NEW VISIONS:
NY Classical Announces Selections for New Visions Cycle 2 Following Nearly 400 National Submissions
FOUR NEW PLAYS REIMAGINING CLASSICAL WORKS SELECTED FOR DEVELOPMENT THROUGHNY CLASSICAL’S FLAGSHIP PLAYWRITING INITIATIVE
New York, NY — New York Classical Theatre has announced the four selections for Cycle 2 of New Visions, its play development program supporting new works inspired by classical texts. Selected from nearly 400 submissions from across the United States, these plays will move forward in a multi-phase development process culminating in public readings and continued artistic development.
THIS SUMMER:
Rome to Right Now:
Announcing Civics Programming Around Julius Caesar
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, New York Classical Theatre is pairing its 2026 production of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar with a season of civics programming exploring questions about power, persuasion, and democracy. In partnership with Civics is Sexy, this initiative will invite audiences to reflect on the play’s themes through student programs, public conversations, family events, and open rehearsals in Central Park—creating space to explore how rhetoric, leadership, and political violence have shaped republics from ancient Rome to the present day.
WHO WE ARE
New York Classical Theatre creates and reinvigorates audiences for the theatre by presenting free productions of popular and forgotten classical plays in public spaces throughout New York City. We are also committed to developing and producing new plays by living playwrights that enrich and expand our understanding of what defines a classic.
APRIL 15, 2026
Next on Vino & Verse
Coriolanus with Dr. Miles Grier
The time has come to talk about Coriolanus’s facial hair. During what his mother describes as his “comely” youth, he is Rome’s champion—“with his Amazonian chin… driv[ing] / The bristled lips before him,” as his commander boasts. What does this beardless allure reveal about the character’s later rigidity and disdain for perceived femininity? In this bold and thought-provoking lecture, Dr. Miles Grier argues that Coriolanus is not simply a straightforward misogynist, but a figure vexed by change itself—troubled by an incomplete gender transition from male to male. Through close attention to the transformative fragmentation of both bodies and texts, Dr. Grier invites us to reconsider one of Shakespeare’s most politically volatile Roman plays through a striking contemporary lens.
