CUDDLES Set for 2015 Brits Off Broadway Festival

59E59 Theaters will welcome Ovalhouse and Arch 468 to the 2015 Brits Off Broadway festival with CUDDLES, written by Joseph Wilde and directed by Rebecca Atkinson-Lord. CUDDLES begins performances on Wednesday, June 3 for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 28. Press opening is Tuesday, June 9 at 7:30 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:30 PM; Friday at 8:30 PM; Saturday at 2:30 PM & 8:30 PM; and Sunday at 3:30 & 7:30 PM. (Please note there is no 7:30 performance on Sunday, June 28.) Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

Teenage vampire Eve has never known what sunlight is. Everything the 13-year-old knows about the world is derived from what her sister Tabby told her. She has never left her darkened room and has just one living, breathing human-her sister-to cuddle. Her world is crammed with storybook characters. To Eve, Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins and the cast of Dante's Inferno are real; where princes with adjectives instead of names seduce beautiful princesses against the odds. Eve does everything a good little vampire girl should, including drinking her (human) sister's blood. But one day, Tabby tires of opening her veins and, in a breath, Eve's whole world changes.

This "smart and gruesome gothic tale" (Time Out London) is a chilling psychological horror story whose ending "sends you out in the dark with a shiver." (The Guardian).

The cast features Rendah Heywood (The Rose Tattoo, dirs Steven Pimlott and Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre) and Carla Langley (Liolà, dir Richard Eyre at the National Theatre).

The design team includes James Turner (production design); Pablo Baz (lighting design); Edward Lewis (sound design). The fight director is Mathew McKay. The production stage manager is Cressa Amundsen.

Joseph Wilde (playwright) trained on the Young Writers Programme at the Royal Court and Chichester Festival Theatre, and was one of the first writers chosen for HighTide Festival Theatre's Escalator attachment. CUDDLES is Joseph's first full-length play. His second, The Pier opened at the Oxford Playhouse Studio and The Marlowe Theatre in early 2015 and is now gearing up for a national tour. Other theatre includes: The Van Dyck Vanishments, an interactive family show for Marine Studios/Turner Gallery Margate; Kaleidoscope co-created with and performed by the Ovalhouse Young Company; and various short plays including The Hard Part (Chichester Festival) and The Big Ask (Offcut Festival, Riverside Studios). Joseph has also written two radio plays: Wildsong (BBC Radio 4) and The Loving Ballad of Captain Bateman (BBC Radio 4, winner of the Imison Award for New Writing). He writes regularly for television for BBC Drama.

Rebecca Atkinson-Lord (director) is an award-winning theatre maker who directs, writes, devises and produces theatre and performance. She has directed 20 professional productions around the UK and internationally. Rebecca read Ancient History and Classics at Bristol University, specializing in ancient Greek drama. She trained as a Director at RADA and with the Royal Opera House and Young Vic. Her work has taken her from major international companies like Shakespeare's Globe, Scottish Opera and the Royal Opera House, to intimate found spaces in London and beyond. Directing credits for Ovalhouse: MilkMilkLemonade, Fosterling, Learning How to Swim, and Cuddles (plus UK tour). Directing credits for Arch 468: Seeking Oblivion, Mrs Edna Way, Rather More Pressing Issues, and Right. Other directing includes: The Sluts of Sutton Drive (Finborough Theatre), Top Brass and Anhedonia (Theatre 503), Seeking Oblivion (BAC), Mother Clap's Molly House and The Flies (Crescent Theatre, Birmingham). In addition to the Brits Off Broadway New York transfer of CUDDLES by Joseph Wilde, she will direct Bird City by Joshua Conkel at Ensemble Studio Theater in New York in 2015. Rebecca is Director of Theatre at Ovalhouse and Founding Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Arch 468. She is also Chair of the Board of Dante or Die.