Comfort Pet

An Irons in the Fire Project

November 17, 2018 @ 7:00pm
The Creative Center at MTC

Written by Jay Alan Zimmerman
Directed by Evan T. Cummings

This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Captioning will be provided.
Feel free to contact us with any questions on accessibility.

Seating is extremely limited.
E-mail info@faultlinetheatre.org to reserve a seat

Synopsis

Comfort Pet is a comedy of ability that features a largely disabled cast performing a variety of roles within the spectrum of their disability category.

With the narrative separated by metatheatrical personal monologues, we follow the story of an airline attendant who seems to encounter deaf, blind, wheeled, old, and dog-carrying people everywhere she goes. As she struggles to manage (and flee) them, a series of bizarre events inflict disabilities on her own body, forcing her to truly experience living in their shoes... and wheelchairs.

Comfort Pet puts disability center stage to let us laugh about how life... is so f***ed up!

Performed By

Christine Bruno
Willie C. Carpenter
Dickie Hearts
Nikka Graff Lanzarone
Blake Stadnik
Annie Watkins
Lanie Zera

Stage Manager: Ria T. DiLullo
Associate Director: Jennifer Curfman
Assistant Stage Manager: Lizzy Jarrett

Rehearsal ASL Interpretation: Patrick Coble, Stephanie Feyne, Lisa Dennett, Maria Cardoza, Michael Anthony, and Frankie Short
Rehearsal ASL Interpreters provided by Miriam Rochford at All Hands In Motion.

Playwright

Jay Alan Zimmerman’s recent works include Jay Alan Zimmerman’s Incredibly Deaf Musical at the Duke on 42nd Street (NYMF Next Link), Smokin! at The Duplex,  A Royal Soap Opera at The Clurman (Prospect Theatre Lab), the multimedia installation Window Music at the New York Academy of Medicine sponsored by the Hearing Health Foundation, the visual music installation and performance series Art/Song at Chashama Times Square, and the robotic and video installation Roboticus during a residency with the LEMUR musical robots. Dance scores include the aerial works  I’m Killing Myself, Safer, and The Sunlight Zone as well as many works with choreographer Evann Siebens, including The Last Leaf (Best Score, First Run Festival) and Do Not Call It Fixity (Special Music Award, Grand Prix International Video Danse Festival and selected North American film in the MOMA retrospective, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris.)  In addition, Jay created and directed the award-winning short film musicals Pawns and Love Burns, composed over 30 children’s songs commissioned by Mondo Music and Warner/Chappell, and scored the plays Booth and Our Brutus, which were both Fringe First Award winners at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and had New York and London productions.

Director

Evan T. Cummings is a New York City-based director who specializes in new work and international collaboration. Evan is a company member and director with The Private Theatre. For them he directed a reading of Blue Heart Afternoon by Nigel Gearing and the first New York public reading of A. Rey Pamatmat’s noir play The Shotgun Message. He is developing multiple projects with the company including a workshopped piece exploring community life in American small towns and a company-devised theatrical anthology exploring sex and relationships in our current cloud-connected world. Evan’s recent directing includes Park Plays at Queens Theatre, where he also directed the first public reading of Andrew Rosendorf’s play Paper Cut, and the World Premiere of Ken Kaissar’s The Man Stanley at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Also with Mr. Kaissar, Evan directed a reading of The Wives Friends at The Lark, and Nude Study, in a reading that featured Tony winners Reed Birney and Nikki M. James. Evan has assistant-directed at theatres throughout the U.S. including Pittsburgh CLO and Dallas Theatre Center. He was an SDCF Observer in 2015, serving as Assistant Director to Davis McCallum on the World Premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s Clarkston. Since 2010, Evan’s company the World Wide Lab has developed international director-driven work. With the company of 11 directors from around the globe, Evan co-directed his own original play Imperium, in Rome, Italy in association with the Kairos Italy Theatre and co-created the site-specific festival In Transit in Taipei, Taiwan. His involvement with the World Wide Lab has also included work developed at Lincoln Center, in residence at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and on the island of Syros in Greece. Future festivals with the company are being planned for Berlin and Tel Aviv. Evan was the 2006 Directing Fellow at Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY. He later directed novelist Don DeLillo’s play Love-Lies-Bleeding for Geva’s Hornet’s Nest series. He is a graduate of the drama school at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.

Poster Art by Sean Devare