155 FIRST AVENUE Theatrical Bio-Play Runs Now thru 5/20

Theater for the New City's "155 First Avenue (The Epic Adventures of the Theater for the New Synzgy)" by Toby Armour, directed by George Ferencz, opens tonight, May 3 and runs through May 20, 2012, at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (at E. 10th Street).

Theater for the New City, founded in 1971, is now in its 25th year at First Avenue and East Tenth Street. That milestone is celebrated in Toby Armour's fable, "155 First Avenue (The Epic Adventures of the Theater for the New Synzgy)." This play with songs is a whimsical and mythic treatment of the Off-off broadway miracle that happened on a small but wonderful piece of the Lower East Side. Its stories are real but its characters are made up. With songs and incidental music by Peter Dizozza, it is directed by George Ferencz, who actually staged the very first play in TNC's First Avenue space.

TNC's succession of deliverances, which brought it to its present prominence, is the plot of this fable. Outsmarting evictions, garbage haulers' shakedowns, hooligans, floods and developers, a woman named Lily steers Theater for the New Synzgy through a sea of perils, buttressed by five ghosts: Molly Picon, Pieter Stuyvesant, Caroline Astor, Walt Whitman and her personal ghost, Jake the Peddler.

The play is largely set in the theater's basement, which is the creative foundation of present-day TNC, filled with a rehearsal space, a subterranean cabaret theater for small experimental works, and the vast collection of props and costumes that make the place go 'round. Theater for the New Synzgy, the mythic organization of this play, is in financial peril and faces the possible loss of its home. But a developer appears to save the day, offering a handsome price for the building's earth rights. His aim is to build the first underground mall in Manhattan. "Shopping will become the new underground theater," he proclaims. The ghosts, who are happy with the theater, oppose this and so the battle lines are drawn between art and commerce.

Playwright Toby Armour points out that the land TNC sits on was actually part of Pieter Stuyvesant's farm and this was part of the inspiration for the play. The space was the First Avenue Retail Market from 1938 to 1965 and this is the inspiration for the character of Jake the Peddler's ghost.

The cast features Jennifer Koller as Lily and Douglas Stone as Jake the Peddler. The other actors--who double as ghosts, the developer and the theater's staff--include John-Andrew Morrison, Anna Marie Sell, Chris Zorker, Jack Luceno and Dain Alexandra. Set design is by Mark Marcante, lighting design is by Alexander Bartenieff and costume design is by Sally Lesser.

Toby Armour's TNC productions include "Shaggy Dog Princess," "Flo and Max," Fanon's People," Sky Woman Falling," Voices from the Resplendent Island," "Waiting" and "Hear Us!" All but two went on to further productions in the U.S. and abroad. Many of her plays tell the story of a community, whether it be the workers who built Hoover Dam in the '30s, families of victims of street violence in New Haven, people in a small town on the border of Mexico in Arizona, a city recovering from a flood in upstate NY, or people struggling in a civil war in Sri Lanka. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Arts Council, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Arizona Arts Commission, and the Jerome Foundation. Her plays have been presented in NYC, LA, Boston, Denver, elsewhere in the U.S., as well as Scotland, Ireland and London. Her "Voices from the Black Canyon" was the winner of the Lewis National Playwriting Competition. A production of "Fanon's People," which debuted at TNC, won four Dramalog awards when produced at the Fountain Theater in LA. Her "Hear Us!" will be presented at the end of the month at the Melanie Rieger Conference in New Britain, CT. She is currently working on a play for the Fringe Theater of Key West, which will be presented in 2013. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Armour writes, "It was at TNC that my plays first came indoors. TNC has been a home ever since, for my plays and for my education in theater. The learning curve continues. I am very grateful."

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