Chain Theatre’s annual Summer One-Act Festival is back and bolder than ever.
From July 10 through August 2, 2025, their midtown Manhattan theater (312 W. 36th Street, 3rd & 4th Floor) transforms into a theatrical mixtape, delivering daring, genre-busting new works from rising voices and veteran talent alike.
Featuring more than 90 short plays across curated nightly blocks (each 75–90 minutes), the festival offers a bold mix of dark comedy, gripping drama, and unexpected magic, with select performances available for streaming.
Headlining Program Block #1 is Paul Calderón’s gripping double bill THE INTERLUDE and VOICES FROM THE EDGE, showcasing a powerhouse performance from the acclaimed actor, writer, and co-founder of Primitive Grace Theatre Ensemble. Calderón, whose screen credits include Bosch: Legacy, Boardwalk Empire, and Fear the Walking Dead, brings both plays to life alongside members of his multiracial, multigenerational company, renowned for its raw, reality-shifting work.
In The Interlude, a disillusioned trainer implores his female fighter, exhibiting signs of pugilistic dementia, to leave the ring, while Voices from the Edge features four women sharing harrowing personal accounts of gun violence. Calderón’s role as playwright and performer, rooted in his identity as a Latino artist, resonates with this year’s programming.
Also featured are:
•WHAT HAPPENED WAS, a dark comedy by Walter John Thompson, starring three-time Emmy Winner Cady McClain (Beyond the Gates, Law and Order: SVU) and directed by theater legend Obie and Drama Desk Award-winner Austin Pendleton (Between Riverside and Crazy, Orson’s Shadow). In a dilapidated bar that flickers between memory and imagination, two actors trapped in an endless loop confront love, regret, and the fragile line between reality, performance and the unbearable silence of being unseen. (Program #2)
•From the D&D-addled mind of Twenty-Sided Tavern co-creator David Andrew Laws comes a fantastical, disembodied adventure PETER DOYLE’S INCREDIBLE HEAD. D&D theater fans- this one’s for you!(Program #13)
•MEETING MARLON by screenwriter David Rich (Renegades, MacGyver, Stargate: SG-1) — an offbeat comedy about two actors auditioning for a film directed by none other than Marlon Brando.
This year’s lineup reflects the Chain Theatre’s commitment to culturally, politically, and socially responsive art, offering a platform where new work is incubated with purpose. Chain has recently premiered works by Eric Bogosian, David Rabe, Lyle Kessler, and Jesse Eisenberg, who made his stage directorial debut here before winning an Academy Award for A Real Pain.
“We don’t do safe—we do real,” says Chain Theatre Artistic Director Kirk Gostkowski. “This is where audiences and artists meet on equal ground to explore the world as it is, and imagine what it could be.”
Website: www.chaintheatre.org
