Coming Soon: The Wedge Horse

“WHEN SOMEONE DIES YOU THINK A LOT OF COULDA, SHOULDA…”

The Wedge Horse is coming soon to IATI Theater.

What We're Seeing: Barrier Islands

We can’t wait to catch the world premiere of our friend Lizzie Vieh’s latest play Barrier Islands. Lizzie’s plays have been workshopped all over the city, but this production will be her full-length New York City debut. One of our favorite new playwrights, in one of our favorite venues? How could you possibly go wrong. Check it out!

Nov. 28 – Dec. 5, 2015
The Wild Project
195 E. 3rd St.
New York, NY 10009

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PLAY

An isolated island community, a two-lane highway, an all-night gas station, and a crime scene on a deserted beach. The residents of Ivy Dunes are used to disappearing acts—with each hurricane, a little more of their narrow barrier island washes away. But when a young woman’s disappearance leads to a gruesome discovery, the police descend, the ocean encroaches, and the residents of this barrier island community struggle to find their footing in the ever-shifting landscape.

Receiving its world premiere at The Wild Project in New York City this November, Barrier Islands is a new play about the tangled intersections between men and women; sex and violence; desire and repulsion.

CAST:

• Aleisha Force*
• Russel Jonas

PRODUCTION TEAM:

• A new play by Lizzie Vieh
• Directed by Zi Alikhan
• Producer - Donny Repsher
• Lighting - Jessica Creager
• Costumes - David Moyer
• Sound - Erato A. Kremmyda
• Scenic Design – Andrew Diaz

*Indicates a member of Actors’ Equity.

What We're Seeing: Untameable

Our very own John Racioppo is starring in an immersive theatre diamond heist play called Untameable co-produced by The Unsoft War and Highly Impractical Theatre. To preemptively answer, your question: yes, that’s as cool as it sounds. Think Sleep No More meets Ocean’s 11. The show only runs one more week, so hurry out to Brooklyn to check this one out!

Nov. 4 – Nov. 22, 2015
St Paul’s Hall
334 S 5th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PLAY

"There are things more important than love / Name them / Diamonds"

There is a diamond as big as your fist, as heavy as your heart, and touring through Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s time to steal it. Or it’s time to keep it safe.

Pitting diamond heist against museum intrigue, Untameable follows the story of two young women: one trying to repatriate an old jewel and the other trying to keep old nemeses at bay. The audience is free to wander the space and pick which side of the story to follow.Untameable offers an immersive romp between a criminal den and a modern museum, where the audience, like the characters, must decide between love and diamonds, honesty and victory.  Untameable is an investigation into what we will do to achieve our magnum opus and what gets lost in the winning.

Cast

• Vicki Rodriguez
• John Racciopo
• Denise Yolén
• Irene Rivera
• J Moliere
• Annie-Sage Whitehurst
• Stacy Salvette
• Nancy Ellen Reinstein
• Nikita Chaudhry
• Ian F. Stewart
• Jake Pino

Production Team:

• A new play by Daria Miyeko Marinelli
• Directed by Elana McKelahan
• Production Stage Management – Elizabeth Radabaugh
• Set - Jonathan Cottle
• Lighting - Megan Estes & Megan Lang
• Costumes - Matsy Stinson
• Sound & Original Music - AM Zick
• Props - Andrew Murdock

What We're Seeing: The Bachelors

Happy opening to our friends in Lesser America whose production The Bachelors hits the stage for the first time this evening! We can’t wait to catch this show next week.

Nov. 5 – Nov. 29, 2015
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Place
New York, NY 10014

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PLAY

Inside a house, a house in a series of houses on a fraternity row, a house in which DVDs serve as coasters and drool stains the sofa, live three roommates far past their college days. A thousand girlfriends come and gone, a thousand drinks downed, a thousand parties crashed–every night the same, until now. There’s a party tonight, but it is not the blaring music that makes sleep impossible. Tonight, these bachelors will understand what their choices have really gotten them.

CAST:

• Blake DeLong*
• Quincy Dunn-Baker*
• Babak Tafti*

PRODUCTION TEAM:

• A new play by Caroline V. McGraw
• Directed by Portia Krieger
• Assistant Direction Dani Turner
• Production Stage Management Laura Kim*
• Set Carolyn Mraz
• Lighting Masha Tsimring
• Costumes Sydney Maresca
• Sound Elisheba Ittoop
• Props Jessica Jalal
• Movement Choreography Robert Westley

*Indicates a member of Actors’ Equity.

What We're Seeing: The Elephant In Every Room I Enter

We can’t wait to see Gardiner Comfort and Kel Haney‘s unbelievable solo show The Elephant In Every Room I Enter. The New York Theatre Review has said:

“Comfort is a charming, versatile performer: He can dance, shift personas, inhabit multiple characters with dialects and physicality, and somehow exude a vulnerability wrapped in confidence…. a talented performer with TS sharing honest, touching stories.” 

Most of Fault Line Theatre is going on Monday. Get your tickets and we’ll see you there!

October 15 – October 31, 2015
La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street (btwn Bowery & 2nd Ave)
New York, NY 10003

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PLAY

April 2014. Gardiner Comfort travels to Washington, DC to attend the Tourette Syndrome Association National Conference. During the conference, Comfort encounters others (mostly children) with his neurological disorder and, for the first time in his life, it actually felt normal to have Tourette’s. Using an erratic and energetic performance style (a nod to Tourette’s itself), and evocative details of his week in DC, Comfort shares his life as an actor with Tourette Syndrome. THE ELEPHANT IN EVERY ROOM I ENTER is a strikingly intimate solo show created by Comfort and his frequent collaborator, Kel Haney (YOU’RE NOT TOUGH — HERE, Dixon Place). After a successful at run at The Club last season, Gardiner & Kel return to LaMaMa for the official world premiere.

CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM:

• created by Gardiner Comfort & Kel Haney
• featuring Gardiner Comfort
• directed by Kel Haney

What We're Seeing: Judy

We love it when worlds collide! Our friends at Page 73 Productions are producing the world premier of our former classmate Max Posner. Judy is Max’s first full New York production after several developmental works with companies around the city and recently completing a two-year Fellowship at Juilliard. The show runs through most of September, so there’s still plenty of time to make sure you get tickets.

September 1 – 26, 2015
The New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher Street, Ste. 1E
New York, NY 10014

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PLAY

It’s the winter of 2040, and the world has changed – but maybe not by much. Timothy’s wife has just left him, and he isn’t taking it well. His sisters, Tara and Kris, are trying to help him cope while wrestling with their own lives and loves. The three of them seem to spend a lot of time in their basements, and the kids are starting to ask questions. This subterranean comedy explores how one family hangs on when technology fails and communication breaks down.

CAST:

• Frenie Acoba
• Birgit Huppuch
• Luka Kain
• Deirdre O’Connell
• Marcel Spears
• Danny Wolohan

PRODUCTION TEAM:

• Written by Max Posner
• Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll
• Sets - Arnulfo Maldonado
• Costumes - Jessica Pabst
• Lights - Eric Southern
• Sound - Leah Gelpe
• Props - Ashley Flowers
• Production Stage Manager - Megan Schwarz Dickert

Young (and Mighty)

Some exciting news came across our (metaphorical) desk today:

Backstage has named Fault Line Theatre 1 of 8 Young (and Mighty) New York Theater Companies!

“…the company is undoubtably on the rise, and known for its socially relevant and provocative works.”

We’re thrilled to share this with our friends in Fiasco Theater and the six other companies producing exciting work in the city.

Thank you to all of our friends, families and collaborators over the past 4 years for being a part of this crazy adventure with us.

At The Table set build

Want to know what goes into transforming a blackbox theatre into the living room of country house for our production of At The Table? In the span of only a few days, our crazy talented and dedicated technical crew totally reconfigured the Main Stage space at HERE Arts Center. Thank God we had a camera rolling to capture the hard work. Check it out below.

Oh by the way, only ONE WEEK LEFT to catch this show! Get your tickets now!

Video by Good Baby Films

At The Table in TIMEOUT New York

Check out this great review of At The Table today in TIMEOUT New York. We're glad you enjoyed the show!

Cross talk abounds in Michael Perlman’s At the Table. Four college friends, now in their early thirties—a black woman and three white men, one of whom is gay—gather for a weekend in the country, with new friends and lovers in tow. House rules dictate that they can’t use their phones (except for the straight guy whose family owns the place), so they joke and play games and debate social issues. In their often amusing banter, lubed with booze and pot, the play delves cannily and suggestively into key questions of our cultural moment: Who gets to speak, and for whom but ourselves are we speaking?

Though their retreat may be brief, these folks have brought plenty of baggage, which Perlman (From White Plains) unpacks with care. Staged in the round, in long scenes that zigzag with overlapping dialogue, At the Table has an unbuttoned ’70s-film naturalism. The audience is so close to the action that the play almost feels immersive, and the eight actors are commendably believable as they talk over and around each other. (Craig Wesley Divino, Ben Mehl and the remarkable Rachel Christopher make especially strong impressions.) The result is an absorbing Chekhovian issue play, in which points of privilege are gently pressed, and the political and personal are revealed to be in a fraught long-term relationship.—Adam Feldman

HERE (Off-Off Broadway). Written and directed by Michael Perlman. With ensemble cast. Running time: 2hrs 25mins. One intermission.

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At The Table in Out Magazine

We're thrilled that Out Magazine enjoyed At The Table. Check out their review today!

At The Table: Let The Conversation Begin

By David Clarke

Michael Perlman's latest play is a discussion about America — and the struggle to find one's identity — with no clear-cut answers.

To paraphrase a once popular show on MTV: This is a fictional story of a group friends vacationing in a house to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. At the Table— which combines equal parts Same Time, Next Year (Bernard Slade), God of Carnage (Yasmina Reza), and Disgraced (Ayad Akhtar) — is Michael Perlman’s comedic and thought-provoking new play unflinchingly examines the ways in which we currently talk about gender, sex, sexuality, and race in contemporary America.

Following the success of his first play From White Plains, Perlman knew he wanted to do another play. He wanted to do one that focused on the way Americans talk about sexuality. However, as he began to craft this piece around his cast, it took on the broader scope of American discourse. The diverse cast of men and women in their twenties and thirties fumble their way through polite and impolite conversation, attempting to understand each other and the implications of their relationships. “We are finally in some ways confronting the experiment that America is, which is this idea of a melting pot—this idea of a place for all cultures to live and interact, have their own voice, and have freedom,” Perlman explains. That’s ultimately the driving force behind the play.

Naturally, with its roots in the conversations around homosexuality in the United States, there’s an interesting gay character named Elliott. “What I love about Elliott is that he fits into this world as just another person, and yet his sexual identity is something that’s very important to him,” Perlman tells Out. In the play, however, he seems to have a grasp on what he is looking for in a partner; then, as the play evolves he begins to appear clueless about his own desires.

Clockwise (from foreground head of table ) - Craig Wesley Divino, Aaron Rossini, Rachel Christopher, Jude Sandy, Claire Karpen, Jimmy King in ‘At the Table.’ Photo by Jacob J. Goldberg.

“I know that is certainly true of myself, and I think that is true of a lot of people,” Perlman says. “I’m curious about my generation of the LGBT community because we grew up at a time when it was difficult to come out, and it was not part of the mainstream. But, we have kind of become adults at a time when it is easier to talk about and be more present.” Naturally, this confuses the stability of LGBT identity and shifts the playing field. Acceptance by the majority gives the community access to the rights that were fought for and opens the doors to more opportunities. “I find that there is a lot of confusion as to whether our identity is something that is mainstream or not,” says Perlman.

With meaningful and timely dialogue about important topics in American cultural identity bubbling up throughout the play, perhaps the most exciting and rewarding aspect of Perlman’s At the Table is that he never once offers an answer to the questions his script raises. The play, as he says, “is about the futility of having a conversation, and yet how necessary it is that it comes down to conversation.” At the Table invites us all to be present, share the table, and begin those hard conversations. It also asks that we stick them out, even if they are frustrating, so we can better understand who we all are and better appreciate our rich tapestry of differing human experience.

At the Table, through July 19 at Here theater, NYC. Tickets and information at Here.org.

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