Rising Phoenix Rep Presents THE UPSTART As 5th Cino Night Play, 2/13

Following the sold out performances and overflow crowds at its first five Cino Nights presentations (of Gary Sunshine's BEST SEX EVER, Mando Alvarado's (O)N THE 5:31, Courtney Baron's HERE I LIE, Florencia Lozano's BUSTED, and Kristen Palmer's THE STRAY DOG), Rising Phoenix Rep continues the series on February 13th at 7 p.m. with Emily DeVoti's THE UPSTART. The play features "a Brooklyn butcher, a young writer looking for a place of her own, and Brigid Hitler. Of Long Island." And asks, "How do we become who we are? A series of little, tiny choices."

The production will be directed by Taibi Magar (who returns after directing Mando Alvarado's Cino play in October 2010) and features Edward Carnevale (Street Boss), Julie Kline (Birthday/ RPR), and Anne O'Sullivan (Belle of Amherst/EST).

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 produced critically acclaimed and award winning productions 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 March 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 through March 2012. The remaining playwrights, in the order their plays will appear, are:

Emily DeVoti's THE UPSTART will premiere on February 13, 2011; directed by Taibi Magar and featuring Edward Carnevale, Julie Kline, and Anne O'Sullivan.

Lucy Thurber: February 27, 2011

Daniel Talbott: April 17, 2011

Jessica Dickey: May 22, 2011

Adam Szymkowicz: June 19, 2011

Laura Eason: July 17, 2011

Sheri Wilner: August 28, 2011

Daniel Reitz: September 18, 2011

Cusi Cram: October 2011

Crystal Skillman: October 23, 2011

Megan Mostyn-Brown: November 13, 2011

Charlotte Miller: December 11, 2011

Keith Reddin: January 2012

Dael Orlandersmith: February 2012

Jonathan Blitstein: March 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.

Mando Alvarado's (O)N THE 5:31 premiered on October 24, 2010, directed by Taibi Magar and featuring Jolly Abraham, Sarah Baskin, and Bernardo Cubria.

Courtney Baron's HERE I LIE premiered on November 7, 2010, directed by Daniel Talbott and featuring Denis Butkus and Samantha Soule.

Florencia Lozano's BUSTED premiered December 12, 2010, directed by Portia Krieger and featuring Maggie Bofill, Audrey Esparza, Nate Miller, Puy Navarro, Ana Reeder, and Jeanine Serralles.

Kristen Palmer's THE STRAY DOG premiered on January 23, 2011, directed by Julie Kline and featuring Stephen Brown, Chad Goodridge, Brian Miskell, Laura Ramadei, Jelena Stupljanin, and Haynes Thigpen.

Reservations will be available one week before the performance each month. Seating is extremely limited. For reservations please call 212-946-5198; for more information please visit www.RisingPhoenixRep.org.

Playwright Emily DeVoti's plays have been developed and presented in NYC by New Georges, Rattlestick Theater, New York Theater Workshop, ArsNova, Abingdon Theater, HotINK/NYU, Cherry Lane Theatre, Six Figures, Judith Shakespeare Company and Perry Street Theater, and supported by residencies with The Orchard Project and The MacDowell Colony. Her play MILK was produced Off-Broadway by New Georges in Spring 2010 and is published by Samuel French. Her play DIRT was recently workshopped by the National Theatre Studio, London, in collaboration with Max Stafford-Clark. She is a member of New Georges' Kitchen Cabinet and is a founder and the current Theater Editor of The Brooklyn Rail. She holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU/Tisch and an A.B. from Princeton University.

Taibi Magar (Director): The Dime Show (co-director, Women's Project & Productions), On the 5:31 (Rising Phoenix Rep), Hamlet, Inhale (The Gallery Players), The Wake of Jamey Foster, Kindertransport (NYU Tisch), W.A.C. Iraq (DUTF), Rum & Vodka (Faux Real), Orson's Shadow (Outrageous Fortune). As assistant, Joanna Settle's production of Othello (featuring music by Stew), Broadway's Exit The King, and multiple productions at The Alley Theatre. She has also developed work with NYU Goldberg Dramatic Writing Center, INTAR and LAByrinth theatre companies and was the Festival Coordinator for Suzan-Lori Parks 365Plays/365Days at The Public Theater. A graduate of University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Otterbein College and Lincoln Center Director's Lab. The 2008 Directing Fellow for The Public Theater Shakespeare Lab.

Founded in 1999 by Artistic Director Daniel Talbott, Rising Phoenix Repertory began by producing an ongoing reading series of new plays and has continued to add workshops, festivals, and highly praised productions of new plays. Recent productions include the acclaimed, sold-out Off-Broadway runs of Slipping, produced with Piece by Piece Productions and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Too Much Memory (also with Piece by Piece Productions) which transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop's Fourth Street Theatre after winning the FringeNYC award for Outstanding Play in 2008. Other recent productions include Ceremony, Afterclap, Birthday and Don't Pet the Zookeeper (Seventh Street Small Stage); 365 Days/365 Plays (Jimmy's No. 43 and The Public Theater); What Happened When (HERE Arts Center); Fall Forward (part of the Sitelines/River to River festival produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council); The Telling Trilogy (including The Ride, 2006 NYIT Award Nominee - Outstanding Original Short Script- Crystal Skillman), Rules of the Universe (Winner, 2007 NYIT Awards for Outstanding Original Short Script - Daniel Reitz and Director - Daniel Talbott), and Three Sisters (both at the Seventh Street Small Stage); Gift by Mark Schultz and Ponies by Mike Batistick (FringeNYC).