Brick Summer Theme Festival "Too Soon Festival"

Photo credits: See Practical information below
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Festival Story:

—THE BRICK THEATER, INC. PRESENTS THE “TOO SOON FESTIVAL”—
A premature summer theater festival JUNE 4 – 27 @ THE BRICK
In theater, audiences and artists are always confronted with the immediate moment – the perpetual “now.” But what if we’re not ready? What if we need a few more minutes to take a deep breath and ask ourselves: Is it too soon to make jokes about your friend’s abortion? Is it too soon to give up on a failed government? Is it too soon to confront the pig people in the sky? Is it too soon to exploit your shattered relationship for art? Is it too soon to die? Too bad – time is in a hurry and it’s dragging us with it. The TOO SOON FESTIVAL is the latest entry in The Brick’s legendary Summer Theme Festival Series – an ode to half-baked notions, frustrated youth, uncomfortable trends, traumatic events, terrifying predictions, raw nerves and un-come-upon comeuppances, performed and presented before their time.

Festival Events:

Programming 2010:

• Chemistry
  Written by Danny Bowes & Jillian Tully
  Directed by Danny Bowes
  
  • Danny and Jillian met one night at a wine bar, and instead of dating, they decided to write a play together. And star in it. Playing each other. The star-cross’d cross dressers develop their show; one thinks they’re in love, the other thinks they’re just friends. Eventually, through the power of Mexican pop music, endless conversation, and transvestism, they realize that there’s more than one kind of CHEMISTRY.
• Dandilion and the Bicycle Powered Cloud Plane
  Presented by The Tiny Black Hearts
  Written by Heather Coffey & Andy Hadaway
  Directed by Heather Coffey
  
  • It was just a simple game of jacks in the yard. Just a good older brother teaching his baby sister about greed and gain and skill and domination… Just good clean fun in the yard on a sunny afternoon. Then they came. The Pig People. They came to take her away. Then there could be nothing but hell to pay. There are, as we know, two sides to every story. There is a lot of energy and time that go into destruction, revenge, and vigilante justice. This ingenuity is also what dazzles and amazes and inspires those it is brought against. Dandilion and the Amazing Bicycle Powered Cloud Plane is a simple story of misunderstood motives. There are Pig People. Hijinks are inevitable.
• Death is a Scream
  Written by Esther Crow
  Directed by Rabeah Ghaffari
  
  • What if you could choose your own “ending”? With the help of a highly skilled Death Agent, you can! And after you buy the farm, a “Corpsetologist” will make you look like your favorite celebrity, model, or head of state. These and other death-dealing characters await you in Esther Crow’s one-woman variety show, Death Is a Scream.
• Hack: The World’s First I.T. Spaghetti Western
  Written by Crystal Skillman
  Directed by John Hurley
  Produced by Amanda Feldman
  
  • When Hedge fund I.T. employees, Cal, Dash, and Jay, discover that they’ve been hacked – and that the hack is one of them - they scramble to pin it on each other to snag the gold in this ultimate showdown of the Good, the Bad and the Geek. A recent hit at this season’s Vampire Cowboys Saloon Series, watching HACK! The Live DVD Cut is just like popping in a DVD to watch your favorite episodes where you even get to select the extras (deleted scenes, bloopers, commentary) that are acted out in front of you!
• Happily After Tonight
  Written & Directed by Mateo Moreno
  
  • Once upon a time, we all heard stories. Stories of princes and princesses, villains defeated, and good triumphing over evil. Each fairy tale our parents told us ended with a charming “Happily Ever After…” But what followed were stories much darker, stories that happened after those famous endings, and they’ve never been told. Until now. From Sleeping Beauty to Alice in Wonderland to Little Red Riding Hood, we will take everything you think you know and turn it on it’s head. Because no one is guaranteed a happy ending here. Welcome to Happily After Tonight. It ain’t your parents f*$king fairy tale…
• Jeannine’s Abortion: A Play in One Trimester
  Presented by Old Kent Road
  Written by Eric Bland
  
  • Jeannine’s Abortion: A Play in One Trimester follows Jeannine and several of her peers over three months in New York City, during which time they exist with one another and Jeannine has an abortion.
• Redbeard and Domicella
  Presented by Hearth Gods
  Written by Kasia Nikhamina
  Directed by Michael Rau
  
  • Two high school sweethearts deliver a bold retrospective of their young marriage in “he said, she said” fashion. The witty, irrepressible Redbeard works in a bicycle shop near Brighton Beach; the slightly-built, titanic-hearted Domicella splits her time between a desk at the District Attorney’s Office, and the kitchen table where she writes. This is the story of the old man and the noise. It speaks (too soon?) about instances of loss as disparate as September 11th and Michael Jackson’s death, as well as Domicella’s own close scrape on the wild streets of New York.
• RIP JD: A Celebration of Death
  Presented by Plastic Flamingo Theatre Company
  Written by Erin Austin & Ross Evans
  Directed by Ross Evans
  
  • JD Salinger has finally kicked the bucket. Join the Plastic Flamingo Theatre Company as we say good riddance, and celebrate the life and death of the renowned author of Catcher in the Rye. Expect funeral dancing, keening, angst, and artistic piracy. It’s a licensing free post-Salinger utopia, and we’re not waiting around for no stinkin’ public domain. So, bring your favorite dog-eared copy of Franny and Zooey and some Kleenex, you phonies. RIP JD: A Celebration of Death is waiting for you.
• That Old Soft Shoe
  Presented by Blue Coyote Theater Group
  Written by Matt Freeman
  Directed by Kyle Ancowitz
  
  • Playwright Matthew Freeman, director Kyle Ancowitz, and Blue Coyote Theater Group return to the Brick with That Old Soft Shoe, a redacted comedy. Their previous appearances include the much ballyhooed productions of Glee Club and An Interview with the Author. In That Old Soft Shoe, a Senator from the Pacific Northwest arrives to inspect the goings-on in an undisclosed location, throwing the staff into turmoil. Will their dancing lessons prove sufficient? Or will they all wind up working at a phone bank in Dallas? After all, it’s a new administration.
• The Wedding of Berit Johnson & Ian W. Hill: A Theatre Study by Ian W. Hill & Berit Johnson
  Presented by Gemini CollisionWorks
  Written, directed & designed by Ian W. Hill
  
  • Ian W. Hill and Berit Johnson have been making theatre as partners in life and work for ten years – Ian in front as director and actor; Berit, who only wants anonymity, behind-the-scenes. Seven years later, though neither believed in it, they decided on marrying for practical reasons. In order for it to have actual meaning for them, they’ve chosen to make their marriage a piece of experimental theatre, with a 4-performance run, and a cast of Brick Theater regulars. Is this marriage possibly happening too soon, or too late, and will Berit actually agree to participate in the ceremony itself?

Other Sources:

An interview with Jeffrey Lewonczyk, Associate Director of the Brick Theater:

Cut-Rate Catharsis: The Brick Theater $ells Out, by Miriam Felton-Dansky

Practical Info:

Slideshow photo credits:

• In order of appearance
  
  • Bodine Alexande & Ilya Nikhamin, REDBEARD & DOMICELLA
    Photo by Kat Cheng
  • RIP JD: A CELEBRATION OF DEATH
    Photo by Niki Budnick
  • Joe Mathers in HACK!
    Photo: Qui Nguyen
  • Esther Crow in Death is a Scream
    Photo by Angela Wieland Photography
  • oe Mathers, Tom Knutson & Neihmah Djourabchi in HACK!
    Photo: Qui Nguyen
  • Nurk Njordsen as Dandilion in Dandilion and the Bicycle Powered Cloud Plane
    Photo by Heather Coffey
  • Logo — The Too Soon Festival June 4-27 @ The Brick

Venue:

• The Brick
  575 Metropolitan Avenue (between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street)
  Brooklyn, NY

Tickets 2010:

• Price — $18
• Available online at http://www.bricktheater.com
• Phone 1-866-811-4111

Do you have an update or more information about this festival? Email us at updates@kadmusarts.com
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