Living Image Arts Presents CHARLES WINN SPEAKS 9/15-10/1

Living Image Arts presents CHARLES WINN SPEAKS written by C. S. HANSON and directed by Lynn M. Thomson

SEPTEMBER 15-OCTOBER 1 @ CHERRY LANE Studio Theatre
PREVIEWS SEPTEMBER 15 & 16
OPENING NIGHT SEPTEMBER 17

Set against the backdrop of the current financial crisis, CHARLES WINN SPEAKS by C.S. Hanson follows a lovesick stockbroker as he struggles to find ... and keep the woman of his dreams. Juggling the economy, love affairs and his pursuit of the American Dream might just turn out to be more than he can handle!

LIA first produced Charles Winn Speaks as a short play, in their 2009 One Act Festival, Americanize. Since then, the play has been in development and has emerged as a full-length play, which has become a defining work for playwright C.S. Hanson.

"Easily the most successful one-act is C.S. Hanson's Charles Winn Speaks, in which a successful Russian hedge-fund manager (the excellent Christopher Kipiniak) videotapes a response to the American girlfriend who just dumped him. It's an American dream gone wrong, the aggressive yet tender and appealing businessman left with everything but the girl, and it's blessed with some up-to-the-minute hedge-fund jokes milked to the max by Kipiniak." Backstage

Featuring Lindsay Gates* and Chris Kipiniak* (Metamorphoses with Second Stage; Kit Marlowe at The Public) with Scenic Design by Tijana Bjelak, Costume Design by Lisa Loen, Sound Design by Geoffrey Roecker, and Lighting Design by Heather Smaha.

The production, presented by Living Image Arts will play a three-week engagement at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre (38 Commerce Street between 7th Ave and Hudson Street), September 15-October 1; Wednesday through Saturday at 7pm and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets ($18/$15 students) may be purchased online at www.livingimagearts.org or by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200.

C.S. HANSON (Playwright) has had plays developed at LaMaMa (recent reading: Etruscan Lovers & Other Fools), Ensemble Studio Theatre, Theater for the New City, New Jersey Rep, The Barrow Group, and Naked Angels. Recent productions: Apologies to Vietnam (Metropolitan Playhouse), Falutin (3Graces), The Sabbatical (Little Theatre of Little Rock; Pittsburgh New Works), and Stalk Me, Baby (At Hand Theatre). Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman finalist for Extremes and for Falutin. Associate Artist, America-in-Play. Member, Dramatists Guild of America. Currently working on full-length drama: Dakota du Nord (Or, I Could Never Live Here). Actors Theatre of Louisville just recently announced the finalists for the 2011 Heideman Award. Out of 1,300 entries, C.S. Hanson's play The Art of the Interview is a finalist in the National Ten-Minute Play Contest.

Lynn M. Thomson (Director) is a dramaturg, director, teacher, and arts advocate. She has directed more than 100 productions and innumerable readings and workshops of new plays for theatres around the country. For the last twenty years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to the development and production of new American plays. As Associate Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Theatre Company, she created and administrated "Stages," a yearly new play festival. She inaugurated there many programs to support writers, including the "Mentor Project." For four years, she was Dramaturg at Circle Repertory Company. There, she worked with many contemporary playwrights and directors, including Craig Lucas, Joyce Carol Oates, ReGina Taylor, Paul Zindel, William Hoffman, Lanford Wilson, Han Ong, Darrah Cloud, Kia Corthron, Paula Vogel, Anne Bogart, Lynn Nottage, among many others. She has been Dramaturg on numerous productions in New York and regionally, including Rent (Off-Broadway and Broadway), Missing Persons at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Desdemona and many others at Circle Repertory Company. She is the founder and Artistic Director of America-in-Play, a dramaturg driven theatre (www.americaninplay.org). For the 2004-05 season, she was a director-in-residence at New Dramatists. She has been an artist-in-residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center since 2001, where she created America-in-Play.

LIVING IMAGE ARTS (LIA) has been produced plays since 2004 and is proud to be able to bring outstanding new voices in American Theater to New York's Off-Broadway. Over the past 7 years LIA has developed and produced 25 new plays for the New York stage and given life to over 50 more new theatrical works through development, laboratories, readings and workshops. We are proud of our high production value, thought-provoking presentation and innovative storytelling. LIA is changing the face of New York theatre by presenting provocative new plays that emerge from a supportive environment.

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