A young girl asks her father, where do plastic surgeons come from? What follows is a fantastical romp through pre-civilized Europe, via the medieval art and science of nosemaking. Our hero is Gavin, a young orphan rescued from a dismal existence in the Ivanhoe Workhouse for Criminally Impoverished Boys when he is apprenticed with the local Nosemaker, eventually to become one of the finest surgeons in Vienna, cradle of quack medicine. Using innovative skin grafting techniques and cutting-edge alchemy, Gavin and his master seek only to do the Work of the Almighty by restoring small appendages lost to rat bites, dueling, and syphilis. But when they are unable to help a powerful and mutilaTed Knight recently returned from the crusades, they find their feet over the fire...literally. This final production in The Brick's inaugural Mainstage Season is hilarious, subversive, quasi-historical, and thoroughly debauched. . . a fated collaboration between two of New York's most innovative (and troubling) young talents.
Terrible Baby Theater Co. was created in 2009 to answer all the eternal questions regarding human existence, and to support the collaborative theatrical work of Nick Jones, Rachel Shukert, and Peter James Cook. Terrible Baby is committed to being better than other theater companies and attracting as much press attention as possible. In their own right, each of the primary artists have become known for elaborate sophisticated comedy with subversive and quasi-historical inclinations, rooted in the traditions of Charles Ludlam, Joe Orton, and Jim Henson. Terrible Baby's inaugural season includes dual productions of The Colonists and The Nosemaker's Apprentice, both at the Brick Theater, beginning in April.
Rachel Shukert is a playwright and author based in New York City. Her plays include The Worshipped, Johnny Applefucker, Bloody Mary, Sequins for Satan, The Blackstone Hotel, Foxhole, How To Make Good Pictures and Soiled Linens, and have been produced at Ars Nova, Ice Factory/Soho Think Tank at the Ohio, the Prelude Festival, the Williamstown Theater Festival, 365 Plays at the Public Theater, the Culture Project, the Ontological/Hysteric, the EVOLVE series at Galapagos, and the Omaha Lit Fest, among others. In 2003, she was the Playwright-in-Residence at e74 productions in Amsterdam, and her work was performed extensively throughout the Netherlands. As a performer, she has appeared with Richard Foreman's Ontological/Hysteric Theater, in New York and internationally; Les Freres Courbusier, the T.E.A.M., Salt Theater, e74, and with her own company, the Bushwick Hotel, which she founded in 2002 with the director Stephen Brackett. She is a regular contributor to Salon, and her work has appeared in Nerve, McSweeney's, Heeb, Nextbook, and Jewcy, and has been featured in the print anthologies 2033: The Future of Misbehavior (Chronicle Books), Best Sex Writing 2008 (ed. Rachel Kramer Bussell) and Best American Poetry (ed. Daniel Lehman.) Rachel is also the critically-acclaimed author of Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories (Villard) and currently at work on her second book, The Grand Tour, which will be released by HarperPerennial in 2009. She is also a two-year member of the storied Ars Nova Play Group. Rachel holds a B.F.A. from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska.
Nick Jones is a playwright, director, puppet designer, and performer. His most recent show, Jollyship the Whiz-Bang at Ars Nova, a puppet rock musical about pirates, received rave reviews in virtually all major New York publications, including the New Yorker and the NY Times (Top 10 shows of 2008, Gothamist; Best Puppet Show, L Magazine). Other plays produced include: Little Building (Galapagos) Canada's Mid-Riff (chashama), Rockberry: The Last One Man Show (The Brick), Straight Up Vampire: A History of Vampires in Colonial Pennsylvania as Performed to the Music of Paula Abdul (Philly Fringe Festival), and Wooden Box (Flux Factory). He has also presented work at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art's TBA Festival, the Dublin Fringe Festival, The Bangkok Fringe Festival, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, The Public, and the Edinburgh Fringe. He has been an artist-in-residence at Galapagos Art Space, the Bowery Poetry Club, Flux Factory, the O'Neil Puppetry Conference, at the Hoontown Puppet Festival in Bangkok, and as part of the Ars Nova Play Group. Other accolades include: Nomination for Best Show at the Dublin Fringe Festival, Best Music Video (with Jollyship the Whiz-Bang) from the Coney Island Film Festival, and a 2007 grant from the Jim Henson Foundation. As a puppeteer and puppet designer, he has produced work for the Castillo theater (Day of Reckoning), The All Stars Project (Robin Hood), the 2004 Dream Parade in Taiwan, and with the artist Laurie Simmons on her film Music of Regret (starring Meryl Streep). Jones also serves as a theater/cabaret curator for the upcoming Extremely Hungary Hungarian Cultural Festival, which is presenting works at Lincoln Center and around NYC. Nick Jones graduated in 2001 from Bard College. He was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska.
