Photo Flash: Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now

The New Stage Theatre Company, celebrating their 10th anniversary season, will present the World Premiere of Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now, conceived and directed by Ildiko Nemeth, written by Ildiko Nemeth, Colm O'Shea and Marie Glancy O'Shea, and choreographed by Julie Atlas Muz (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), with an original score by Jon Gilbert Leavitt.

Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now runs from December 21, 2011 to January 15, 2012 in a limited engagement at Theater for the New City, located at 155 First Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets in New York City. Previews began on December 21 for a December 28 opening. Performances are Wednesdays – Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm.

Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at http://www.SmartTix.com or by calling 212-868-4444. The running time is 1 hour and 10 minutes, with no intermission.

For more information about the play visit http://www.NewStageTheatre.org.

In a decadent society, everything is entertainment. This is the world of Hypnotik. At the infamous Palace Theatre, a hypnotist promises psychic healing to volunteers. One by one he beckons his subjects to the stage where under his entrancement they reveal their most abject and malignant drives. But when the self-described "spectacle of raw shame" fails to deliver a group catharsis, the game of shame gives way to horror, as the Seer stares into a whirlwind poised to swallow more than just the Palace and its host. Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now is loosely based on the bizarre and intriguing life of the Viennese occultist Eric Jan Hanussen, a celebrity in the Berlin theater scene during the rise of Hitler's Third Reich.

The cast includes Dana Boll, Adam Boncz, Kaylin Lee Clinton (NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee), Markus Hirnigel, Denice Kondik, Sarah Lemp (The Hallway Trilogy at Rattlestick, The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side and Happy in the Poorhouse with The Amoralists), Laurence Martin, Brandon Olson, Fabiyan Pemble-Belkin, Peter B. Schmitz (Scenes From an Execution and No End of Blame with PTP/NYC), Jeanne lauren Smith, Chris Tanner, Paula Wilson and Kat Yew.

The New Stage Theatre Company (NSTC) was founded in 2002 by Ildiko Nemeth with the aim of enriching the contemporary theatrical landscape by bringing artists together and developing new works that embrace their diverse cultural and artistic traditions. Their passion is to create powerful and compelling theatre that is not merely consumed, but that challenges and enriches audiences long after the performance ends. The company is further dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging and immigrant artists to establish themselves in New York. They premiere existing plays by foreign playwrights in NYC and create original plays through collaboration within the company. NSTC has built a name for itself over the past nine years as a "daring downtown experimental group" (Back Stage) that achieves vital theatrical expression by presenting works that transcend the limitations of language, custom and theatrical convention.

Ildiko Nemeth is the Artistic Director of The New Stage Theatre Company (NSTC) and has served as the director on all of the company's productions and as the creator of all of their premieres. Growing up under communism in Budapest, Hungary informed her view of art: that it should be confrontational, challenge accepted values, and stimulate individual and social change. With her company in Hungary, Nemeth garnered numerous prizes, such as the Guardian Critics' Choice Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Best Performance Award at the International Gombrowicz Festival in Poland. A veteran of Eastern European experimental theatre, her desire to bring this form of theatrical expression to the U.S. drove her to move to New York City in 1998. She graduated with a Master's Degree from the Actor's Studio Drama School in 2002 and started NSTC that same year.

NSTC productions conceived and directed by Nemeth have been nominated for NY Innovative Theatre Awards in seven categories, including Outstanding Performance Art Production for Some Historic/Some Hysteric. She has cultivated a distinctive style that is particular to her choice of plays, often inspired by historical events or people, and her aesthetic framework. Nemeth and NSTC specialize in movement-based performances with inventive choreography, gorgeous visual design, elaborate costuming and striking visual images that powerfully convey the subconscious dimensions of the action. 

Additional members of the creative team include NY Innovative Theatre Award nominee Jessica Sofia Mitrani (Costume Design), Kate Jansyn Thaw and Marguerite Lochard (Costume Construction), Ildiko Nemeth (Set Design) and Federico Restrepo (Lighting Design).

Performances take place from December 21 – January 15 (opens Dec 28) at Theater for the New City (155 First Ave) in NYC. For more info about the company and the play visit http://www.NewStageTheatre.org

Photo Flash: Lee Wexler/Images For Innovation

Cast members of Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now

Chris Tanner

Sarah Lemp and Peter B. Schmitz

Peter B. Schmitz and Kaylin Lee Clinton

Peter B. Schmitz and cast