Emerging Artists Theatre’s Spark Theatre Festival NYC will run from March 3 – 23, 2025, in New York City. Nearly 60 performances will be presented across three weeks, including plays, musicals, solo shows, dance, and more.

Festival Schedule:

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM: R.U.R.

America, 2099. Rossum’s Universal Robotics (R.U.R) manufactures highly intelligent anthrobots to provide skilled labor all over the world. Anthrobots appear incapable of independent thought, much less rebellion—until Helena, a scientist, detects changes in their behavior and a revolt ensues. Today’s cautionary sci-fi musical, based on a prescient 1920 play.

Book & Lyrics: Dennis Hanrahan
Music: Philip Vlahakis
Musical Director: Julian Blackmore

Tickets $25/$30 at the door

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5:00 PM - 6:15 PM: eidolon

This work explores the psychological effects of feeling the presence of someone who is not physically there. It connects the emotions that one goes through both good and bad and visualizing the feelings of wanting someone there with you, but also the nervousness of having someone "watching" you.

Choreography by Sarah Blake in collaboration with Liana Acevedo

Tickets $20 /$25 at the door

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5:00 PM - 6:15 PM: EKPHRASIS: A Few Words About Art

Twelve slightly eccentric pieces on Art, some serious, some not, painters and subjects, Forgers and viewers, Art we love and Art we hate,. Everything from why Sir Henry Raeburn painted a horse backwards to Song ****’s Mother’s house spread out on the floor of MOMA.

Creator: Lucy Avery Brooke
Director: Page Clements

Tickets $25/$30 at the door

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5:00 PM - 6:15 PM: Feather Bones

This duet explores the dichotomy of strength and fragility, how the two intersect, and the merits of both.

Choreographer: Natalie Long

Tickets $20 /$25 at the door

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7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: Happenstance: The Wonderer and Artificial Light

Chance Encounters: In THE WONDERER, an intrusive man repeatedly tries to help a woman he encounters on the ferry. She rejects his attention until it appears that he may be the one needing rescuing. In ARTIFICIAL LIGHT, two people who were once very much in love meet after many years. Can the damage ever be repaired?

Writer: Lynda Crawford
Director, THE WONDERER: CB Murray
Director, ARTIFICIAL LIGHT: Laura E. Johnston

Tickets $20 /$25 at the door

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7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: It's Supposed to be Fun

How do artists grapple with inescapable invasions of privacy in performance? Here, we dissect and disrupt the performative nature of existence. Can presentational artists separate pedestrian life and entertainment? We seek reclamation of expression for the unconscious and conscious self. We say yes to impulse, yes to risk, and reject correctness.

Choreographer: Celeste Goldes
Lighting Designer: Brandon Washington

Tickets $20 /$25 at the door

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7:00 PM - 8:15 PM: Thermocline

It is inspired by the water element - the natural metaphor of the ocean's thermal layers to explore complex relationships, both external and internal. Two people present the surface and the deep layer. Where you see the relationship between each other in the middle point - the thermocline, one can't exist without the other. It goes from the relationship between humans, animals, and the law of nature, to the relationship with yourself. It's a piece that talks about Interdependence, Harmony, Balance, the law of Nature and the human world, and self-reflection.

Director/Choreographer: Marianna Koytsan

Tickets $20 /$25 at the door

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