Buy Tickets:

Expensive Lettuce

Written by Kayla Hense

Synopsis

A couple argues then makes up ad-infinitum over the course of a single car ride in an attempt to evade the relationship’s underlying insecurities that have been triggered by an expensive head of lettuce.

Bios

Kayla Hense (Playwright) is a writer and actor based in New York. After studying philosophy and art history at school, she trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and has additionally attended various acting workshops under instructors from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Juilliard. As a playwright, she has had two one-act plays previously premiere at the Chain, as well as staged readings and workshops at the Dramatists Guild. She is grateful to her cast and director and to the Chain Theatre for making this production possible!

Megan Billings (Director) is an actress-singer-dancer in NYC. Previous credits include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Titanic, The Music Man, The Polar Express, and Magic-A Ballroom Musical. www.meganbillings.com

Teajuana Scott (W) is an NYC-based actress with an on-camera and theater background. She earned raving reviews for her performance as Ellie in 100 Days and is drawn to character-driven stories that explore relationships, vulnerability, and humor in everyday moments. She’s excited to be part of Expensive Lettuce in the Chain Theatre’s Winter One-Act Festival.

Mannie Mendez (M) is a Florida-born actor based in New York. He graduated from Terry Knickerbocker Studios and has also trained at Playhouse West and IDSA in Los Angeles. In 2024, he produced and starred in the play Passover directed by Justin Cimino. Other works include an Off-Broadway production of Bobbie Clearly in the role of Pete at the Flamboyan, Remember You Must Die at 3AM Theatre, and Amanda Esquilin's The Loveless Fridge at the Chain Theatre, as well as staged readings of Cyrano de Bergerac and You Got Older. In addition to acting, Mannie is also a producer, director, and writer.

Maybe I'm Your Favorite

Written by Grace Cahill

Directed by Emily Rubinstein

SYNOPSIS

The Last Date Is Here

Theo and Gemma have broken up. It’s been decided, they’re going to be radically single - there’s even a contract. A contract stipulating one last date, to be mature, and end things on a good note. Ideally.

As the date arrives, Theo relies on his long-distance friend Alma for support. Maybe I’m Your Favorite is a 15-minute play premiering at the Chain Theatre Winter One-Act Play Festival about relationships, about romanticism, about things not always going the way we want. And maybe that’s okay.

BIOS

Grace Cahill (PLAYWRIGHT) is a writer, director, and songwriter born and raised in New York City. She’s a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Writers Workshop, and The Group at the Center at West Park (CWP), a theater company she co-founded based on the legacy of Naked Angels. Grace was the dramaturg for a staged reading of All The President’s Men directed by John Benjamin Hickey with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. for CWP, subsequently directed by Ethan Silverman with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke for Stella Adler Academy, and for a staged reading of All About Eve with Scarlett Johansson and J. Smith Cameron for CWP. She has also dramaturged dozens of plays by students living with war for Young Playwrights Ukraine since 2022. Grace has directed at The Tank, Segal Center Theatre, and Producers Club. She’s currently an instructor at Writopia Lab and was a Spring 2025 Intern at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. BA: Kenyon College 2024

Emily Rubinstein (DIRECTOR) Emily is a director, choreographer, producer, and actor born and raised in New York City. She has been involved in the arts for her whole life. She recently graduated from Cornell University in May 2025 with a degree in Performing Media Arts and a degree in Biology with a concentration in Genetics. In addition to directing and producing Maybe I’m Your Favorite, some of her recent credits include the Netflix Ed Sheeran One Shot (casting/production assistant), Top Of My School Film (choreographer), and The Family Copoli - Edinburgh Fringe (choreographer, makeup designer, and actor). Emily is also a figure skater and coach who enjoys choreographing ice shows! Instagram: @emily.rose.ruby

Julia Kim Caldwell (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR) Julia is so thrilled to be a part of the Maybe I’m Your Favorite team, making her debut as an assistant director. She graduated from NYU Tisch and is primarily an actor/writer. Previously she trained at ArtsEd, the Andrew Lloyd Webber school for the performing arts in London. She has also performed with the San Francisco Opera Conservatory. You can most recently catch her starring in the TV show Gangnam Project now streaming on Netflix. Follow what she’s up to on Instagram! @juliajcaldwell

Raahi Menon (STAGE MANAGER) Raahi is a software engineer from Texas that claims he writes as a hobby, though recently you'd be hard pressed to find evidence of that. Before stage managing Maybe I'm Your Favorite, he co-produced The Family Copoli at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and acted in its original run at Cornell University in 2023. He's so excited to be working on this show!

Noah Leety (THEO) Noah Leety is a New York City–based SAG-Eligible actor and Cornell University graduate. Recent screen work includes a lead role in the upcoming indie feature Hold Her Hand (2027) and appearances on CBS and CBS Socials as “Noah, the Page.” He has also performed in numerous student and short film productions at Cornell and Columbia University.

Liv Licursi (ALMA) Liv is a director, actress, and producer for stage and screen based in New York City. She recently graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations. She is the founder of Olive Frame Productions LLC, an NYC based production company focused on developing new works. Most recently, she produced and directed the original burlesque musical The Family Copoli for the Edinburgh Fringe. Her socials can be found at @livili_3.

Alex Nobert (GEMMA) Alex is an actor, writer and director who grew up in NYC. While pursuing her degree in Environmental Science at the University of Chicago, she was an active member of the improv scene and participated in many shows. One of her most recent projects was producing, writing and directing a murder mystery play at the Highlands Mansion and Garden. She hopes one day to play an ostentatious man. Instagram: @nobert.noshoes.noservice

Nostalgia: The Dead of Night Kind

Written and directed by Philip Cioffari

Synopsis

A member of a 60s girl group imitation band meets her boyfriend in a late night diner in the Bronx, urging him to make a stronger commitment to their relationship.

Bios

Philip Cioffari is a novelist, playwright and filmmaker. His full-length play, Love in the Age of Dion, ran for eight months at the Belmont Playhouse, an Equity theater in the Bronx, in 1999 and 2000. The independent feature film, which he wrote and directed and adapted from the play, won a number of film festival awards, including: Best Picture at the Long Island International Film & Video Expo; Best Director at the NY Film and Video Festival; Best Actor at the Hoboken International Film Festival; nominations for Best Picture at the Staten Island FF and the Rhode Island FF. He is a playwright member of the Actors Studio in New York. He has written for, and directed, his own one-acts for OFF and OFF-OFF Broadway, most recently The Lies We tell Ourselves in the Chain Theatre One Act Festival Summer 2023 and Sunday Night at the Torchlight Lounge in the Chain Winter’24 Festival, Memoryville in the Chain Summer ’24 Festival, Listen Won’t You? in the Chain Winter ’25 Festival, Questions I Keep Asking Myself in the Chain Summer ’25 Festival. www.philipcioffari.com

Deirdre Hering (Connie) is an actor from the Hudson Valley, New York. A longtime student of HB Studio, she has previously performed at the Chain Theater in Phillip Cioffari's "Questions I Keep Asking Myself." She is grateful to her friends, family and creative collaborators for their support. 

Supreet Mahanti (Jake) is an actor whose recent stage work as male lead includes Husbands (Polaris North, Davis), Questions I Keep Asking Myself (Chain Theater, Cioffari), Blithe Apparition (Polaris North, Lefcowitz), Memoryville (Chain Theater, Cioffari), and Only the Dead (France, Jankovitz). Originally from India, Supreet performed in school and college plays before pursuing a career in advertising, film-making and humanitarian communication. Supreet is based in New York, where he works in digital advocacy and writes about climate change while studying acting at HB Studio, a place he hasn’t left since 2022. He thanks his directors, castmates, and anyone who’s ever trusted him with their writing. @sincrasy

Berta Puig (Magdalena the Waitress) is an actor and director from Barcelona. She has been involved  with theater since childhood. She has studied at Laura Jou in Barcelona and at HB Studio here in NY. This is her debut performance in NYC.

The Woman on the Mountain

Written by Lauren Lindsey

Synopsis

On a stormy winter night, a woman gathers the audience around a fire to tell an old-fashioned ghost story about a woman who haunts the nearby mountain. As she tells the story of this poor ghost using practical effects and sound makers, she reveals more and more about the ghost's life as a young woman, the bullies she faced and how she ran to the mountain at first to escape but now never leaves. It soon becomes apparent that this woman is the same ghost.

Bios

Lauren’s Bio (Writer & actor) 

Lauren Lindsey is an award-winning writer and performer. Her one-woman shows have premiered at TADA! as part of the Emerging Artists Theatre Festival, United Solo, and the Dublin Fringe Festival among others. She won a screenwriting award for her latest short film script, “A Tough Score”. Lauren's plays and poems have been performed in both New York and internationally. 

Select NY credits include: Theatre Row, Under St. Marks, Bank Street Theater, multiple Fringe Festivals, and Upright Citizens Brigade. Internationally, her shows have been produced as part of Dublin's Fringe Festival and The New Theatre. 

Lauren has written for media companies including Irish Central (Gaelic Girl) and for radio including the award-winning narrative podcast, Promenade. She also works in publishing. 

Lauren’s acting credits include: the Pipeline Festival show "Office Comedy" directed by Tamilla Woodard, NY Times critically acclaimed “3/Fifths” at 3LD, her one-woman show, "Lauren White Wants You". She has a recurring role in Emmy nominee Dui Jarrod’s new series, Sauce. Lauren's newest plays, “C.A.M.”, and “The Diner” are currently being workshopped. More at itslaurenlindsey.com 

Bree’s Bio (Director & co-producer via Playful Substance) 

Bree O’Connor is a multi-hyphenate theatre maker with over 30 years of indie experience from Minneapolis to New York City. She is a graduate of Circle in the Square Theatre School, a member of the 2014 LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble and the League of Independent Theater, a mother of three and a passionate advocate for artist development and the indie community as a whole. Bree is the co-founder and producing artistic director of Playful Substance, a theater company dedicated to the development of adult artists and new works. 

Bree is currently editing her coming of age memoir (untitled) and a new play Barometric Pressure. 

Marie’s Bio (Movement Director) 

Originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, Marie Donna Davis graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Social Work, and received her acting training at the Atlantic Theater Evening Conservatory in New York City. Recent projects include: Mr. A List (Iris), Kind Threads Scrubs, Lilith In Pisces (Erin/Understudy), Lancome, Essie, Excavating The Rising Star (Assistant Director/Choreographer), Legally Blonde The Musical (Assistant Choreographer), Carol’s Daughter (Color Purple Campaign), Pretending to Fly (Francis/Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and campy fanfiction web series, The Hunted: NYCSS (Campbell/Best SciFi Web Series LA Fest). Utilizing both her undergraduate degree and training as an actress, Marie Donna Davis was proud to be part of a study (funded by Johns Hopkins) that evaluated the effects of de-escalation training in police precincts around the country when interacting with citizens who

are experiencing a mental health crisis. With specific attention to law enforcement reaction to Black people experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Nominations: Best Female Fight and Best Unarmed Fight (Urban Action Film Festival). Marie Donna enjoys the feel of a katana and a good rum-based cocktail in hand. Rarely at the same time. Marie Donna Davis is also an avid touring cyclist, and spent the past summer riding over 

1000 miles and 40,000 ft in elevation going from Washington state, to Montana. For general vibes, pics of her latest adventures, you can check her out on the gram at: @mariedavis9812.