THE RUBBER ROOM Plays Roland Tec 2/9-20

ARTISTIC NEW DIRECTIONS- Artistic Co-Directors, Janice L. Goldberg & Kristine Niven proudly present THE 26th ANNIVERSARY SEASON OF CREATIVE EXCELLENCE with THE WORLD PREMIERE of "THE RUBBER ROOM" a new play by Gary Garrison
(Executive Director of the Dramatists Guild) and ROLAND TEC (Defiance, All The Rage, Hooking Up, We Pedal Uphill)

25 ACTORS
25 OPENING NIGHTS
5 DIRECTORS
1 PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER

A NEW GENRE OF PRESENTATION

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
FEBRUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 20

THEATRE 54 @ SHETLER STUDIOS

When Artistic New Directions' Artistic Co-Directors, Janice L. Goldberg and Kristine Niven, present the World Premiere of Gary Garrison (Executive Director of the Dramatists Guild) and Roland Tec's (Defiance, All The Rage, Hooking Up, We Pedal Uphill) "THE RUBBER ROOM" as their 26th Anniversary Season's second production, they will also be introducing the theatrical community to a new genre of presentation.

They have entitled this new genre WITHOUT A NET.

WITHOUT A NET simultaneously provides the actors and the audience with the universal suspense of the FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE.

An original play is written in which all characters in the story meet for the first time.

The experience of an initial meeting is then replicated on stage each evening as the actors meet their fellow actors for the first time, on stage, in character.

How is this achieved?

With several directors, the extraordinary cooperation of the Production Team and a miraculously organized Production Stage Manager.

The first playwrights accepting the challenge are Gary Garrison and Roland Tec, the award-winning authors of THE RUBBER ROOM.

Five directors have been given the script. They will each cast their five characters and begin the month of rehearsals.

At no time during this rehearsal period will the actors or directors of each separate cast work with each other or communicate on their process.

The Design Team (Scenery by YOON CHOI, Lighting by MARIE YOKOYAMA, Costumes by NICOLE MONTEMARANO) will produce the physical parameters for the separate rehearsals assuring that when each of the 25 casts meet each other for the first time in front of an audience they will be familiar with the landscape.

THE 25 OPENING NIGHTS

ARTISTIC NEW DIRECTIONS will then begin a series of 25 OPENING NIGHTS of the same play with 25 different casts.

For each performance, the Production Stage Manager will call one actor/character from each of the five companies. Each actor thus notified will arrive at the theatre pre-show and be kept isolated from the other actors.

Thus, when the actor steps on stage, and enters THE RUBBER ROOM, he/she will be meeting the other actors for the first time - as do the characters in the play.

The audience shares in the building excitement, tension and unpredictability as witness to what happens when strangers meet strangers under strange circumstances.

As Jim Morrison said, "People are strange when you're a stranger."

THE DIRECTORS

KATHLEEN BRANT
( Miss Lulu Bett, The Blue Carbuncle, Gift of the Magi, Desire in the Suburbs,
Danger of Strangers, The Bob Manus School of Acting, The Judgment of Paris,
The Sixth Commandment, Henry V, Son of Drakula )

Dan Dinero
( The Five Worst Foods, Family Comes First, Tranquil, Onions,
Fixing Frank, Lonely Planet, Brooklyn, Big River )

JANICE L. GOLDBERG
( Carl & Shelly Best Friends Forever, Flyovers, That Dorothy Parker,
Rose Colored Glass, The River Jordan Lamp )

MICHAEL ROCK
( Mummenschanz, TheatreSports, Spontaneous Broadway,
Musical Chairs, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College )

Matthew Shepard
( Wonderful Town, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Les Miserables )

THE PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER
SEYMOUR
( Stories With Piano, Songs of the Dragons Flying To Heaven,
The Shipment, Cirque Voila )

ABOUT THE RUBBER ROOMS

In the late 60's, the United Federation of Teachers, the Department of Education and the Mayor's Office of New York instituted Reassignment Centers where teachers accused of infractious behavior were sent to vegetate while their "cases" were being slowly adjudicated.

Almost immediately dubbed RUBBER ROOMS, these makeshift "classrooms" housed these errant teachers for years as they were forced to just sit at desks for months and months at a time, day after day during their formal teaching hours.

Prohibited from using cell phones, iphones or laptop computers hundreds of these men and women began to, in one man's words "rot".

They did however collect their full salaries, costing the taxpayers over $30,000,000 a year coupled with another annual $20,000,000 in lawyers fees, investigator fees and the salaries of the substitute teachers that were needed to replace the RUBBER ROOM attendants "temporarily".

What happened in these RUBBER ROOMS is the stuff from which great plays are forged.

Tensions built. Tempers flared. Opinions clashed. Boredom devoured brains. Depression arrested souls. Hearts broke. And the Press began to smell a Union rat.

The city finally shut down the ROOMS in April of 2010.

But not before billions of dollars were wasted and thousands of students were sacrificed on the Petri dish of bureaucracy.

Apparently the issue was TENURE.

No one ever mentioned EDUCATION. EVER.

ABOUT THE PLAY

THE RUBBER ROOM puts three infamous teachers in a new Reassignment Center and introduces a reporter in their midst.

They are each accused of a serious infraction about which each of them claims INNOCENCE.

The reporter is on a Reconnaissance Mission.

The new Security Guard already resents them.

The teachers are raw, short-tempered, wounded and caught up in a system that is beginning to eat its young.

THE RUBBER ROOM EXPLODES - JUST BEFORE THE GATHERING CAMERA CREWS START SHOOTING.

This is an incendiary play about a scorching subject that will present an audience with a cast thrown into the flames in a volcanic situation.

Luigi Pirandello would be proud of Artistic New Directions.

Not to mention Mike Leigh.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Gary Garrison'S plays include Storm on Storm (Finalist, Heideman Award, ATL, BostonTheatre Marathon, City Theatre - Miami, Artistic New Directions), Buddy (WORDBridge), Dump (The A-Train Plays, Neighborhood Playhouse), Gawk (StageWorks - Hudson, Directors Company) and The Sweep (Boston Playwrights). Author: Perfect Ten - Writing and Producing the Ten-Minute Play; The Playwrights Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama In Your Work and Out of Your Life.

ROLAND TEC'S film ALL THE RAGE is considered a hallmark of the Indie Queer Film Movement of the 1990s. His most recent film, WE PEDAL UPHILL was released in 2009. His stage plays have been widely produced. NYC productions include: BODILY FUNCTION (at The Culture Project), THE WRECK BEHIND US, YOU KISS ME RIGHT THIS MINUTE, GRATUITOUS NUDITY (co-written with John Yearley) and IF THERE'S A CURE FOR THIS, I DON'T WANT IT, I DON'T WANT IT (at Artistic New Directions' Eclectic Shorts). Roland is the Director of Membership and a longtime member of the Dramatists Guild of America. He is currently hard at work on KENNEDY V, a full-length play about Teddy Kennedy's formative years (1963-69) commissioned by Resonance Ensemble to run in rep with Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1.

ARTISTIC NEW DIRECTIONS

Artistic New Directions is a not-for-profit company that supports writers, actors and directors with their creative projects from inspiration through perspiration to production. Based in techniques of improvisation, AND supports the artist on his journey from the germinal idea of a work to its opening night. AND's work is a reflection of this artistic journey and includes weekly labs, Works-in-Progress, classes, workshops, annual retreats, rehearsal and production support. www.artisticnewdirections.org <http://www.artisticnewdirections.org>

THE PLAYING SCHEDULE of THE 25 OPENING NIGHTS

Wednesday February 9 7pm
Wednesday February 9 9:30pm
Thursday February 10 7pm
Thursday February 10 9:30pm
Friday February 11 7pm
Friday February 11 9:30pm
Saturday February 12 2pm
Saturday February 12 7pm
Saturday February 12 9:30pm
Sunday February 13 2pm
Sunday February 13 7pm
Monday February 14 7pm
Monday February 14 9:30pm
Tuesday February 15 7pm
Tuesday February 15 9:30pm
Wednesday February 16 7pm
Wednesday February 16 9:30pm
Thursday February 17 7pm
Thursday February 17 9:30pm
Friday February 18 7pm
Friday February 18 9:30pm
Saturday February 19 2pm
Saturday February 19 7pm
Saturday February 19 9:30pm
Sunday February 20 2pm

THE THEATRE
Theatre 54 @ Shetler Studios
244 West 54th Street
12th floor
(between Broadway & Eighth Avenues)

TICKETS
$18
SmartTix.com 212-868-4444