New Play Shines Spotlight on Plight of Stateless Individuals in the U.S.

Culture Lab LIC

In association with The Chocolate Factory Theater

Presents World Premiere of

Liberty Scrap by Christina Masciotti

Directed and Designed by T. Ryder Smith

March 5 - 29, 2026 | Culture Lab LIC

Publicity Images

Culture Lab LIC, in association with The Chocolate Factory Theater, is proud to present the world premiere of Liberty Scrap by internationally acclaimed playwright and Guggenheim fellow Christina Masciotti. Directed and designed by T. Ryder Smith, Liberty Scrap is a timely new play that shines a spotlight on the plight of stateless individuals in the U.S. whose numbers may dramatically increase should birthright citizenship be revoked. This strictly limited engagement will run March 5 – 29, 2026 at Culture Lab LIC (5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City) with an opening set for Sunday, March 8. Tickets, which start at $35, are currently on sale at www.libertyscrap.org. In Liberty Scrap, cash is tight and the goings are tough, but Katya has managed to eke out a living in a scrap metal warehouse by day, and as an artist by night fashioning sculptures out of debris. When her Uzbek father falls ill, she attempts to return home to care for him only to discover her dubious immigration status is much more dangerous than she ever imagined, threatening to keep her separated from her family forever.

The cast for Liberty Scrap includes Natia Dune as Katya and Patricia R. Floyd as Maxine. 

Masciotti’s most recent production, No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh, was declared a New York Times critic’s pick by Laura Collins-Hughes who called it “keen and unflashy… Masciotti is characteristically drawn here to the richness of language.” Prior to that, her play Raw Bacon from Poland, was called a “poignant new drama…beautifully tuned in to Ms. Masciotti’s singular wavelength,” by Ben Brantley who also declared it a New York Times Critic’s Pick. In earlier works, such as Vision Disturbance, Adult, and Social Security, Masciotti’s “distinctive gift for finding original poetry in everyday speech,” (New York Times), has often been highlighted alongside “language that is beautifully wrought… marvelously strange and humane,” (Time Out New York).“I began writing Liberty Scrap after a friend disclosed to me that she was stateless,” says Masciotti. “I was struck that I’d never heard the term before and stunned the more I learned about it. She connected me with the recently-formed organization United Stateless. They happened to be looking for volunteer writers at the time, primarily in the realm of journalism, but I volunteered to write an in-depth character study in the form of a play. A fictional story rooted in real experiences and guided by members of United Stateless who wanted to participate.

Masciotti adds, “I spent two years listening, researching, and writing the original first draft with United Stateless’ support and influence. We went on to workshop the show with members of United Stateless joining the cast and continuing to guide development. The resulting play, set in a scrap metal warehouse in Queens, features a self-taught waste artist who transforms rusty pieces of castoff metal into meticulously lifelike sculptures of insects, wild birds, and sea creatures. That central action is one that runs through all of my work: elevating what’s typically disregarded or overlooked to challenge misperceptions.”

Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough, Executive Director of United Stateless affirmed, “United Stateless was part of the creative process from the very beginning of Liberty Scrap. Grounded in the real stories of stateless people and developed through sustained collaboration with our community, the play reflects both the harm of legal invisibility and the resilience it takes to transform trauma into reconstruction, creativity, and collective care, inviting audiences to encounter statelessness as lived reality rather than abstraction.”

Tess Howsam, Artistic Director of Culture Lab LIC shared, “When I first met Christina in 2025 and learned about Liberty Scrap, I immediately knew the work was not only a compelling addition to Culture Lab LIC’s 2026 season but also deeply aligned with Culture Lab LIC’s values and community. The project is both timely and deeply connected to the roots of our space and the Long Island City community, making it meaningful to share with our audiences here and beyond.”

T. Ryder Smith, Director and Designer, asserted, “What’s exceptional about Christina’s plays is the way the language and situations are simultaneously realistic and dream-like. On the immediate level they deal with crises in working-class lives, often those of immigrants, but they also play on a level close to that of myth, or fable, a kind of slow hallucination which lifts the characters and audience out of time. The challenge is to find ways to play both of those levels simultaneously and Culture Lab is a perfect venue for it in that it’s a blank canvas of a room where we can invite the audience to build the various locales of the play with us, and not only follow the central character of Katya as she deals with the brutal absurdities of the immigration system, but also her more abstract attempts to fight back, as immigrants are forced to do, against the historical forces that would deny them an identity and a voice and the opportunities to live the lives they choose. And just as Katya finds strength in a community of people also deemed stateless, we hope the audience will find some sense of solidarity in the very fact of us being in a room together with the play at this cultural moment, and a production shot through with bursts of music and dance and video, ending on a note of defiant hope, despite all.”

Brian Rogers, Co-Founder and Artistic Executive Director of The Chocolate Factory said, “I first encountered Christina Masciotti’s work when I attended the premiere of Vision Disturbance in 2010; and I have followed her work closely ever since. Christina’s work is precise, surprising, and possessed of a vernacular that is indisputably her own. I am thrilled to be a part of this new premiere in my home neighborhood.”

Sixteen performances of Liberty Scrap will take place March 5 – 29, 2026 at Culture Lab LIC, which is located at 5-25 46th Ave in Long Island City. Critics are welcome as of Friday, March 6 for an opening on Sunday, March 8. The performance schedule is Thursday through Saturday at 7: 00 PM and Sundays at 5pm. Tickets, which start at $35, are currently on sale at https://events.humanitix.com/liberty-scrap. 

The anticipated running time is 120 minutes with no intermission.  Please visit www.libertyscrap.org for more information.

About the Artists

Christina Masciotti (Playwright) is an American playwright and recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her plays have been performed to critical acclaim all over the world. Her productions, No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh (2023) and Raw Bacon from Poland (2017) were New York Times Critic’s Picks and her most recent Canadian premiere was described as “a left-field, deeply human acknowledgement of half-forgotten outsiders punted to the margins of society” (Times Colonist, 2024). Her earlier work, Social Security (2015) and Vision Disturbance (2010) were Time Out New York Critic’s Picks and named Top 10 Shows of their respective years. Her scripts have been selected for preservation in the Permanent Archives of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and selected monologues have been anthologized by Smith and Kraus' and Applause Theatre and Cinema’s Best Contemporary Monologues series. www.christinamasciotti.com

T. Ryder Smith (Director/Designer) is primarily known as an actor, based in NYC, who has appeared on Broadway (Oslo, War Horse, Equus), and Off-Broadway (world premieres by Richard Foreman, Sarah Ruhl, David Greenspan, Christina Masciotti), in regional theatre, on film and TV, and as a narrator of numerous audiobooks, winning a Drama Desk, an Obie, and an Audie award. He was a guest director for the Conservatory Company at the American Academy of Dramatic Art, directing and designing a dozen productions, including Pains of Youth, Pterodactyls, Fefu and Her Friends, and Shaw’s Quality Street, assistant directed at the Dorset Theatre Festival and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, co-directed Living in Exile at the New York Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival, and directed Cheri Magid’s The Gaba Girl at University of the South, Beckett’s Krapp's Last Tape at MCLA, and his own play Measure Back: a rehearsal for the end of war at Dixon Place, NYC.

About the Cast

Natia Dune (Katya) was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. At an early age she studied ballet at the Tbilisi State School of Ballet Art before transferring on scholarship to the Princess Grace Academy in Monaco. After graduating she moved to New York and was trained in acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. Her theater credits include Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Talk to Me Like the Rain, Uncle Vanya and Lord Byron’s Love Letter.

She has appeared in multiple films, such as On the Rocks (Dir by Sofia Coppola), A Walk Amongst the Tombstones (Dir by Scott Frank) as well as starring in the independent films Crooked Corner (Dir by James Savoca), Poughkeepsie is for Lovers (Dir by Kelley Van Dilla), The Other Madnesses (Dir by Jeremy Carr), where she received the Best Actress Award at the Studio City Festival in Los Angeles. Her television credits include The Americans, Law and Order, Mrs. Fletcher, and High Maintenance. She lives and works in New York City.

Patricia R. Floyd (Maxine) is an actor/director/writer proudly hailing from Detroit, MI. She is a two-time AUDELCO Award winner. She appeared in two episodes of the HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero and recurred as Judge Rochelle Desmond on Law and Order. Her  television appearances include: Jessica Jones, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Elementary, Deception, Blue Bloods, and Orange is the New Black. She has been in several films including Thirty Years to Life, Bikini Moon, The Incredible Jessica James, The Godfather of Harlem and The God Committee with Kelsey Grammer. Some of her favorite theatrical credits include The American Menu, A Raisin the Sun, The Raft of the Medusa and Munched. She is a veteran voice-over actress and audio book narrator. She is a three-time Golden Earphones recipient from Audiophile Magazine. Ms. Floyd has worked as a guest director/instructor at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the New York Film Academy and is a Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio.

About Culture Lab LIC

Culture Lab LIC presents local, national, and international art of all genres, while supporting New York artists and other nonprofits by providing space, resources and a sense of community. 

Culture Lab LIC is accessible via the G, E  to Court Square and the 7 to Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave. It’s located at 5-25 46^th Ave in Long Island City. Please enter building through the parking lot.

Funding Credits

Liberty Scrap is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and, in part, with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the generous contributions of individual donors.Liberty Scrap has been developed with support from Culture Lab LIC, Waterwell Theater, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Mercury Store, and United Stateless.

Press Contact: John Wyszniewski, Everyman Agency: john@everymanagency.com, 347-416-3881.

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