Gone Missing
October 9 - November 2 at The Belt Theatre

"Best Alternative to Reality TV" -- Time Out

The Civilians, one of Downtown’s most acclaimed new theater companies, adds a new wrinkle to the reality show idea with their latest creation, Gone Missing. Both documentary and musical cabaret, Gone Missing uses real life to take a close look at what’s not there anymore. Created by the company based on interviews with real people, the piece is directed by Steven Cosson with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman and additional text by Peter Morris. Previews begin October 9, with opening night scheduled for October 16.

Gone Missing uses actual stories of lost and found things to tread the line between fact and fiction as it finds the extraordinary in the everyday. Most of the stories follow the thread of a lost thing. Some of the objects are mundane things somehow invested with great importance--a ring, an Agnes B. scarf, a sock doll named "Sniffle." Other losses are more unexpected like a sudden inability to remember words, or a husband’s head left in the sidewalk garbage. One section of the show follows unusual "finders," like a retired NYPD cop with a lifetime of morbidly amusing stories or a psychic who’s asked to find things from a drowned corpse to a runaway kitten.

Original songs by Michael Friedman intertwine the texts, charting a musical landscape of loss. And tying the show together are excerpts from a radio interview with Dr. Palinurus, a European immigrant, intellectual, and author of Losers Weepers: A Cultural History of Nostalgia. Dr. Palinurus weaves together the Platonic Ideal, the Bermuda Triangle, and the testes of the eel to make an oddly compelling thesis about the mysteries of lost things.

Gone Missing is performed by six actors who play over 30 characters, each one based on an actual person. The actors are Damian Baldet, Trey Lyford, Jennifer R. Morris, Alison Weller and Maria Dizzia. It features sets by Takeshi Kata, costumes by Sarah Beers, lights by Thomas Dunn and sound by Ken Travis.

Founded by Artistic Director Steven Cosson in 2001, The Civilians is a multidisciplinary association of artists that creates original theater. The company is interested in the territory between art and reality. It develops projects through investigation into real people's lives and the events that shape them. After the success of the company’s first show Canard, Canard, Goose?, Time Out New York named The Civilians one of 25 up-and-comers of New York City theater saying, "As the latest creators of documentary theater, the downtown troupe The Civilians are giving Moisés Kaufman, Anna Deavere Smith et al a musicalized run for their money." Future productions include The Ladies by Anne Washburn and Paris Commune, by Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman.

Gone Missing runs October 9 - November 2, Thursday - Sunday at 8:00pm. Tickets are $25. The Belt Theater is located at 336 West 37th Street (between 8th & 9th Aves). For information call 212.613.0033 or visit thecivilians.org. For reservations call 212-868-4444 or visit SmartTix.com.