Mission to (dit)Mars

03/01/2021

This past year has been challenging for everyone, especially the theater community. Due to many extenuating factors, the co-founders of Mission to (dit)Mars - Kari Bentley-Quinn, Don Nguyen, Meredith Packer, and Laura Pestronk - came to a difficult but necessary decision, which is to formally wind down the company after nine amazing years.

We started Mission to (dit)Mars in 2012, as four artists who wanted to build a new and unique theater community in the great borough of Queens. We started off with the Propulsion Lab writers group, which invited Queens-based playwrights to write a brand new play over the course of a season.

Playwrights in the Propulsion Lab included: Jack McCarthy, Corinna Schulenberg, Courtney Lauria, Jane Miller, Jennifer Lane, Kristine M. Reyes, Mac Rogers, David Lawson, Lisa Huberman, Jonathan Alexandratos, Tyler Rivenbark, Tori Keenan-Zelt, Mrinalini Kamath, Christopher Moncayo-Torres, Tim Errickson, Nat Cassidy, Ray Yamanouchi, Sasha Sharova, Megan Bussiere, Jason Tseng, Enrique Urueta, Amy E. Witting, Elizabeth Seldin, and Scott Casper. Through the lab, we oversaw the development of more than 35 new plays. We were able to present these brand new plays with our Launchpad Reading Series, which was the first public presentation of plays that went on to win numerous awards and productions. We worked with directors such as Kristin McCarthy Parker, Jordana Williams, Colette Robert, Dev Bondarin, and Christopher Diercksen.

Through our annual All Systems Go - a reading of excerpts from all the plays written in Lab that season - we fostered relationships with over 100 actors. We also hosted a Mindful Writing workshop in the summers with Emily Herzlin, and we initiated the Salon Series, which was a next step dramaturgical program for plays written in Lab. We hosted two retreats in a partnership with Queens Theater, presented All Systems Go at Astoria Performing Arts Center, and were in residence at The Secret Theater, the Chain Theater, and the Broom Tree Theater. Countless professional and personal relationships were born in this company.

While Mission to (dit)Mars as a company might be winding down, the community that we have built remains. We are confident that the relationships and creative partnerships that we built will continue to grow and flourish. This is not a goodbye - the resources on our website will still be available for the next year - and we will always be a part of this incredible group of artists. We hope that theater artists in Queens can pick up where we left off and build something brand new, when we can all be in the same space again. We will see you again - hopefully soon - right here in Queens.

10/01/2020

Meet our co-founder Kari Bentley-Quinn and check out her virtual reading of HYANNIS on October 22 & 24, as part of the Ashland New Plays Festival!

Meet Kari Bentley-Quinn!

Kari Bentley-Quinn lives in New York City, originally from the little coast town of Stratford, CT. Her plays have been presented at or developed with Lark Play Development Center, Lesser America, The Brick Theater, The Secret Theatre, The One Minute Play Festival, Pace University, Caps Lock Theater, Effable Arts, NYMadness, Team Awesome Robot, Packawallop Productions, Artemisia Theater, and more.

Kari’s full length plays include: THE PERMANENT NIGHT (2008 FringeNYC award winner); PAPER CRANES (Backstage Critic’s Pick); THE UNLIKELY ASCENT OF SYBIL STEVENS (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist); THE OCEAN THOUGHT NOTHING (2014 O’Neill Conference Finalist); PREPARED (Kilroy’s List Honorable Mention); THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD (Leah Ryan FEWW Prize Finalist); and WENDY AND THE NECKBEARDS (The Relentless Award Honorable Mention).

Kari is a co-founder of Mission to (dit)Mars, a theater company based in Queens, New York City. As part of the company, Kari is a leader of the Propulsion Lab, a bi-weekly writers group that supports emerging playwrights, as well as the Launch Pad Reading Series, which gives plays written in the lab their first public readings. Alongside her fellow co-founders, Kari has facilitated the development of more than 30 new plays, many of which have been produced all over the country as well as internationally.

Kari has been a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Leah Ryan FEWW Prize, The Playwrights Realm, and the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, and was a nominee for the Doric Wilson Playwriting Award. Kari was the winner of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Award at Hunter College, where she got her MFA under Tina Howe, Mark Bly, and Arthur Kopit.

Kari's ANPF 2020 winning play HYANNIS will be presented virtually on Thursday, October 22, at 4:00 pm PT and Saturday, October 24, at 7:30 pm PT.

Tickets are available sliding scale starting at $10 (no additional fees). Get your tickets here: https://www.showtix4u.com/events/17627

09/26/2020

We're eggs-cited that our Orbiting Artist Kristine M. Reyes has a reading tonight of her play EGGS ON ICE, which she incubated in our Propulsion Lab. The reading is part of Mad Cow Theatre's Women's Voices Festival and takes place on Zoom at 7pm EST.

Click here to reserve your spot ($10 suggested donation): https://madcowtheatre.com/womens-voices-festival/

Denise is the top sales/marketing rep at Eggs on Ice, a premier egg freezing clinic. As Denise takes the audience on a tour of the company and its clientele, she starts noticing strange new policies being put into place and begins to question if something more sinister is at play 🤔.

Set in the very near future, "Eggs on Ice" is a satirical play about the egg freezing industry and how it markets to young professional women, preying and capitalizing on their fears and insecurities under the guise of helping them to “have it all”.

Our September Women's Voices Mini-Fest concludes TONIGHT with Kristine M. Reyes' "Eggs on Ice" at 7:00PM EST! 🎉 Register for free here: https://boxoffice.madcowtheatre.com/Home/Coupons/EggsonIcebyKristineMReyesAVirtualPlayReading

09/25/2020

Congratulations to our co-founder Kari Bentley-Quinn on her upcoming reading of HYANNIS, which she developed in our Propulsion Lab, as part of Ashland New Plays Festival! The reading takes place virtually on Thursday, October 22nd at 4pm PT. Tickets are only $10 and support a great organization.

In a small Cape Cod town, Michelle and her mother Fran run a small shop where they sell beach gear, souvenirs, snow globes, and the best fudge around. Michelle’s son, Tommy, has just come home from his second stint in rehab, and the financial toll of his he**in addiction has hit the business’ bottom line. Meanwhile, a young woman named Lauren is home from college to tend to her ailing mother, and she and Tommy make a connection that changes them both forever. Set over the course of a summer and a winter, Hyannis takes a look at the plague of despair and drugs infecting small town America.

Synopsis In a small Cape Cod town, Michelle and her mother Fran run a small shop where they sell beach gear, souvenirs, snow globes, and the best fudge around. Michelle’s son, Tommy, has just come home from his second stint in rehab, and the financial toll of his he**in addiction has hit the busin...

08/26/2020

Check out our artist-in-residence Jonathan Alexandratos in their solo show TOYS 101, presented tonight at 6pm as part of Strange Sun Theater's Digital Theatre Festival.

RSVP for free to get the Zoom link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLJTh7TnFg3fOUS_cXA0-vqlBHYUj8N_TDAmgcq7Yo8vhgXQ/viewform

TOYS 101 is part class, part playdate, and part personal exploration. "The play is sort of an Antiques Roadshow through my soul," says playwright Jonathan Alexandratos, "I talk about my toys, and their history, but also my own history trying to unlearn toxic masculinity and then ultimately finding myself as a Non-Binary person."

https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/article/TOYS-101-Goes-Online-With-Strange-Sun-Theaters-Explorations-Digital-Theatre-Festival-20200818

The piece rounds out an all-free, all-online line-up that includes Jacqueline Goldfinger's Click: Virtual Edition and Maria Irene Fornes' Fefu and Her Friends. Performed previously in NYC's So-Fi Festival and then again on Facebook Live, TOYS 101 is part class, part playdate, and part personal explo...

06/01/2020

Mission to (dit)Mars is saddened and angry by the continued violence towards the Black community in the United States. We stand in solidarity against the systemic racism and oppression which has led to most recently but not limited to the senseless murder of George Floyd. At Mission to (dit)Mars, we are proud to represent Queens, the most diverse urban area on the planet and we are thoroughly committed to reflecting this diversity in the artists we work with, from our actors and directors to our playwrights group, the Propulsion Lab. To that end, we unequivocally state: Black Lives Matter.

02/03/2020

We're thrilled to present the first Launch Pad reading of 2020 with FAITH BASED, FUTURE FOCUSED, a new play by Tim Errickson and directed by Antonio Minino. This free reading will be performed on Monday, February 10th at 7pm at The Broom Tree Theatre located at 23-35 Broadway in Astoria, NY.

In FAITH BASED, FUTURE FOCUSED, Mal and Dennis both return to their Catholic High School alma mater on the day it closes for good. Did they ever become the people the school tried to make them into, and do they like who each other are today?

Playwright Tim Errickson explains “I was inspired to write the play because I wanted to examine people who seemed to come from the same upbringing and set of values, but have now in their adult lives diverged wildly from each other politically, culturally and religiously.“ Tim offers “I hope that people will think about the places that are sacred to them…theaters, churches, gymnasiums where you made the shot, the bridge where you proposed or broke up…and investigate the universality of those spaces.”

RSVP here:

Mission to (dit)Mars is thrilled to present the first Launch Pad reading of 2020 with FAITH BASED, FUTURE FOCUSED, a new play by Tim Errickson and directed by Antonio Minino. This free reading wil…

11/18/2019

Propulsion Labber Mrinalini Kamath has two upcoming readings of her new play TERM LIMITS, which she developed in our Lab a couple seasons ago. Check it out at Broom Tree Theater in Astoria on November 19th and December 5th, both at 7pm and both completely FREE!

Directed by regular MtD collaborator Aimee Todoroff, featuring Josh Gutierrez, Nina Mehta, Paul Peglar, Monica Rounds, and Shetal Shah.

Under the shadow of an administration slowly unraveling rights, Manika, an Indian-American palliative care pediatrician and former National Spelling Bee contestant, is having a baby with her partner Jeanette via an unconventional s***m donor. Coming home from their baby shower, the women are surprised by Manika’s old friend Adam, a musical theater actor recently released from his Finian’s Rainbow gig (for undisclosed reasons) dumped by his boyfriend, and in need of a place to stay. Reluctantly, Jeanette agrees. As Manika sees Adam tune out politics more and more as he attempts to get his life back together, it begins to cause friction between them.

This reading is funded by a Queens Council on the Arts New Works Grant.

Home Written by Mrinalini Kamath Directed by Aimee Todoroff With Nina Mehta, Paul Peglar, Monica Rounds, and Shetal Shah FREE READING November 19, 2019 and December 5, 2019, 7pm. Broom Tree Theater, Astoria First Presbyterian Church, 23-35 Broadway, Astoria Take the N/W train to the Broadway stop in...