New York Stories, featuring the premiere of five short plays by Paul Manuel Kane, will open at the Roy Arias Theaters on January 22, 2009. The production is directed by best-selling political author and biographer Paul Alexander. The evening focuses on five specific instances of tested friendships, changing relationships and lives in flux.
The plays are:
The Sharpshooters - Free-spirited Joe is idolized by his younger brother. Their relationship is threatened and then secured by the discovery of a strength neither knew they had.
Beautiful Dreamers - People attempting to "escape" meet in strange green places of a metropolis.
Duet on the Patio - Two middle-aged women meet on the patio of a summer resort. They think they are there for a vacation, but soon discover the more sensual reasons for their meeting.
Duet in a Dimly Lit Room-Two women try to out-do one another in a surprising dance of death.
On a Merry-Go-Round - A tale of the indignities committed upon a vulnerable spinster by a shameless young man, a shrieking bird of prey.
The cast features Samuel Adams, Amber Godfrey, Dolores Kenan, Daniela Mastropietro, Susan Romanoff and Craig Lee Thomas. All are members of Actors' Equity Association.
Judy Gordon (Executive Producer) produced the Tony Award-winning musical Barnum on Broadway starring Jim Dale and Glenn Close with music by Cy Coleman, and the film The Lonely Guy starring Steve Martin. She also produced Christopher Durang's History of the American Film (Broadway), Kander and Ebb's 2 by 5 and Brel (Donmar Warehouse, London).
Paul Manuel Kane is the author of several produced plays: Florabel (Playbox Theater), Red Win Cara Cara (Altered Stages), The Daughter, Bombing of Chicago, We're Not Angels (House of Drama), Jenny (Lake Front Players), Duet in the Park (Fire Rose Theater) and Stosh (American Globe Theater). Staged readings of his works include Clara's Dilemma (13th Street Repertory) and The Little Town of…, Harriet, The Face Behind the Face, Stosh, Duet on the Patio, Twas the Noon Before Christmas (NYC Playwrights Org.) His numerous awards include the International Playwriting Award (1st prize) – Vancouver, Samuel French Merit Award, Writers Digest Award. Upcoming Fall 2009 productions: Sam's Song, World, Hear This! A native of Greenwich Village and a member of the Dramatists Guild and NYC Playwrights Org., Kane received his BA from the University of Wisconsin and his MA from New York University. He is a retired NYC high school English teacher and a Veteran of the United States Army.
Paul Alexander is the author of the plays Strangers in the Land of Canaan and Edge, which he directed. Developed at The Actors Studio, Edge, the critically-acclaimed one-woman show about Sylvia Plath, opened Off Broadway in New York, where Angela Torn received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, and has gone on to be performed 400 times in four countries. He is the director of the 2004 British revival of Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden and Brothers in Arms, a documentary film about John Kerry and Vietnam (First Run Features). He is at work on Good Night, Doroth Kilgallen, an original screenplay for John Travis at Twentieth Century Fox. The editor of the essay collection Ariel Ascending: Writing About Sylvia Plath, Alexander is the author of Rough Magic, a biography of Plath; Boulevard of Broken Dreams, the best-selling biography of James Dean; Death and Disaster, a book about the death and estate of Andy Warhol; Salinger, a biography of J.D. Salinger; Man of the People: The Life of John McCain; The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry's presidential campaign; and Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove. He is a graduate of The Writers' Workshop at The University of Iowa and a member of PEN American Center, The Authors Guild, the Screenwriters Guild, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio. In the fall of 2002, he was a Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. He lives in New York City.
New York Stories will be presented from January 22 through February 1, 2009. The performance schedule is as follows: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Sundays at 7PM. Tickets, priced $15, are available by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 or by visiting SmartTix.com. The Roy Arias Theaters is located at 300 West 43rd Street at Eighth Avenue.
