Following the sold out performances and overflow crowds at its first eight Cino Nights presentations (of new plays by Gary Sunshine, Mando Alvarado, Courtney Baron, Florencia Lozano, Kristen Palmer, Emily DeVoti, Lucy Thurber, and Jessica Dickey) Rising Phoenix Rep continues the series on June 19th at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. with CLOWN BAR by Adam Szymkowicz. Synopsis: Long ago, Happy left the Clown Bar and the organized clown crime world to work for the good guys. Now his junkie brother Timmy has been murdered, and Happy returns to his old life to ask a few questions. Can he go home again without getting sucked into the seedy clown underbelly of vice and violence? And will he survive the gun-toting clowns who used to be his friends? Or Blinky, the lady clown he left behind?
The production will be directed by Kip Fagan and features lyrics by Adam Szymkowicz and Adam Overett, and music by Adam Overett. The cast features Alex Anfanger, Brett Aresco, Stephen Bel Davies, Sam Breslin Wright, Jamie Effros, Jessy Hodges, Beth Hoyt, Jessica Pohly, Dominic Spillane, and Stephen Stout.
Inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino-one of the original birthplaces of Off-Off-Broadway theatre and early home to such writers as Doric Wilson, Robert Patrick, John Guare, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, and William M. Hoffman-New York Innovative Theater Award winning company Rising Phoenix Rep has commissioned twenty playwrights to write new, full-length plays for the Seventh
Street Small Stage, the intimate back room space at Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village, where the company has mounted critically acclaimed and award winning productions of new plays for the past five years.
Rising Phoenix Rep artistic director Daniel Talbott described the series as a place to tap into the raw, inspired, inventive, and pioneering work of the Caffe Cino, where the love of theatre and new work was joined with a scrappy, do-it-yourself work ethic. All shows will be rehearsed for a week and then fully mounted and produced, warts and all, for one night only with free admission.
Cino Nights are currently scheduled through May 2012 and will celebrate the spirit of indie theatre as a home for new plays and theatre artists as well as hopefully honor what has been said of the Caffe Cino: "the first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism." The plays will be fully produced for one night only on a more or less monthly basis. The remaining playwrights, in the order their plays will appear, are:
Adam Szymkowicz's CLOWN BAR will premiere on June 19, 2011; directed by Kip Fagan with lyrics by Adam Szymkowicz and Adam Overett, and music by Adam Overett. The cast features Alex Anfanger, Brett Aresco, Stephen Bel Davies, Sam Breslin Wright, Jamie Effros, Jessy Hodges, Beth Hoyt, Jessica Pohly, Dominic Spillane, and Stephen Stout.
Laura Eason: August 28, 2011
Daniel Reitz: September 25, 2011
Crystal Skillman: October 23, 2011
Cusi Cram: October 2011
Megan Mostyn-Brown: November 13, 2011
Charlotte Miller: December 11, 2011
Keith Reddin: January 2012
Dael Orlandersmith: February 2012
Jonathan Blitstein: March 2012
Daniel Talbott: April 2012
Melissa Ross: May 2012
The previous productions in the series were:
Gary Sunshine's BEST SEX EVER premiered on October 3, 2010. It was directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and featured Stephen Bel Davies, Cathy Curtin, Jimmy Davis, Mike Doyle and Jeffrey Nauman.
