Actress Valeria Avina performs in a Phoenix Festival play; photo by Brian Jenkins

The Phoenix Theatre Festival in Nyack is the fastest growing live performance arts festival in the lower Hudson Valley — for good reason. This year, its fifth, the festival will feature a new season of highly creative, innovative, sometimes funny, and often thought-provoking live theater, comedy, and dance in various indoor and outdoor Nyack venues. It runs from October 8 to 25 and features 15 performances.

Launched in 2022 by Rockland residents Craig Smith and Elise Stone, the Phoenix Festival grew out of the award-winning Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, which was founded in 2004 by the couple and others in New York City. When Craig and Elise first began dreaming of a festival in Nyack, they had an idea, nothing more.

“I saw possibility and opportunities here in Nyack. It’s a community with a large percentage of artists and people who patronize the arts,” he said, adding: “The arts are an economic engine, too, much like the antiques business used to be here in the seventies.” He estimates that the festival brings about $150,000 to Nyack restaurants alone, plus additional revenue in shopping and overnight accommodations.

You’re not likely to see these types of performances anywhere else. And most are only presented once. For example, fresh from a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Phoenix will present “I Was Never Here (There is No Spy Show),” at Prohibition River’s upstairs Rose Hall on October 16. In Leo Lion’s fusion of absurd clowning and escape room action, the audience races against the clock to help a blundering agent recover his lost memory of his mission to save the world. A Fringe Review called it: “An absolute masterpiece . . . so damn clever I feel too stupid to review it.” Leo is associate director at the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble.

And in a timely look at journalism, “Murrow,” a biographical piece about Edward R. Murrow by Joseph Vitale, will run on October 18 in the Nyack Library Community Room. Without polemics or a partisan agenda, it includes excerpts from his iconic career allowing the audience to create its own connections with modern times. The show will be followed by a panel discussion on freedom of the press and the future of journalism. There will be a Q&A session led by Frank Lobuono that will include artists, Hudson Valley professors of communications and journalism, and local journalists. “It promises to be lively,” Craig noted.

There’s also the hilarious fan favorite “Out of the Hat,” presented by the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble upstairs at the Hudson House on October 21. Four playwrights write a short play, actors are picked by pulling names out of a hat. They have five minutes to review the script before presenting a fully staged reading.

Dance is part of the festival, too. On October 24, the Emotions Physical Theatre, recognized as the premier, Black-led physical theater company in America, will perform at The Angel Nyack. Driven by a passion for storytelling through movement, this work weaves together the threads of emotion, culture, and history to create powerful and transformative performances. The Festival will also include the Barkin/Selissen Project, an acclaimed NYC dance company, with “Stardust Gallery” at The Angel Nyack on October 9.

These are just some of the 15 performances you won’t want to miss. Looking toward the future, Craig’s vision is rooted in artistic excellence and in the role that Nyack could play.

“When we decided we were going to do the festival, it wasn’t for, say, only two years. We have a long-term commitment here. We want Nyack to become an international destination for the arts, like the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival or Stratford Ontario’s Shakespeare Festival. And Nyack has everything in place for this: close proximity to the city and the metro area. There, people have maybe the biggest variety of arts in the world. But what they don’t have is a beautiful, walkable, picturesque village on the banks of the Hudson. That’s why Nyack has loads of appeal,” he smiled.

Given its artistic excellence, the Phoenix Festival may just be able to make that happen. 

Learn more about the festival and buy tickets and event packages here.