Shrewd: astute; keen; artful; clever, resourceful.  Shrewd:  tricky; cunning; malicious; piercing; sharp; sagacious; underhanded, calculating.  And what of the word’s origin?  Shrewd is derived from the word Shrewe, which means “wicked man.”  Wicked man?  Then what are we to make of that famous Shrew offered us by Mr. Shakespeare?  All will be revealed in the Improbable Stage Company’s astute, tricky, clever, calculating, resourceful, cunning, keen, piercing, artful new comedy Shrewd.

Workshop Showings:
Thursday, June 14 7pm
Friday, June 15 7pm
Saturday June 16 7pm
Sunday, June 17 3pm

At IRT: 154 Christopher st. #3B (third floor)

$15 Tickets
– Running time 1 hour and 15 minutes

Director:  Stacy A. Donovan
Written & Developed by:  The Improbable Stage Company
Lighting Designer:  Lauren Breman
Sound Designer:  Ethan Leff
Stage Manager:  Annie Belkin
Production Assistant:  Dana Strenta

Cast: Ian Bicket, Maxime Briere, Ryan Castro, Victor Cervantes, Tali Custer, John DiSciascio, Amanda Ebert, Kenny Fedorko, Julia Hansen, Miles Jackson, Virginia Kozemczak, Lauren Lasorda, Liah Rozenman

Understudies:  Caterina Nonis, Tobias Wong

THE ORANGE PERSON
At last, the story of THE ORANGE PERSON, told from the perspective of the people who actually experienced it – a celebration of existence, of difference, and of song. From within both sides of a duplex in Terlingua, a rural town in the south Texan desert, a family confronts a medical marvel: an orange baby is born.

Scheduled Performances:
Saturday  May 19 8pm
Sunday May 20 8pm
Monday May 21 8pm
Friday May 25 8pm
Saturday May 26 8pm

At IRT:154 Christopher st. 3B (third floor)

With an original book written by director Jeremy Bloom (“Stylish and inventive” – Theatermania) and Brian Rady who also plays the title role (“entertaining, hilarious, seamless” – Happiest Medium), the production also features original songs by Rady&Bloom and singer-songwriter Laura Dunn (“Bjorkish runaway melodies” – music critic Mark Mayer), all performed by a stellar and eccentric host of performers, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists.

“a quirky tale of a bright-orange baby born in a Texas border town, told in a style that merges docutheater with eclectic concert.”
- Time Out New York

“The cast and creative team conjures more stage magic with a spare set and an assortment of lamps, placards and lawn chairs than most Broadway musicals muster with budgets a hundred times the size. …a genuine, but not sentimental, tale of growing up orange in a podunk Texan town. …homespun theatre done right – with foot stomping songs, quirky humor and fistfuls of charm.”
- The American Shot

THE ENSEMBLE
Performers: Ashley Biel, Laura Dunn, Dana Kaplan-Angle, Robert Lavenstein, Ellen O’Meara, Madalyn McKay, Jose Paz, Brian Rady, Kirk Siee, Catherine Brookman, Joe White

Costumes: Olga Mill

Set:Chris Morris

Lighting: Christopher Weston

Makeup Design: glam-rock’s Chelsea Monet Dunaway

THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST
an invite-only workshop presentation

Exploding onto the frontiers of uninhabited California, the only female in the entire Gold Rush town of Cloudy Mountain sets up her saloon. Mythologized in David Belasco’s grandiose 1911 novel, and canonized as one of the great spaghetti westerns – a play- turned-novel-turned-Puccini-extravaganza, this modernized golden paradigm is a new music and soul-filled ode to the unexplored and untouched expanse of our nation’s forgotten periphery, and thebaffling potential successes of what could’ve been.

“In those strange days, people coming from God knows where, joined forces in that far Western land, and, according to the rude custom of the camp, their very names were soon lost and unrecorded, and here they struggled, laughed, gambled, cursed, killed, loved and worked out their strange destinies in a manner incredible to us of to-day. Of one thing only are we sure—they lived!”- David Belasco’s epigraph to THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST

THE ENSEMBLE
adapted and directed by Jeremy Bloom
composed by Catherine Brookman, Ellen O’Meara, and Joe White
a Rady&Bloom World Premiere for Ice Factory 2012

ABOUT RADY & BLOOM
Rady & Bloom is a play company that creates theater works from scratch led by the collaboration of Jeremy Bloom and Brian Rady. With an inclusive spectrum of mediums and performer backgrounds, Rady & Bloom makes stories using narrative and experimental approaches, blending word, gesture, music, site-specificity and spectacle. Each performance is a celebration and an invocation: party meets epic meets chorale meets ethnography. Past Rady & Bloom collaborations include La Boheme (Spoken), a full length spoken version of Puccini’s libretto at The Flea and at The Cell, adapted by Rady, and conceived and directed by Bloom; The Green Knight at 45 Bleecker, an original play by Brian Rady based on the myth of Sir Gawain, directed in pink by Bloom; Anchor Women, an under-the-covers study of television’s ladies created by Rady, directed by Bloom; Live Mermaids Live, adapted and directed by Bloom, performed with song writing by Rady and produced by art party theater company; and most recently The Orange Person written and developed by Rady & Bloom with banjoist Laura Dunn.

RADY&BLOOM.COM

JEREMY BLOOM directs new music, plays and his original, large-cast adaptations which include, Peter~Wendy (dark), La Boheme (spoken), and Leaves of Grass (nude).  He has assisted at The Met and on Broadway, and is a Drama League Fellow, EST Resident, Soho Rep Lab Director, alum of the TS Eliot Exchange at the Old Vic and an alum of Northwestern University’s Performance Studies. Recent credits include The Orange Person, an original live music play, written with Brian Rady and Laura Dunn.

 BRIAN RADY is an actor and vocalist specializing in cabaret, ensemble movement and vocal based works, as well as new plays. Brian is also a playwright. His plays have been seen in New York at the cell, The Robert Moss, The Gene Frankel, and The Bleecker Street Theatre, among others. Brian is also dedicated to creative producing, playing in bands, and collaborating with a slew of dancers, writers and musicians.

The smash-hit, New York Innovative Theatre-nominated collection of world-premiere plays returns to IRT with a fresh new selection! Come watch our award-winning playwrights riff on the theme of “My Best/Worst Date Ever” with surprising, thoughtful, and hilarious results. Remember that time when…?  Relive the joy and the horror with your friends at F*It Club.

Workshop Showing:
April 26-May 13, 2012
Thurs.-Sat. @ 8pm, Sun @ 2pm

At IRT: 154 Christopher st. #3B (third floor)

$18 Tickets

“Mort” by Lucy Boyle
Directed by Tamara Fisch
Featuring Jon Bass*, Paul L. Coffey*, & Allyson Morgan*

“Papers” by Anna Kerrigan
Directed by Kate Pines
Featuring Topher Mikels & Emily Young*

“A50″ by Victor Lesniewski
Directed by Victor Maog
Featuring Kevin Dwyer & Bobby Moreno*

“Film Forum” by Isaac Oliver
Directed by Kate Pines
Featuring Amanda Duarte*, Stephen Graybill*, & Jessica Rothenberg*

“The Depression” by Mark Schultz
Directed by Stephen Brackett
Featuring Marty Brown*

“A Map of Broken Glass” by Anna Ziegler
Directed by Jerry Ruiz
Featuring Amir Arison* & Mara Kassin*

Stage Manager: Joe Mulica
Assistant Stage Manager: Kristine Schlachter*
Costume Design: Whitney Anne Adams
Set Design: Sara Nelson & Sarah Martin
Sound Design: Mark Parenti
Light Design: David Sexton
Graphic Design: Mike Shea

*denotes AEA member
Equity Approved Showcase

It’s never too late for your first…or second…Spring Fling.

The show is a hilarious parody of life and love in the digital age, where texting, emailing, facebooking, and “liking” have replaced true romance.  Mark Siano, Seattle’s god of soft rock (who will bring back the classic sparkletard), strikes up a long distance internet relationship with New York’s goddess of hard rock, Opal Peachey.  Sparks fly and gigabytes die when they realize that no one truly is who they are online.

Scheduled Performance:
Thursday April 19  8pm
Friday April 20  8pm
Saturday April 21  8pm

At IRT:154 Christopher st. 3B (third floor)

Starring:  Mark Siano and Opal Peachey
Special Guests:  David Swidler, Hillary Mencke, Kimberly Durham

Original Music: Mark Siano
Musical Director: John Kranz
Written by: Mark Siano, Jeanne Lee and Opal Peachey – with contributions from the cast
Producer: Mark Siano and Donna Stewart
Production Stage Manager:Noël Parkinson

Marxiano Productions is an Associate Program of Shunpike

Set against the backdrop of the New York Off-Off-Broadway scene, Ramona Clay begins with the reunion of two estranged sisters–twelve years apart (the younger, Ramona, is Deaf)–as the man who murdered their parents is set to be executed. It’s also funny.

Workshop Showings:
Friday 4/13, Saturday 4/14 and Sunday 4/15 at 7pm
At IRT: 154 Christopher St., #3B (third floor)

Tickets $10

written by Stan Richardson
directed by Dorit Avganim & Ben Vershbow
with: Justin Blanchard, Matt Steiner, Sandra Struthers & Alexandria Wailes
ASL Consultant John McGinty

The Representatives is the formalization of the years long collaboration between playwright Stan Richardson and actor Matt Steiner. Our mission is to write and perform timely and relevant new plays that resonate with people who do not typically see theatre and lovingly ridicule the type of people who do. For more information, please visit www.therepresentatives.org.

Together they road trip across the American South and organize burlesque workshops at every stop in the slightly misguided hope that burlesque can save the nation—and their failing relationship. Soon Grace goes missing and foul play is suspected. The play weaves original alt-country music, video and burlesque into its tale about living in Barack Obama’s America, facing the past and twirling on down the road.

It was written by Lucile Baker Scott and features music by Mike Milazzo, Monica Rodriguez and Scout Durwood, the direction of Stella Powell-Jones and the producorial genius of Jesse Cameron Alick.

Wednesday Feb. 29th and Thursday March 1st at 7:30

Friday March 2nd and Saturday March 3rd at 8

All tickets $18.

An actor must have his or her emotions accessible to successfully breathe life into the characters they portray. It is important to know and understand your emotional life first so you can play the role…. and not have the role play you. The Conscious Actor Workshop Series is designed to help actors develop the tools needed to successfully navigate through the day-to-day challenges of their profession.

Join Bonnie on the path to learning how to take obstacles and turn them into opportunities of personal growth and wisdom.

The tools you will learn include:

- Handle fear and anxiety so it doesn’t shut you down.
- Turn emotional obstacles into opportunities.
- Learn to reconnect, rediscover and embrace who you are.
- Receive a complimentary Conscious Actor Journal to help inspire and rekindle your passion for those times when you are stuck.

Bonnie Katz is a licensed (mfc41610) psychotherapist with a private practice in Beverly Hills. She writes a monthly column in the Casting Networker’s newsletter called, The Conscious Actor, in which she imparts practical and uselful knowledge on how to navigate the psychological world of an actor. She specializes in helping actors to become empowered through self-knowledge.

presentations: Monday, March 26th & Tuesday, March 27th at 7pm

“When Kit Singer returns to her disheveled family home to hash out an opportunity to return to the rock scene with her sisters, she finds a family in chaos and a niece on the verge of losing herself to their destructive legacy. Crystal Skillman brings this disturbing, darkly funny new full length to audiences for the first time in this OTE Spring Workshop Residency, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch.”

The Romancers
Music by Kathryn Hathaway
Book & Lyrics by Sarah Hammond
under the Music Direction of Ian Axness

presentations: Thursday, March 29th & Friday, 30th at 7pm

“Before Percy, before love, before Frankenstein, before she was Mary Shelley, young Mary spent her afternoons writing and dreaming at her mother’s grave by the Fleet River in a northern suburb of London. This work-in-progress will cover ten years of Mary’s life. At OTE, Sarah Hammond & Kathryn Hathaway will work on pieces from this new musical, which imagines Mary’s early teen years and guesses at her first
inspirations for Frankenstein.”

Admission is Free and extremely limited –

Be sure to make your reservation by following the Ticket link above!

For more information please go to www.overturnensemble.org

Featuring: Troy Chapman, Malik Paris, Nicole Hood, Joseph Fox II, Jamal Jones, Matthew Parsley and Nick Shaw

A powerful fusion of physical theater, American Sign Language (ASL), music and spoken word poetry accessible to both hearing and Deaf audiences. The performance concludes with an audience participation ASL poetic workshop.

Thursday April 5 7:30pm, Friday April 6 at 7:30pm, and Saturday April 7 at 2:00pm and 7:30pm

Celebrate the formation of Slightly Altered States Theater Company and the premiere of the original play The Thing About Dan, written by Sari Caine Glickstein, opening February 9th, and running Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through the 18th.

Starring Louis Kornfeld, a renowned improviser, and Michael Hurst, a New York City-based actor and musician, The Thing About Dan is a warped and wistful play about two men, Paul and Zip, that are running as fast as they can away from reality.

Paul and Zip ar e waiting for Dan, the friend who keeps their lives running smoothly.
The thing is, he’s sleeping with their wives.