Six acclaimed playwrights take on the theme of recession. Featuring The Bats.
November 20 - December 30 at The Flea
More info HERE.
The Flea Theater has commissioned six playwrights to create ten-minute plays that explore the impact of the current economic crisis on the younger generation. Presented under the title THE GREAT RECESSION, the evening features new work by Thomas Bradshaw, Sheila Callaghan, Erin Courtney, Will Eno, Itamar Moses and Adam Rapp -- all writers recently nurtured by The Flea. The plays will be performed by The Bats, the resident acting company of The Flea. Previews begin November 20th, with opening night slated for December 10th.
The lineup for THE GREAT RECESSION is:
NEW YORK LIVING by Thomas Bradshaw. Directed by Ethan McSweeny.
A biting satire of young thespians dealing with lost jobs, expensive apartments and sexual frustration -- all while trying to win a Tony Award.
RECESS by Sheila Callaghan. Directed by Kip Fagan.
In the aftermath of an almost apocalyptic recession, a group of 11 twenty-something New Yorkers sharing a studio go to extreme lengths to survive.
SEVERED by Erin Courtney. Directed by Davis McCallum.
An unlikely romance springs up between a cynical artist and a straightforward businessman, while a cross-section of young New Yorkers are interviewed for a documentary on the recession.
UNUM by Will Eno. Directed by Jim Simpson.
The play about the dollar. From the board room of a diaper factory to the lunch room of a government currency printing facility, it is all about the power of $1.
F**KED by Itamar Moses. Directed by Michelle Tattenbaum.
The offer of free trip creates havoc for a new couple, forcing them to ask: when are you making love and when are you just being screwed?
CLASSIC KITCHEN TIMER written and directed by Adam Rapp.
In this contemporary Grand Guignol tale, a recently laid off meat-cutter is offered a most unusual new job.
Performed by The Bats, the production features sets by John McDermott, lighting by Jeanette Yew, costumes by Becky Lasky and Jessica Pabst, sound by Nathaniel Putnam, and fight direction by Alexander Sovronsky.
THE GREAT RECESSION runs November 20 - December 30. Schedule varies. The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the ACE, NRQW, 6, JMZ and 1 subway lines. Tickets are $25 and are available by calling 212-352-3101 or online at www.theflea.org.
BIOS:
According to The New York Times, playwright Thomas Bradshaw’s work is "likely to leave you speechless." A professor of playwriting at Medgar Evers College, Bradshaw has been named one of the top 10 playwrights to watch by Time Out New York and Best Provocative Playwright in 2007 by The Village Voice. His plays include The Bereaved, Dawn, Southern Promises, Purity, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed. He is currently working on commissions from Soho Rep (where he was a 2008-2009 Streslin Fellow) and The Goodman Theater.
Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Woolly Mammoth, and Rattlestick, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a MacDowell Residency, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the Whiting Award. Her full-length plays include Scab; Crawl Fade to White; Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake); Dead City; Kate Crackernuts; That Pretty Pretty or, The Rape Play; and Fever Dream. Sheila is a resident artist at HERE, a member of the Obie-winning collective 13P, and a resident of New Dramatists. Currently, she is a writer on the Showtime series The United States of Tara.
Erin Courtney’s plays have been produced or developed by The Flea (Kaspar Hauser and Mother’s Couch), The Public Theater (Demon Baby), The Actors Theater of Louisville (Owls), The Vineyard (Alice The Magnet) and others. She is currently writing a new play, Black Cat Lost, that has been commissioned by Soho Rep. She has been a resident at the MacDowell colony, a recipient of a NYSCA grant and a MAP Fund grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Her play Demon Baby is included in the anthology “New Downtown Now” edited by Mac Wellman and Young Jean Lee, published by University of Minnesota Press. She is a member of the Obie-winning collective 13P, as well as the co-founder of the Brooklyn Writer’s Space.
Will Eno garnered international attention with Thom Pain (based on nothing), which played to acclaim in London, Edinburgh and New York and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times hailed Eno as "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation." Eno's other plays include Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations; Tragedy: a tragedy; The Flu Season; Kid Blanc; King: a problem play; and an adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt. In 2007, he was awarded the National Arts Club's Kesselring Honor.
Itamar Moses is the author of Love/Stories (Or But You Will Get Used To It), Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjacket, Back Back Back and Completeness, Reality! (a musical with Gaby Alter), and Fortress of Solitude (a musical with Michael Friedman and Daniel Aukin. He has received new play commissions from The McCarter Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma Theater, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Lincoln Center. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC Playwrights Coalition, Naked Angels Writers Group, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect.
Adam Rapp is a novelist, filmmaker, playwright and director. In 2006, he was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his play Red Light Winter. His other plays include Bingo with the Indians, Kindness, American Sligo, Nocturne, Blackbird, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Finer Noble Gases, Essential Self Defense, Trueblinka, and Faster. As a director, his production of Blackbird received two Drama Desk nominations. Red Light Winter won the Joseph Jefferson Award in Chicago and a Lucille Lortel Nomination for Best New Play and two Obie Awards in NYC. Finer Noble Gases at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival received a Fringe First Award. His films include Winter Passing and Blackbird. His newest play, The Metal Children, opens at The Vineyard in February 2010.
The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented nearly 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the premieres of Anne Nelson’s The Guys, five plays by A.R. Gurney (Post Mortem, O Jerusalem, Screenplay, Mrs. Farnsworth and A Light Lunch), Mac Wellman’s Cellophane and Two September, Roger Rosenblatt's Ashley Montana Goes Ashore..., and the current hit The Oldsmobiles, Elizabeth Swados’ JABU and Kaspar Hauser, Karen Finley's Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman, Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat, Julian Sheppard’s Los Angeles, Adam Rapp’s Bingo with the Indians, Will Eno’s Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations and Dawn by Thomas Bradshaw.