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Mention My Beauty
ABOUT
Written and Performed by Leslie Ayvazian
Directed by David Warren
IN THE BRICKS 2026 FESTIVAL
May 5, 2026—June 14, 2026
Runtime: approximately 75 minutes, no intermission.
PLAN YOUR FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
View the full festival calendar here! If you’d like to take in the festival in the span of one day, we’ve set up a Marathon Saturday lineup with snack breaks and a mid-day meal break. You can also do a Sunday Half-Marathon and see a matinee and evening performance with a meal break in between. All performances are between 60–90 minutes with no intermission.
RADICAL ACCESS & THEATRE INFO
MENTION MY BEAUTY will be presented in NYTW’s Fourth Street Theatre at 83 E 4th Street, in repertory with SARDINES (a comedy about death).
The theatre is accessed by climbing eight steps from street level. Unfortunately, the building is not equipped with an elevator. Seating in this theatre is general admission unless you book a reserved seat. Large print programs will be available. Learn more about accessing our buildings and contact us with questions at LetsChat@nytw.org.
Theatre isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity—a vital part of our culture that should be available to all. So, we’re doing our part to remove obstacles that keep people from coming through our doors. At the end of the day, we want to make one thing clear: YOU BELONG HERE!
FOR THE CULTURE
Our Community Engagement team is curating an incredible lineup of parties, talkbacks and special events to bring audiences closer to the work. We invite you to check out the For the Culture lineup and join us in community!
ACCLAIM
“An autobiographical work about a woman who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s largely ignoring the turbulence of that time and ended up inadvertently embodying that turbulence. The piece is poignant, hilarious, odd.”
–Richard Greenberg
“Leslie Ayvazian is a charismatic actress and an accomplished playwright. I saw her memoir play Mention My Beauty and I had a great time. I found it funny as well as moving.”
–Christopher Durang, playwright
“An absolute original. It’s funny, it’s touching, it’s shattering, it’s uplifting, it’s a kaleidoscopic vision of a radically exciting life, written by a beautiful writer and excitingly performed by that beautiful writer. It grips me, start to finish and I think it would grip anybody who sees it.”
–Austin Pendleton, actor/director
“Everyone should see Mention My Beauty. It will make your life better!”
–Patricia Clarkson, actress
“A thoroughly engaging evening in the theater—wry, provocative and utterly transparent.”
–Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, actors
“Leslie Ayvazian’s Mention My Beauty is witty, sexy and well observed. Although a solo piece, she is never alone on stage. Ancestral voices filled with pain, passion and duty keep us company as she shares this engaging decades-long journey.”
–John Augustine, playwright
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Writer & Performer
Leslie Ayvazian is the author of 8 full-length plays and seven one-act plays, published variously by Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. Some have been included in annual anthologies of best plays. Nine Armenians won the John Gassner/Outer Critics Circle Award for best new American play, The Roger L. Stevens Award, and second place for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Rosemary and I received an honorable mention from the Susan Smith Blackburn jury. Leslie has received commissions from the Manhattan Theatre Club, Windancer Productions and South Coast Repertory Theatre. Make Me, directed by Christian Parker, was produced in New York by the Atlantic Theatre Company. High Dive was produced at the Long Wharf Theatre and the Manhattan Class Company, directed by David Warren, and went on to be produced in Poland and Slovakia. Her short film Every Three Minutes starring Olympia Dukakis was produced by Showtime and won a Telly Award. Her play Deaf Day was produced as a short film in Syria by Rana Kaz Kaz, and was included in the 2012 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. Her latest short film, The Favor, stars Olympia Dukakis, Margaret Colin, and John Pankow. A theatrical version of The Favor ran at City Theatre in 2013 and also had a production in The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Spring festival of one-act plays. A current play Out of the City has received workshops at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Southampton Writers’ Conference. It will receive its first production in 2014 at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her one-act play Above it All recently toured the Miami FL school system. Her latest play, 100 Aprils, recently received a workshop at the Atlantic Theatre in NYC. Leslie is an Adjunct Professor of dramaturgy at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts. Her credits as an actress include a recurring role on Law & Order – SVU and roles on Broadway in Lost in Yonkers and Naked Girl on the Apian Way.
NEWS
Bios are provided by each artist. Where opinions are expressed, they represent individual views. We ask everyone attending an event to read and embrace the NYTW Core Values. If you’d like to tell us about your experience at NYTW, email us at LetsChat@nytw.org.
