Photo Flash: First Look at Amy Freed's RESTORATION COMEDY at The Flea

The Flea Theater presents the New York premiere of Restoration Comedy by Pultizer Prize-finalist Amy Freed. It will be directed by Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, a 2012 Drama Desk Award nominee for These Seven Sicknesses, and stars The Bats, the resident Acting Company at The Flea. The production opened last night, December 10, and BroadwayWorld has a first look at the show in the photos below!

When virtuous Amanda Loveless learns that her rakish dead husband is very much alive, it's time to stop mourning and start plotting. With the help of the gallant Worthy, she disguises herself as a lascivious new mistress to tempt her husband back into her bed. As she triumphantly claims her man, she begins to question whether her marriage is the only true source of happiness. Wicked wit, irresistible intrigue and fabulous fashion combine through a dizzying kaleidoscope of Restoration characters, all chasing the joys of love.

Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar is creating a modern-day Restoration experience with this production. The play will begin with a baroque musicale in the lobby while guests sip on unique holiday cocktails created by Macao Trading Company. The show's choreography is set to music by the Scissor Sisters. Intermission will feature a burlesque act with hors d'oeuvres from Macao. To end the evening guests will be able to join in a post show dance party and enjoy more libations to aid in the merrymaking.

Restoration Comedy is a radical combination of two plays - Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift and John Vanbrugh's The Relapse. Cibber's Love's Last Shift was 1696's biggest hit. Vanbrugh so despised the play that he wrote a sequel to undo everything he found inauthentic, creating The Relapse – which became the rival sensation of the season. The combination of these plays– itself an homage to the Restoration fad of sublimating existing sources – brings us smack into the middle of a thoroughly modern marriage debate: is it a legal union, or a stitching of souls?

This production will feature The Bats: Michael Axelrod, Jaspal Binning, Naomi Bland, Brantley Brice, Emily Brown, Allison Buck, Alex Coelho, Whitney Conkling, Matthew Cox, Greg Engbrecht, Eloise Eonnet, Kelechi Ezie, James Fouhey, Justin Garascia, Rosa Gilmore, Cleo Gray, Kerry Ipema, Finn Kilgore, Chase Kinney, Alex Mandell, Anthony Martinez, Jennifer McCormick, Bonnie Milligan, Zac Moon, Seth Moore, Erik Olson, Ivano Pulito, Alexander Seife, Stephen Stout, Liz Tancredi, Jennifer Tsay, and Mari Yamamoto. The design team includes Will Taylor (Choreographer), Julia Noulin-Merat (Scenic Designer), Daniel B. Chapman (Lighting Designer), Loren Shaw (Costume Designer), Jill BC DuBoff and Jeremy Bloom (Sound Designers), and Rowan Doyle (Props Designer).

Ed Sylvanus Iskandar is a 2012 Drama Desk Award nominee for his direction of Sean Graney's These Seven Sicknesses (NY premiere) at The Flea (also a New York Times Critics' Pick). He is Founding Artistic Director of the groundbreaking NYC theatre collective Exit, Pursued By a Bear (EPBB), where he directed These Seven Sicknesses, Jason Williamson's Lesser Mercies and Arok of Java, King Lear starring Billy Porter and Jeff Whitty's The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler starring Whitty and Porter. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a Drama League Directing Fellow, a two-time Resident Director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and the recipient of the Robert M. Golden Medal for distinguished achievement in the creative arts and the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for work involving social issues. Ed has taught at Stanford (BA Modern Thought & Literature) and Carnegie Mellon (MFA Directing). Upcoming: World premiere of Gabriel Jason Dean's Bacha Bazi (Broadway option, Davenport Theatrical). In the 2012-13 season: NY premieres of Jason Williamson's All Good Angels (EPBB, recipient of EST/Sloan Foundation Grant), Roland Schimmelpfennig's The Golden Dragon (The Play Company), Ismail Khalidi's Tennis in Nablus (The Culture Project), and the Asian premiere of David Ives' Venus in Fur (Singapore Repertory Theatre).

Amy Freed is the author of Restoration Comedy, The Beard of Avon, Freedomland, Safe in Hell, Claustrophilia, The Psychic Life of Savages, You, Nero and, most recently, The Monster Builder. Her work has been produced at South Coast Repertory Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, Yale Rep, The Wilma Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Playwright's Horizons, Woolly Mammoth, Arena Stage and other theaters around the country. She is an Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University and a current Playwright-in-Residence at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Freed is currently completing work on a script about the American social experiment known as the Oneida Community. She's also working on commissions for the Arena Stage and Berkeley Rep.

The Bats are the resident Acting Company members of The Flea Theater. Each year over a thousand actors audition for a place in this unique company. The Bats perform in extended runs of challenging classic and new plays. The Bats have recently appeared in World Premieres by A.R. Gurney, Will Eno, Adam Rapp, Beau Willimon, Mac Wellman, Elizabeth Swados, Thomas Bradshaw, Itamar Moses, Sheila Callaghan, Julian Sheppard, Ken Urban, Tommy Smith, Jonathan Reynolds, Trista Baldwin, Laurel Haines, Qui Nguyen and Sean Graney.

The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the premieres of Anne Nelson's The Guys, seven plays by A.R. Gurney (O Jerusalem, Screenplay, Mrs. Farnsworth, Post Mortem, A Light Lunch, Office Hours and Heresy), Cellophane and Two September by Mac Wellman, Ashley Montana Goes Ashore... and The Oldsmobiles by Roger Rosenblatt; JABU and Kaspar Hauser by Elizabeth Swados; Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman by Karen Finley, Bingo with the Indians by Adam Rapp, Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations by Will Eno, Dawn and Job by Thomas Bradshaw, Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to it) Itamar Moses, The Great Recession, Girls in Trouble by Jonathan Reynolds, Parents' Evening by Bathsheba Doran, Looking at Christmas by Steven Banks, the Drama Desk nominated She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen, the Drama Desk nominated These Seven Sicknesses by Sean Graney and I Hate Fucking Mexicans by Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio.

Restoration Comedy runs now through December 30, 2012. The performance schedule varies. The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the A/C/E, N/R/Q, 6, J/M/Z and 1 subway lines. Tickets are $40 - $45 and can be purchased online at www.theflea.org or by calling 212-352-3101. NOTE: This production contains profanity and partial nudity.

Photo Credit: Aaron Zebrook