Brooke Berman's CASUAL ENCOUNTERS Plays at Rising Phoenix Rep, 4/22

Following the sold out performances and overflow crowds for its first year and a half of Cino Nights presentations (including new plays by Gary Sunshine, Mando Alvarado, Courtney Baron, Florencia Lozano,Kristen Palmer, Emily DeVoti, Lucy Thurber, Jessica Dickey, Adam Szymkowicz, Laura Eason, Daniel Reitz, Megan Mostyn-Brown, Dael Orlandersmith, Keith Reddin, Crystal Skillman, and Charlotte Miller), Rising Phoenix Rep continues the series on April 22nd at 7 p.m. with Casual Encounters by Brooke Berman.

In the play, Jamie and Austin, best friends since college, open their laptops like Pandora's box and peer into the seductive world of no-strings-attached sex. But is any encounter ever *really* casual? Casual Encounters is directed by Josh Hechtand features Aaron Michael Davies, Harris Doran, Sean Dugan, Shannon Esper, Maggie Lacey, and Jesse Pennington.

The show runs Sunday, April 22nd at 7 PM and features Aaron Michael Davies, Harris Doran, Sean Dugan, Shannon Esper, Maggie Lacey, and Jesse Pennington. Located at the Seventh Street Small Stage, 43 East Seventh Street (6 to Astor Place, R/W to 8th Street, F to 2nd Ave). Admission is free; space is extremely limited. Reservations are strongly encouraged and can be made by calling 212-946-5198. For more information please visit www.RisingPhoenixRep.org.

Inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino-one of the original birthplaces of Off-Off-Broadway theatre and early home to such writers as Doric Wilson, Robert Patrick, John Guare, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, and William M. Hoffman-New York Innovative Theater Award winning company RisingPhoenixRep has commissioned nineteen playwrights to write new, full-length plays for the Seventh Street Small Stage, the intimate back room space at Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village, where the company has mounted critically acclaimed and award winning productions of new plays for the past six years.

RisingPhoenixRep artistic director DanielTalbott described the series as a place to tap into the raw, inspired, inventive, and pioneering work of the Caffe Cino, where the love of theatre and new plays was joined with a scrappy, do-it-yourself work ethic. All shows will be rehearsed for a week and then fully mounted and produced, warts and all, for one night only with free admission.

CinoNights are currently scheduled through June 2012 and will celebrate the spirit of indie theatre as a home for new plays and theatre artists as well as hopefully honor what has been said of the Caffe Cino: "the first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism." The plays will be fully produced for one night only on a more or less monthly basis. The remaining two playwrights, whose plays will be presented in June, are Daniel Talbott (June 10th) and Cusi Cram (June 17th).

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