For two consecutive weekends running Friday, June 20 through Sunday, June 29, Westchester Collaborative Theater (WCT) in Ossining will premiere a provocative new play, The Secret Life of Actors, a masterful blend of black comedy and stark drama by Giovanni Pucci (Congers), directed by NYU Tisch Drama Department Associate Arts Professor Nathan Flower (Ossining). The play takes audiences on a wild and shocking ride as it exposes the brutality, blind ambition and cringe-inducing hilarity of the life of a struggling actor. In three distinct stories audiences will meet a handful of actors and related bystanders who are drawn together through an imagined, Off-Off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
Says Pucci, “The Secret Life of Actors examines the very human struggle to weave the often incongruous strands of our lives into one meaningful narrative.”
Flower adds, “There’s a dark and absurd side to being an actor and Giovanni’s play captures that. He takes it to the extreme but only barely! For anyone who has ever put serious time into the hustle-and-grind of being an actor these stories seem well within the realm of the possible.”
The cast of The Secret Life of Actors is: Jessica Valente (Brewster), Brenna Hughes (Inwood), Missy Flower (Ossining), Dan Teutul (Montgomery), Finn Haney and Marcos Ortiz. The tech crew includes Abi Lieff, intimacy coordinator, Nic Coccaro (Croton) fight choreographer, Allison Schneider (New City) stage manager/lighting op, and sound op Kim Chandler (New Rochelle).
Performances will be held at Westchester Collaborative Theater (WCT), 23 Water Street in Ossining, Friday and Saturday evenings, June 20, 21, 27 and 28 at 7:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees June 21, 22, 28 and 29 at 3 pm. A talkback will follow the Saturday, June 21 matinee. Tickets are $25, $20 for WCT members, students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://WCT-presents-TheSecretLifeofActors.eventbrite.com
(Limited seating available; advance purchase is strongly recommended.)
About Giovanni Pucci
Giovanni Pucci is a playwright and actor. His one-act, Gabriela, was recently seen at WCT, as part of the Box Spring series. Pucci will next be seen on stage in Gojo Clan’s production of Tracy Letts’s The Minutes in August.
About Nathan Flower
Nate is an associate arts professor in the drama department at the Tisch School of the Arts and program director of the training program at the MSNR (Meisner) Studio @ Tisch Drama. He is the head of movement training at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in Industry City, Brooklyn. Recent credits include: director –The Chekhov Project – NYU’s Paulson Center, NYC, director- Cactus Flowers Part II – Axial Theatre Co., director- The Victory Garden Plays – WCT, director – What the Constitution Means to Me – Axial Theatre (starring Cady McClain). Upcoming: Staged Reading of Tara Meddaugh’s For My Silent Sisters at NYU’s Paulson Center for the Arts (July 2025).
About Westchester Collaborative Theater
Since its opening in 2017, the WCT black box performance space has become widely known as a venue showcasing WCT plays and readings, as well as live music and a variety of performance artists. For upcoming theater and music events visit http://www.wctheater.org/
