR A MONDAY, JUNE 28 OFFICIAL OPENING NIGHT

SEVEN WORLD PREMIERE SHORT PLAYS BY
NGOZI ANYANWU, THOMAS BRADSHAW, MJ KAUFMAN,
MOISÉS KAUFMAN, JEFFREY LAHOSTE, MING PEIFFER, AND BESS WOHL

DIRECTED BY
MOISÉS KAUFMAN

New York, NY (April 14, 2021) – Tectonic Theater Project (Moisés Kaufman, Founder & Artistic Director) and Madison Wells Live, in association with Miami New Drama, are pleased to announce that following an acclaimed, sold-out engagement along Miami’s famed Lincoln Road, The Seven Deadly Sins, the sexy and adventurous outdoor theatrical experience, will come to New York City’s Meatpacking District, in partnership with the local Business Improvement District, this summer for a strictly limited engagement with performances beginning Wednesday, June 23 ahead of an official press opening night on Monday, June 28. Tickets will go on sale starting Friday, May 14 at 11 AM ET.

Welcome all sinners and saints who like to flirt with sin! The Seven Deadly Sins will take audiences on a tantalizing tour of their inner demons. No subject is taboo as seven of the country’s most provocative writers plumb the depths of desire, jealousy, rage, and more in a thrilling evening that merges live theater with performance art, dazzlingly design, new technology, and CDC-mandated regulations. The Seven Deadly Sins is a carnival for the senses, welcoming New Yorkers back to live entertainment.

Audiences will explore the perils and pleasures of the sins outdoors as they rotate through a series of cleverly designed storefront windows, throughout the Meatpacking District, in small, socially distanced groups, while wearing masks. They will watch and listen to the seven world premiere plays, all 10 minutes in length, through provided disposable earbuds, to actors standing behind a glass barrier to isolate themselves from the other actors, production staff and keeping the audience safe.

A pre-show bar, aptly named Purgatory, will be open 30 minutes prior to curtain. Ticket holders will be encouraged to arrive early to enjoy libations before receiving official instructions and a brief performance at Purgatory, after which they will depart on their journey to experience The Seven Deadly Sins.

The Seven Deadly Sins will feature short works by playwrights that reflect this vibrant and diverse city. These seven writers have each selected one of the Deadly Sins as the inspiration for their short play: Ngozi Anyanwu (Gluttony), Thomas Bradshaw (Sloth), MJ Kaufman (Pride), Moisés Kaufman (Greed), Jeffrey LaHoste (Envy), Ming Peiffer (Wrath), and Bess Wohl (Lust). Moisés Kaufman will also direct the production which was originally conceived by Michel Hausmann.

The design team is led by David Rockwell (scenic and environmental design), Dede Ayite (costume design), Yuki Link (lighting design), and X Casting / Victor Vazquez CSA (casting director).

Moisés Kaufman said, “Tectonic Theater Project is committed to exploring theatrical potential, pushing boundaries, and creating formally daring performances. Producing The Seven Deadly Sins in our beloved city as one of the first live, in-person performance events is our profound belief that theater can also heal us as a people.”

Gigi Pritzker, Founder and Producer at Madison Wells Live said, “I have been a fan of Moisés and the Tectonic Theatre Project for decades. They have produced some of the most powerful, groundbreaking works I have ever seen. When the opportunity to partner with them on The Seven Deadly Sins came up, it was a no brainer. At Madison Wells Live, we believe in amplifying important voices and sharing compelling stories, something that these seven playwrights certainly do.”

“The performing arts are a quintessential aspect of the New York experience and a key element for the return of the city’s art scene,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, Executive Director of Meatpacking Business Improvement District. “We are excited to host the Tectonic Theater Project and Madison Wells Live to bring outdoor performances to the Meatpacking District this summer and further activate the neighborhood with such an innovative concept.”

Casting and additional details for The Seven Deadly Sins will be announced in the coming weeks.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ngozi Anyanwu (Playwright: Gluttony; she/her) was most recently a staff writer on “Americanah” for HBOMax and Plan B, and recently developed a pilot with Juvee Productions and ABC Signature. In theater, she has commissions with NYU, The Old Globe, Two Rivers Theatre and the Atlantic Theatre. Previously, her play,  Good Grief (Kilroys List 2016, semi-finalist Princess Grace, Humanitas Award), in which Anyanwu also starred, recently ran Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre and was produced at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles in Spring 2017. Nike… (Kilroys List 2017) was recently workshopped at the New Black Fest in conjunction with The Lark and The Strand Festival in conjunction with A.C.T and Space on Ryder Farm. The Homecoming Queen (Kilroys List 2017, Leah Ryan Finalist) recently had its world premiere at the Atlantic Theater which also had a sold-out run. Anyanwu has also received residencies from LCT3, Space on Ryder Farm, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the New Harmony Project, New York Stage and Film, and Page 73. She attended Point Park University (BA) and received her MFA in Acting from University of California, San Diego.

Thomas Bradshaw (Playwright: Sloth; he/him) has been called “one of the most deliberately and effectively confrontational American Playwrights of his generation” by the New York Times. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN Literary Award, the Prince Prize, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award, and a Doris Duke Implementation Grant. He recently served as a Consulting Producer on the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning mini-series “When They See Us.” He has had twelve full length plays produced in New York City at the New Group, the Flea, Performance Space 122, and the Whitney Museum, among others. His plays have also been presented at regional theaters across the country, as well as in London and Germany. He has had development deals with HBO/Harpo, FX/Plan B, and Superdeluxe. A compilation of his work Intimacy and Other Plays was recently published by TCG. Bradshaw is a Professor in the MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage program at Northwestern University.

Moisés Kaufman (Director/Playwright: Greed; he/him) is the founder and artistic director of Tectonic Theater Project, a Tony- and Emmy-nominated director and playwright, and a 2015 recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Kaufman’s Broadway directing credits include the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, the revival of The Heiress with Jessica Chastain, 33 Variations (which he also wrote) starring Jane Fonda (five Tony nominations); Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams; and Doug Wright’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning play I Am My Own Wife with Jefferson Mays. His play The Laramie Project (which he wrote with the Tectonic Theater Project company) is among the most performed plays in America. Kaufman also co-wrote and directed the HBO film adaptation of The Laramie Project, which received two Emmy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Writer. He is an Obie winner and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting.

MJ Kaufman (Playwright: Pride; they/them) is a playwright and television writer from Portland, Oregon. Their plays include Galatea (WP Theatre workshop and virtual reading); Whisper’s Gone (Theatre Exile); Double Atlas (workshop at Playwrights Realm); Masculinity Max (Public Theater Studio production, Pride Plays ’20 reading); Sensitive Guys (InterAct Theater and numerous theaters and schools around the country); How to Live on Earth (Colt Couer) and A Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile (Clubbed Thumb). MJ is currently a resident playwright at New Dramatists. They have been a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers’ Group, WP Theater Lab, a core playwright at InterAct Theatre and a playwriting fellow at the Huntington Theater. Along with Kit Yan, MJ founded the Trans Lab Fellowship, a program to support emerging transgender theater artists. They have worked as a writer for two seasons for Netflix. Since the COVID19 pandemic began, MJ has written Zoom plays for New Dramatists and Play at Home, adapted their play Sensitive Guys for the internet and worked on an audio piece for New Dramatists Plays for the Ear initiative. An alum of Wesleyan University and Yale School of Drama. www.mjkaufman.com

Jeffrey LaHoste (Playwright: Envy; he/him) founded Tectonic Theater Project with Moisés Kaufman. He was nominated for a Best Play Tony Award for 33 Variations and an Emmy Award as a writer of the HBO film adaptation of The Laramie Project. Laramie won the Humanitas Prize, the National Board of Review, and the GLAAD Media Award, and was the opening night selection of the Sundance Film Festival. Jeffrey’s play The Very Extraordinary Mr. Law was presented at the Colorado New Play Festival and Zach Theater in Austin. He teaches Moment Work, Tectonic’s method for devising theater.

Ming Peiffer (Playwright: Wrath; she/her) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Columbus, Ohio and the first Asian woman to be nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Play in its history. Her play Usual Girls (three Drama Desk Nominations including Outstanding Play, John Gassner Award Nomination, Hull Warriner Award Finalist, Relentless Award Honorable Mention, New York Times Critic’s Pick) enjoyed a double-extended, sold out run at Roundabout Underground in NYC in the Fall of 2018. Her work has been developed and/or presented by Roundabout Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, the New Group, the Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, the Flea, the Wild Project, New Ohio, Soho Playhouse, the Gene Frankel Theater, FringeNYC, among others. Most recently, she wrote Finish The Fight for the New York Times, a virtual play celebrating the unsung heroes of women’s suffrage. Awards and fellowships include: 2017 Kilroy’s List, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Youngblood Member, the Kennedy Center’s Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award Recipient, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center NPC Finalist, Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award Finalist. Peiffer is currently under commission at Annapurna Theatricals and the Roundabout Theatre Company. In television and film, Peiffer is currently developing “The Divine” for AMC and “Verifiers” for Wiip. She is also a Supervising Producer on the Alice Birch Amazon show “Dead Ringers.” Most recently Ming adapted one of the installments for an anthology show based on the works of Joan Didion for Big Beach and Hulu. Previously, she was on Hulu/Carlton Cuse’s “Locke and Key” and Netflix’s “Gypsy.”

Bess Wohl’s (Playwright: Lust; she/her) plays include Small Mouth Sounds (John Gassner Outer Critics Circle Award, top ten lists in the New York Times, New York Post, Guardian, and others), Make Believe, Continuity, American Hero, Barcelona, Touched, In, Cats Talk Back and the musical Pretty Filthy with composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and the Civilians (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical). Her play, Grand Horizons, had its Broadway premiere at the Helen Hayes Theatre in December 2019, and earned her a 2020 Tony Award nomination for Best Play. Her plays have been produced or developed at theaters in New York and around the country, including Second Stage, Ars Nova, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Goodman Theater, Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light and Theatre Company, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, Pioneer Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Northlight Theater, TheaterWorks New Works Festival, Ojai Playwright’s Conference, Cape Cod Theatre Project, PlayPenn, and the New York International Fringe Festival (Award for Best Overall Production). She currently holds new play commissions from Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. In 2015, Bess won the Sam Norkin special Drama Desk Award for “establishing herself as an important voice in New York theater, and having a breakthrough year.” Other awards and honors include the Athena Award for her screenplay, Virginia, a MacDowell Fellowship, and inclusion on Hollywood’s Black List of Best Screenplays. She is an associate artist with the Civilians, an alumna of Ars Nova’s Play Group. She also writes screenplays and has developed multiple original television projects for HBO, ABC, USA, FOX, Disney, Paramount, and others. In her previous life as an actress, she appeared onstage in New York and regionally, and in numerous films and television shows where she has given birth, solved crimes, committed crimes, been wrongly accused, and come back from the dead. She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.

David Rockwell (Scenic/Site Design; he/him), FAIA, is the founder and president of Rockwell Group, an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm based in New York with satellite offices in Los Angeles and Madrid that emphasizes innovation and thought leadership in every project. Merging theater, performance and architecture, the firm’s work includes hospitality, luxury residential, airport terminals, cultural institutions, set design, products, exhibitions, and festivals. Current work includes the Perelman Center in New York (Restaurant and Lobby Interior Architect); Hopkins Student Center for Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore); Illuminarium Experience, a brand-new experiential entertainment concept in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Miami; the Grand Los Angeles; Climate Change Arena (Seattle); Smithsonian Futures, an exhibition spotlighting the Smithsonian’s 175^th anniversary; W Nashville; the pro bono DineOut NYC initiative; and Civilian Hotel (New York). Rockwell’s newest book, Drama, developed in collaboration with designer Bruce Mau will be published by Phaidon in May. Honors include a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for She Loves Me; the AIANY President’s Award; the National Design Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for outstanding achievement in Interior Design; the Pratt Legends Award; and the Presidential Design Award.

Dede Ayite (Costume Design; she/her) is a two-time Tony Award nominated costume designer whose Broadway credits include A Soldier’s Play, Slave Play, American Son, and Children of a Lesser God. Select Off-Broadway credits include Secret Life of Bees, Marie and Rosetta (Atlantic); By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Signature); BLKS, School Girls… (MCC); Bella: An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons); The Royale (Lincoln Center); Tony Stone (Roundabout). Regionally, Ayite’s work has appeared at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf, Arena Stage and more.  She has worked in television with Netflix, Comedy Central, and FOX Shortcoms. Ayite earned her MFA at the Yale School of Drama and has received an Obie, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, and Jeff Awards, along with four Drama Desk nominations.

Yuki Nakase Link (Lighting Design; she/her) is a lighting designer for theater, dance, opera, performing arts, television, and fashion productions. Previously designed with Moisés Kaufman: All I Want Is Everything! (Seven Deadly Sins) at Miami New Drama. Recent design credits include: Seven Deadly Sins (Lincoln Road, Miami Beach), The Cubans, Queen of Basel (Colony Theatre), Blood Moon at Prototype 2020 (Baruch Performing Arts Center), Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) (Disney Hall, Power Center, Kennedy Center, and BAM), Look Who’s Coming to Dinner (La MaMa), Rakugo (New World Stages), Sell/Buy/Date (New York Live Arts), Resonance III (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center), Theo, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Women Of Padilla (Two River Theater), Tiny Beautiful Things (Long Wharf Theatre). She was born in Tokyo, grew up in Kyoto, Japan and currently lives north of New York City in the woods of Hudson Valley. M.F.A.: NYU. www.yukinlink.com

Tectonic Theater Project (Producer) is a not-for-profit theater company based in New York City, founded in 1991. Led by founder and artistic director Moisés Kaufman, Tectonic’s work has been seen by millions worldwide. The company has created and staged over 20 plays and musicals, including Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, The Laramie Project (written by Kaufman and members of Tectonic Theater Project company), Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, and Kaufman’s Tony Award-winning 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda. Kaufman also co-wrote and directed the Emmy Award-nominated HBO film adaptation of The Laramie Project. In 2009, President Barack Obama invited the company to witness the signing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act at the White House, recognizing Tectonic’s contribution to the national dialogue around anti-LGBTQ hate crimes.

Madison Wells Live (Producer) is the live entertainment arm of Madison Wells, Gigi Pritzker’s award-winning, independent production company. Led by Executive Producer Jamie Forshaw, Madison Wells Live focuses on producing purpose-driven projects through collaboration with partners who are aligned in the belief that good storytelling sparks important conversation. The division is building a robust-but-curated slate of stage productions and entertainment ventures focused on essential, artist-driven storytelling. Broadway credits include Million Dollar Quartet (Tony nomination for Best Musical), Hadestown (Tony Award for Best Musical), The Inheritance (Tony nomination for Best Play), and the upcoming revival of Company.

For more information about Madison Wells Live, visit www.madisonwellsmedia.com

The Meatpacking District BID (Business Improvement District) is the not-for-profit business alliance for the area whose mission is to support the business community and promote the neighborhood as an appealing destination for locals and visitors. The BID keeps the area clean, safe, and beautiful through the expert work of its clean-team and landscapers. In partnership with the City’s Department of Transportation, the BID also managers and maintains the district’s public spaces and Open Streets program, represents the area’s business interests, produces events, and manages marketing and public relations campaigns for the neighborhood.

The Meatpacking District is located on the west side of Manhattan and contained within the boundaries of Horatio Street, Eighth Avenue, and West 17^th Street. For more information, visit www.meatpacking-district.com and follow @meatpackingny on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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