Short Story Project's Spring Performance: "Stylites Anonymous" on Stage

Join us for the Short Story Project's second event! We create free, live theatrical performances from short stories by exciting writers.

In this never-before-seen, one-night-only live theatrical performance, we'll bring to life Maureen McGranaghan's unpublished short story "Stylites Anonymous," a hilarious, continually-surprising portrait of a large family trying to get their patriarch back on solid ground—literally.

Doors open at 6:30, with the play starting at 7pm. Come early to grab a drink from the !This event is free to attend.

Directed by Olivia Facini, Produced by Undiscovered Works

Featuring a cast to be announced!

Short Story Project Creators and Associate Producers: Zachary Desmond and Olivia Facini

More about the Story:
John’s father is determined to commune with God atop a telephone pole, à la sixth century Byzantine monks. The rest of the family—Mark, Matthew, Luke, and Marys I, II, and III—plots to bring him down, while John decries their lack of piety. Then Maxine arrives with her poker chips and Dad will never be the same. Faith, family, gambling, and the Desert Fathers: time to pray, or place your bets!

About the Short Story Project:
Led by Zachary Desmond and Olivia Facini and supported by Undiscovered Works, the Short Story Project creates low-tech, high-creativity theatrical stagings of short stories. Our performances provide a fun, free way for audiences to encounter a new author and to experience in a new way the work of a writer they might know already. We host our events at independent bookstores around New York City to bring communities together in familiar, welcoming surroundings and to encourage further exchange between theater and literature, between avid theatergoers and devoted book lovers.

About Undiscovered Works:
Undiscovered Works celebrates and builds community through storytelling of all kinds! Whether it's through an artist discussion and mingling at our monthly storytelling series or Mixology, engaging with our community blog, or taking in one of our productions, we foster dialogue around entertainment. Playwrights, filmmakers, actors, monologists, musicians, comedians, and artists of every variety explore and showcase their talents—they're what it's all about! In addition to our artist and theatre partners, we raise awareness of and funds for the local non-profit organizations who keep our communities thriving.

Lead Artist Bios:
makes stories about the present, past, and future of migration. He is an actor, writer and director from Washington State whose work has been produced from New York City to Sitka, Alaska and is a member of several companies, including Mercury Store in Gowanus and the inaugural company at New American Ensemble. He is an O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, a Rattlestick Theater Incubator semi-finalist, and a two-time winner of the 59E59 Theaters SpaceLab grant. He recently completed a two-year Artistic Fellowship with Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company and is a resident playwright with No.11 Productions in NYC. MFA Juilliard. @zacharywdesmond

is a director, producer, and playwright based in New York. Her play Boys' Club (No Girls Aloud) was named a Finalist for the 2025 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. The Brooklyn Rail has described her work as "goofy and rigorous but never self-serious." Olivia has worked with large theater institutions, smaller ensembles, and freelance artists, including 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Atlantic Theater Company, Clubbed Thumb, Mercury Store, New Georges, Talking Band, The 24 Hour Plays, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and others. With Julia Greer, Olivia co-runs The Hearth, a theater company dedicated to supporting the work of emerging artists of underrepresented genders. She is very proud to have received a New York State Assembly Citation for her contributions to arts activism. @oliviafacini

is a playwright, fiction writer, and poet. Her play Goodnight Embryos was runner-up in the Todd McNerney Playwriting Contest, and Sweet Dreams was a semi-finalist for the National Playwrights Conference. She won the Southern Playwrights Competition for Blood of the Bear, and her work has been produced by The Void Theatre Company, Musical Theatre Artists of Pittsburgh, Bricolage Production Company, the Workshop Theater Company, and Barrington Stage Company, among others. She won The Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award in Prose, and her fiction appears in several journals. Her chapbook of poetry Attached to Earth was published by Finishing Line Press.

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