The Bad Guys & Warrior Class to Premiere at Second Stage Uptown’s Summer Series

Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre has announced two world premiere plays as part of the company’s tenth annual Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre on the Upper West Side.

Kicking off the season will be Alena Smith’s The Bad Guys, which will begin performances on May 17, open on June 4 and run through June 17. Five childhood buddies reunite on a late summer afternoon for some beer, grilling and weed, but deep within their friendship lurk ghosts that rock the patio beneath them. This is the story of a generation at war with itself over what it means to “man up.” Casting and a director for the project have yet to be announced.

Next up will be Kenneth Lin’s Warrior Class, directed by Evan Cabnet. The play will run July 11 through August 11, with an opening night set for July 23. When Assemblyman Julius Lee makes a bid for Congress, the ghosts of his college days come back to haunt him. Nothing reveals true colors like a sprint to the finish, when friends become enemies and allies can turn on a dime.

Created as a program to help develop and provide exposure for the voices of a new generation of theater artists, the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series seeks to develop the skills of emerging playwrights, to provide early-career artists with the support of a major artistic institution and to create new plays for the American theater.