Photo Flash: Mission Drift, Part Of The Ice Factory Fest

Artistic Director Robert Lyons proudly presents the 17th annual Ice Factory summer festival of new work. Ice Factory 2010 opens July 7th, presenting six New York premieres in six weeks, and wraps up August 14th. Performances take place Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7pm at The Ohio Theatre, located at 66 Wooster Street between Spring & Broome Streets in Soho, NY. For more information visit http://www.SohoThinkTank.org.

The Ohio Theatre, a pillar of New York's downtown theatre scene for 29 years, was one of Soho's pioneering performance spaces and is now one of the last remaining. On May 17th of this year, The Obie Awards honored The Ohio Theatre with a special citation, acknowledging its outstanding contribution to the New York theatre scene. As reported, The Ohio Theatre's historic 29 year era will come to an end on August 31, 2010, when it closes its doors for good. The festival's final play, Nostradomus Predicts The Death Of Soho, written and directed by Robert Lyons, will be the last ever production at the venerable downtown venue.

Tickets for Ice Factory 2010 are $15 for adults and $10 for students/seniors and are available via SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or http://www.SmartTix.com.

"The summer festival with the hippest downtown cred...Unabashedly intellectual." - TimeOut NY

"New York's #1 Summer Theatre Festival" - New York Magazine

"STT's Ice Factory festival has a fine record for presenting intellectually challenging and artistically daring fare." - The New Yorker

"New York's gold standard in summer theatre festivals." - Gothamist

In the Ice Factory festival, Soho Think Tank presents works by emerging and established downtown companies, as well as exceptional national and international groups. Ice Factory prides itself on maintaining extraordinary aesthetic diversity along with an unequaled standard for intelligent, imaginative theater. The festival offers companies, including the Foundry, Elevator Repair Service, Les Frères Corbusier, Jane Comfort, New Georges, Pig Iron, the Rude Mechanicals and Big Time Action Theatre, a prime forum in which to develop their work. Previous Ice Factory shows have gone on to Off-Broadway, the Joyce, PS 122, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Walker Art Center, et al.

Soho Think Tank strengthens, nurtures and promotes an aesthetically and culturally diverse community of independent theatre artists and theatre companies by producing, presenting and programming new work at the Ohio Theatre in Soho, NY.

ICE FACTORY 2010 - 17TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

July 7 - 10
Staying Afloat - Written and directed by Lenora Champagne.

Sometime in the near future, two women and a polar bear find themselves trapped on a melting ice floe and strive to co-exist in a world of shrinking options. With birth, death, songs and movement. Developed with early support from Voice & Vision, New Georges and Dixon Place.

Champagne is a two-time NYFA fellow, a three-time NEA fellow, a Richard Rodgers Award recipient and a New Dramatist alumni. Her plays and performance works have been produced and presented in New York City, around the U.S., and in Europe and Australia.

July 14 - 17
Wanderlust: A History Of Walking - Adapted and directed by Matthew Earnest, from the book by Rebecca Solnit.

The knee joint of Lucy, a three million year-old hominid, sparks this dance-theater investigation into the most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, a subject that wanders readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory and heartbreak. Developed with an NEA Artistic Excellence grant, Wanderlust premiered in May 2010 at the Cleveland Public Theatre.

Matthew Earnest's work has been seen across the US, Europe and in Africa. He was the founding Artistic Director of Deep Ellum Ensemble and is currently an associate artist at Germany's English Theater Berlin.

July 21 - 24
Hater - Freely adapted and directed by Samuel Buggeln, from Moliere's The Misanthrope. Featuring Merritt Wever (Showtime's Nurse Jackie), Noah Weisberg (Broadway's Enron, Legally Blonde and South Pacific), Maria Christina Oliveras (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Zoe Winters (The Importance of Being Earnest at Paper Mill Playhouse) and Colby Chambers (Dog Eats God). Produced by Bug Company.

Lust. Betrayal. Air kisses. What happens when the Hater hates himself for loving? A speed-punk score with kick-ass dance. A mise en scene for the glamorously debauched. An amphetamine fueled, post-post simulacra of the French classic. A comedy of manners for the very rude.

Samuel Buggeln creates work downtown and in regional theatre. Downtown works include the Drama-Desk nominated Cressida Among the Greeks (Ohio Theatre), the multi-award-winning Bedbugs!!! (NYMF) and Best of Fest Go-Go Kitty, Go! (FringeNYC). Regional work includes Portland Stage, Capital Rep, Mason Street Warehouse (MI) and Ithaca's Kitchen Theatre.

July 28 - 31
Nurses In New England - Produced by Half Straddle, written and directed by Tina Satter, with music by Chris Giarmo.

Female head of surgery Dr. Shepherd has a broKen Down pick-up, a booze cruise fling that just re-surfaced and a nursing staff with attitude. Featuring soul-searing songs, cryptic medical-speak and the occasional Coors Light. Hearts are buried deep here. A hospital show re-configured as a live musical dramedy Half Straddle-style.

Committed to a celebration of the feminine voice, the queer voice and the joy of performing, Half Straddle have shown short pieces and works-in-progress at Dixon Place and Little Theatre, and staged two full-length shows: The Knockout Blow (HERE Arts Center) and Family (Ontological-Hysteric), which was named one of the "Top 10 Shows of 2009" by TimeOut NY.

August 4 - 7
Mission Drift - Produced by the TEAM, directed by Rachel Chavkin, created by the ensemble, with music by Heather Christian.

A pioneering journey west and east across the USA in search of an unbiased portrait of American Capitalism, told through cowboy ballet, piano yowls and people with bank accounts. The western frontier: from Roy Rodgers to Siegfried & Roy. Created in the blazing fever of a Las Vegas June, with early development support from Almeida Theatre (London).

The TEAM is a collaborative ensemble creating work that dissects and celebrates the experience of living in America today. Three-time winners of the Edinburgh Fringe First Award, a TimeOut NY Top-Ten pick in 2007 and Portugal's Publico Top-Ten pick in 2009. The TEAM has performed at The Public Theater, Walker Art Center and Barbican Centre. mission DRIFT will premiere at PS122 next season.

August 11 - 14
Nostradomus Predicts The Death Of Soho - Produced by Soho Think Tank, written and directed by Robert Lyons.

A burning taxicab. A blind troubadour. A new roommate. Is this just the end of the world? Or the beginning of something much worse? A minor lapse of courage triggers a breakdown of epic proportions as a young woman struggles with the realities (and unrealities) of New York City. With songs.

The final play of Lyons's Downtown trilogy: Doorman's Double Duty ("a gem" - The New York Times) and last year's Red HairEd Thomas ("a sweetly fractured fairy tale" - The New York Times). Lyons is the Artistic Director of Soho Think Tank/Ohio Theatre. This will be the final production at The Ohio Theatre.

On August 14, The Ohio Theatre will host the "Last Chance Dance," the final blowout dance party at the current space. The party will immediately follow the last performance of Nostradomus Predicts The Death Of Soho, running from 9pm until you drop! Featuring an open bar and the legendary DJ Silky. Tickets are $100 for the final performance and post-show party. This is a special benefit for Ohio Interrupted, next season's post-Wooster Street continuation of Ohio Theatre programming.

Photo credit: Peter Dressel