From a 10-Minute Play to the NYC Stage: The Plans We Made (revision) at the 2026 Midtown International Theatre Festival
I am so excited to officially share that The Plans We Made (revision) has been accepted into the 2026 Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City as a 60-minute production. https://mitf2026.com/
What originally began as a ten-minute play in 2025 in the Women’s Playwright Collective New Voices Festival (Staten Island, New York), has now expanded into a more realized hour-long theatrical work. The Plans We Made WPC 2025
I believe this version of TPWM deepens the emotional, physical, and cinematic language of the original piece while also continuing to explore the same questions surrounding queer love, addiction, history, and survival.
As both playwright and director, this revision has allowed me to revisit these characters, “Grey” and “Aurora” with greater intimacy and complexity. I hope audiences appreciate how the actors are creating space for the emotional aftershocks that addiction leaves behind.
About the Play
The Plans We Made by Dr. Danielle Bacibianco is a drama about two women trying to love each other through sobriety, relapse, and the weight addiction has on their lives.
Set inside a cramped Staten Island apartment, the play follows Grey and Aurora after meeting in AA, where they begin building a relationship rooted in shared recovery, desire, and the hope of becoming different people together. But because recovery is only “one day at a time,” Grey begins questioning her sobriety and slowly drifts deeper into relapse and emotional distance, while Aurora keeps reaching for the version of their life they once imagined together.
What was once possible begins to bleed into memory.
The play fragments intimacy through movement, conversations, sound, and music, where what was said (and not said) lingers and slowly begins to fade. The world of the play moves fluidly between realism and something more cinematic, tracing the rhythms of addiction, longing, and queer desire.
As Aurora says:
“Love was never the problem. It’s what you always loved more.”
Production Team
This production would not be possible without an incredibly talented and collaborative creative team:
- Dr. Dani Bacibianco — Playwright / Director / Producer
- Krista Luongo — Production Assistant
- Tori Sliwinski — Lighting Designer & Sound Tech
- Nora Shvartsberg — Costume Designer
- Gary Moore — Sound Designer
- Jordan Luongo — Graphic Designer
Cast
- Lillie Schenkel as “Grey”
- Jordyn Rubinsky as “Aurora”
Festival & Venue Information
The Plans We Made will play at the American Theatre of Actors inside the Beckmann Theatre as part of the 2026 Midtown International Theatre Festival.
Performance Dates & Times
- Tuesday, June 16, 2026 — 7:15 PM
- Sunday, June 21, 2026 — 11:30 AM
- Monday, June 22, 2026 — 6:45 PM
Tickets are available here:
Purchase Tickets for The Plans We Made
This production means a great deal to me personally and artistically. Expanding The Plans We Made from a ten-minute play into a 60-minute festival production has reminded me that stories continue evolving long after their first performance.
Theatre, much like recovery itself, asks us to return and rebuild, and sometimes completely reimagine what we thought we once understood.
I am very grateful to all those who have supported this project from its early days, and who helped bring these characters to life.
I look forward to sharing this story with audiences in New York City this June!
