Celebrating America's Greatest Verse Playwright
- 20 Plays in 5 Years -
“Kirk’s writing is some of the most crafted, interesting stuff in the New York theater. And it’s almost as much fun to read his plays as it is to see them — he’s one of the few playwrights whose work can be considered literature.” – Robert Lopez, composer of Book of Mormon and Frozen
Starting in July 2026, theater companies around the nation will set out on a journey to present all 20 plays in Kirk Wood Bromley's existing canon of new American verse plays, with one play being read each season for five years. This long-form, multi-venue festival will be a chance for new audiences to hear his ground-breaking works, for new actors to sink their teeth into his rich language and powerful characters, and for new directors to share their vision for how these compelling and unique plays can best be performed. With Bromley himself providing insights and context for each play and performance documentations being aggregated on social media, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the American theater community to begin the multi-generational task of interpreting and presenting this seminal body of dramatic poetry.
Kirk Wood Bromley has been writing new American verse plays since 1996. In that time he has been compared to Shakespeare by numerous publications (including New York Magazine, LA Weekly, Time Out New York, The Cleveland Scene, NYTheatre.com and OffOffOff.com), with the latter saying “for at least a taste of what it must have been like to see Shakespeare in his own time, you couldn’t do better than Kirk Wood Bromley.” He has been called "the Verse Play Champion" (The Village Voice), "the beloved bard of downtown theater" (The New Yorker), and "genius" (Backstage). He and his theater company, Inverse Theater, have won numerous awards, including Best Downtown Theater Company (NY Press 2001), The Berrilla Kerr Foundation Playwriting Award (2001), Best Music/Lyrics (NY Int’l Fringe Festival 2002), Excellence in Playwriting (NY Int’l Fringe Festival 2003), the first ever Caffe Cino Award (NY Innovative Theater Awards 2005), “Top Three Musicals” (American Theater Web 2005), Outstanding New Musical (Talkin’ Broadway 2005) and Outstanding Solo Show (NY Int’l Fringe Festival 2009). Bromley is a New Dramatists alumni and the resident playwright of El Mundo, a 21st Century Globe-style theater being built in NYC by Aaron Beall, NY Int'l Fringe Festival Co-Founder and former Artistic Director of the legendary Lower East Side theater NADA.
PARTICIPATING DIRECTORS/THEATERS (As of 4-6-26)
Aaron Beall (El Mundo) - New York City
Alexander Yannis Stephano - Los Angeles
Joshua Spafford - Raleigh, NC
THE READING SCHEDULE
The series will kick off with participating directors/theaters doing a reading of The American Revolution on any date of their choosing within 2026 in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. Then, in Spring 2027, the seasonal schedule will begin.
Spring 2027 - Want's Unwisht Work
Summer 2027 - Griffin Hunter
Fall 2027 - Icarus and Aria
Winter 2027 - Midnight Brainwash Revival
Spring 2028 - The Burnt Woman of Harvard
Summer 2028 - Me
Fall 2028 - Cycatrix Adaptitude
Winter 2028 - Dazl
Spring 2029 - Lost Labor's Loved
Summer 2029 - Syndrome
Fall 2029 - No More Pretending
Winter 2029 - Be Story Free
Spring 2030 - The Death of Don Flagrante Delicto
Summer 2030 -The Banger's Flopera
Fall 2030 - Remission
Winter 2030 - When I Met Juliet
Spring 2031 - Ashta Wi-Nu
Summer 2031 - Remember
Fall 2031 - The Feeling
Photos from past Bromley productions:
