Long Wharf and International Festival of Arts and Ideas to Present STUCK ELEVATOR, 6/20-29

Long Wharf Theatre and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas will present Stuck Elevator, written by New Haven resident Aaron Jafferis, with music by Byron Au Yong, directed by Chay Yew, from June 20-29. The play will be performed on Long Wharf Theatre's Stage II, located at 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven. Tickets are $35 and $55. The press opening will take place on Friday, June 21 at 8 pm.

Stuck Elevator is a comic-rap-scrap metal musical prompted by the real life experience of a Chinese restaurant delivery man trapped in a Bronxelevator for 81 hours. The musical follows his experience living in New York, where he has been working at Happy Dragon Restaurant struggling to repay a $60,000 debt to smugglers for his passage from China to the United States. His journey is from one country touted as the next global economic superpower to another founded on the ideals of democracy and freedom.

New Haven native Aaron Jafferis and Seattle-based Byron Au Yong and are two exciting and resonant new voices in American theater today: Stuck Elevator returns to the Festival in a full production, after a workshop version was performed at Festival 2010 as part of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre. A complete production premiered at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco this spring.

Featuring a hybrid of musical theater and opera, Stuck Elevator will feature Julius Ahn (Madame Butterfly at Nashville Opera; Turandot at Seattle Opera) in the tour-de-force role of Gu?ng. He is joined by an extraordinary ensemble of performers-all of whom play multiple roles-including Raymond J. Lee (Anything Goes and Mamma Mia! on Broadway) as Wáng Yuè, Gu?ng's 8-year-old son; Marie-France Arcilla (Working at Off-Broadways' 59E59 Theaters; Sondheim on Sondheim at the Cleveland Playhouse) as Míng, Gu?ng's wife; Joel Perez (In the Heights , 1st national tour; Fun Home at The Public Theater) as Marco, the wisecracking Mexican deliveryman; and Francis Jue as Zh?ng Yi, Gu?ng's brother-in-law. The play is produced by Thomas O. Kriegsmann of ArKtype.

The performances take place 8pm on June 20, 21, 25, 27, 28; 2pm & 8pm on June 22, 26, 29; and 2pm on June 23. Ticketed events are on sale to the general public on the Festival's website (artidea.org), through Long Wharf Theatre's box office at 203-787-4282, and through the Shubert Theater box office.

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is a 15-day festival of performing arts, lectures, and conversations that celebrates the greatest artists and thinkers from around the world. Each June, the Festival takes over the theaters, open spaces, and courtyards of New Haven, Connecticut with performances and dialogues that tickle the senses, engage the mind, and inspire the soul.

The Festival was established in 1996 by Anne Calabresi, Jean Handley and Roslyn Meyer, and has grown into one of the Northeast's largest and most significant cultural destinations. More than 80% of Festival programs are completely free to the public, including events that feature some of the most prestigious jazz, classical, dance, and theater artists in the world. The Festival's programs have an impact throughout the year, including engagement and educational programming such as the Festival Fellowship Program for underserved youth, and the Visionary Leadership Award held in autumn of each year.

Festival 2013 is presented with the generous support of marquee sponsors the State of Connecticut, Yale University, the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, First Niagara, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Long Wharf Theatre (Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director and Joshua Borenstein, Managing Director), entering its 49th season, is recognized as a leader in American theatre, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. More than 30 Long Wharf productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or Off-Broadway, some of which include My Name is Asher Lev, February House, The Glass Menagerie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn. The theatre is an incubator of new works, including Have You Seen Us? by Athol Fugard. Long Wharf Theatre has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle and the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.