Midtown International Theatre Festival 2012

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Monday, 23 July 2012 16:28

Written by Renzo Adler with Joanne Choi

As the Summer continues, more theater festivals emerge in New York. The 13th annual Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF) runs from July 16 – August 5, 2012, at the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex (312 West 36th St, NY) in the June Havoc and Dorothy Strelsin Theatre. While smaller than some festivals, MITF is not lacking in ingenuity and imagination.

MITF has a strong emphasis on off-off-Broadway productions due in part to Executive Producer John Chatterton, who founded the Off-Off-Broadway Review in 1993, and created the MITF after one of his reviewers said “someone” should start a Midtown theater festival.

Chatterton founded MITF in 2000 and since then it has become an excellent show case of off-off-Broadway productions. In 2003, the MITF moved its activities to their current location, the Theatre Building on W. 36th, where it has been successfully ensconced since. 

This year’s program features a wide variety of genres in theatre such as musicals, off-Broadway shows, short plays, readings, and much more. 

The many offbeat works being featured include:

• Braced
  Life becomes twisted for a teenage girl entering the social hierarchy of high school with scoliosis. 

• Whatta Ya Nuts!
  This comedy follows angsty, lovelorn mob boss Lou “The Big Cheese” Locatelli as he contemplates retirement to pursue the woman he loves. Faced with a redneck for a potential son-in-law, He secretly seeks help from Dr. Stewart Epstein, a psychiatrist dealing with a love triangle of his own. 
   
• Cocktales
  This show is based on the farcical confessions of a nymphomaniac.

• Falling Awake
  The wacky encounters of two women faced with the reincarnations of the men they loved.
   
• Final Analysis
  In a gesture of compassion, Sigmund Freud almost destroys the world.
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• Head Over Heels in Saudi Arabia 
  Enrich your understanding of Middle East issues and prepare to laugh as you slide into Saudi Arabia and see what's really going on for most women.
   
• Keep on Truckin' - It's War
  Samuel Beckett meets Tom Stoppard in this fish-out-of-water trucker tale.
   
• Left & Right
  These conjoined twins are on a search for love: a double-sided comedy.
   
• Love. Guts. High School.
  When you wear your heart on your sleeve and have his hands on your mind, things can get messy as revealed here.
   
• Love Lies - Treat Her Like a Lady
  This musical uses pop/R&B/gospel hits to show what happens when three women discover they were all engaged to the same newly dead man.
   
• Multiple Plotchanalities
  Here is story of an infantilized, overprivileged, indecisive girl's journey into adulthood.

The 13th annual MITF is a festival that truly embraces up and coming talent as well as those looking to break the mold of traditional Broadway theatre. The MITF mission statement says that, “MITF welcomes theatrical storytelling across a broad spectrum of genres, forms, identities, cultures, and appetites.“

To learn more or book advance tickets, go to: http://www.midtownfestival.org/

Midtown International Theatre Festival
July 16 – August 5, 2012

Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex 
312 West 36th St
New York, NY 10018