EPIC Players Theatre, New York’s Premiere Neurodiverse Theater Company recently featured on Good Morning America and in The Hollywood Reporter, presents a concert presentation of 504: A New Musical on Sunday, August 3, 2025 at 5 p.m. at the Joe’s Pub at The Public. 504: The Musical, by Abbie Goldberg and Mason McDowell, is a fictionalized account of the 1977 San Francisco sit-in that led to civil rights for Disabled people. This ensemble piece focuses on the relationships between the protesters—including a protective mother and her Deaf son, loving but polarized brothers, a budding romance between a closeted protester and the lead community organizer, a Black Panther, and an aspiring artist. For 26 days the protestors fight through stigmatization, bomb threats, internalized ableism, and an unfair media, until they eventually triumph in D.C.—all set to a soulful score inspired by 1970s R&B and Pop.
The Neurodivergent and Disabled cast of artists includes Miranda Holliday, Meredith Aleigha Wells, Hunter Hollingsworth (Broadway: How to Dance in Ohio), Conor Tague (Broadway: How to Dance in Ohio), Alexander Reeves, Carly Hayes, Emy Ramos, Gianluca Cirafici, Jocelyn Elena Stout, Laisha Gonzalez, Nada Smith, Joel Chapman, and Sam Langshteyn. The show is directed by Travis Burbee and Music Directed by Mason McDowell, with Producing Director Aubrie Therrien and Operations Director, Talia Eapen. The performance is supported by EPIC Access Coordinator, Jamie Rose Hays.
Join us for a one night showcase of this groundbreaking new musical. Featuring fresh rewrites and new songs, enjoy this highly anticipated new work redefining who gets to tell the story of history—and how. This concert performance at Joe’s Pub, presented in partnership with EPIC Players, New York City’s premiere accessible and neuro-inclusive theatre company, is a one-night-only event showcasing a bold score and a powerful story of resistance, disability pride, and community.
To see more info on the musical and listen to some of the songs, check out the website below:
https://www.504themusical.com
TICKET INFORMATION: Joe’s Pub at the Public, 425 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10003. Tickets are $45, $25 for obstructed view seats, and can be purchased here. There is a 2 drink or 1 food item minimum, per person, during every show at Joe’s Pub. The show will be ASL interpreted and Deaf and Hard of Hearing audience members can use EPICASL to access 30% ASL seating.
This concert is made possible in part by the support of: The Brooklyn Arts Council, The New York State Council for the Arts, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Butler Foundation, and The NYC Cultural Development Fund.
BIOS:
Abbie Goldberg is a multidisciplinary artist from the mountains of rural Maine. They have an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from New York University and have been published by HowlRound, Autostraddle, Dame, Waif Magazine, Sinister Wisdom, AK Press, and Ben Yehuda Press. She is an alumnus of the Join for Justice Community Organizing Fellowship where she worked for disability rights, and the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative. Their work has been performed at Lincoln Center, Rattlestick Theater, Rockwood Music Hall, and as part of Adding Our Voices: The Jewish Feminist Songbook and Gender Inclusion Initiative. Abbie also enjoys doing props and sets, most recently for the audience choice award winning musical Stuck at The Chain Theatre, and The Restaurant of Many Names with Multicultural Sonic Evolution. She is also a cofounder of the Jewish drag troupe Turmohel with whom she performs under the name Chava GoodTime. They are passionate about using arts, creativity, joy, and spectacle as forces for social change.
Mason McDowell is an award-winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and an alumnus of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. As a composer, he self-produced his mini-musical The Adventures of Inspector Lockshire (Book, Music, and Lyrics), which was presented virtually through the BMI Workshop, and is now available online. He also co-wrote the mini-musical Possumneck with collaborator Julian Bliss, and has worked extensively as a dance composer, most recently for The Missing Piece, a concert at the Lambert Center For the Arts (Dec. 2021). As a songwriter, Mason has composed and self-produced a full-length album Pictures in My Mind (2016), and two EP’s, The McDowell Brothers (2011) and Looking Glass (2019), and has performed on many stages in the tri-state area; including Rockwood Music Hall, the Ithaca State Theatre, Two River Theatre, and Syracuse Stage. Mason currently lives in NYC, and is an alumni of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.
About the Company
EPIC Players (Empower, Perform, Include, Create), founded on August 25, 2016, is a nonprofit, neuro-diverse theatre company dedicated to creating professional performing arts opportunities and supportive social communities in the arts for Neurodivergent and Disabled artists. Via inclusive mainstage productions, musical cabarets, original showcases, skills-based classes and career resources, we hope to increase critical employment opportunities, pioneer increased inclusion in the arts, and break down social stigmas surrounding neuro-diverse communities.
For more information, visit https://www.epicplayersnyc.org/.