The Umbrella Plays is written by and features Stephanie Janssen of the teacup company (which produces).

Daniel Talbott directs the piece, made up of "seven snapshot-sized plays" that "interweave a handful of diverse, urban lives around a most common object and unlikely commonality, an umbrella," according to production notes. "Lovers are sought and lost and found, ambitions are thwarted and re-realized, and inclement weather is battled in these glimpses of the shared longing for shelter, in whatever form it can be found. The inevitable truth holds, that into every life a little rain must fall, but in the world of these plays, sometimes an umbrella is not just an umbrella."

Janssen is a 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award Best Actress nominee for Beirut Rocks. She is joined by Mark Setlock (Fully Committed, Outer Critics Circle Award), Jan Leslie Harding (Sincerity Forever, Obie Award), Natalie Gold (Howard Katz), Mycah Hogan, Haynes Thigpen (Revenger's Tragedy at Red Bull, Hamlet at McCarter) and Molly Ward (Three Sisters at A.R.T., The Shape of Metal at 59E59).

Talbott directed Rules of the Universe, for which he won the 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award as Best Director). He's artistic director of the acclaimed theatre company Rising Phoenix Repertory.

Brooklyn-based, the teacup company is dedicated to developing new work "and uncovering the big life in life's small things." This is the teacup company's inaugural FringeNYC production. The Umbrella Plays run at walkerspace, 46 Walker Street, on the following dates: Aug. 8 at 5 PM, Aug. 9 at noon, Aug. 15 at 7:30 PM, Aug. 16 at 4:45 PM and Aug. 18 at 9:30 PM.

Tickets are $15. For more information visit www.FringeNYC.org.