Cave Theatre Co. to present Bertolt Brecht's THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI at UNDER St. Marks

FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade will present Cave Theatre Co.'s production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui: A Gangster Spectacle at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Avenue and Avenue A) October 6-16 with performances Thursday through Saturday at8pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets ($17) may be purchased in advance at www.horseTRADE.info. The performance runs approximately two hours, with a 15-minute intermission.

The place is Prohibition-era Chicago, and the once-powerful Cauliflower Trust is in serious trouble...can they place their fate in the bloodstained hands of the windy city's most notorious gangster, Arturo Ui?

Brecht's hilarious yet powerful parable play about corruption in the Chicago vegetable trade shed light on Hitler's rise to power when it was written nearly 75 years ago, providing a cautionary tale against future authoritarian figures coming to power. Could a dire warning about the rise of a strong-arming (and perhaps, alarmingly orange-hued?) populist demagogue still be relevant today?

The cast will feature Dylan Arredondo, Kiley Caughey, Alex Etling, David Gautschy, Dani Martineck, Julia Register, Liz Tancredi, and Josh Wood-Triplett with Assistant Director Cassie Wood-Triplett and Stage Manager Allie York.

James Masciovecchio (Director) is a Brooklyn Based Director and a 2011 Graduate of Point Park University's Conservatory of the Arts. James has spent his post college years Directing and Production Managing throughout the downtown theatre scene. Recently he directed Cave Theatre Co.'s inaugural season of Row After Row, Touch, and Gruesome Playground Injuries. He also serves as Production Manager for the Obie Award Winning Fire This Time Festival now entering its 8th season.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), playwright, poet and director, was born in Augsburg, Germany in February 1898. He established himself as a playwright during the 1920s and early 1930s with plays such as Baal, Man is Man, The Threepenny Opera, and The Mother. In 1933, as Hitler came to power in Germany, Mr. Brecht fled to Scandinavia before eventually settling in the USA where he remained until 1947. During the war years, he wrote many of his best known plays, including, The Life of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage and Her Children, and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. He returned to Europe in 1947 and shortly after his arrival formed the Berliner Ensemble. He died in Berlin on August 14th, 1956 but remains a hugely influential theatre practitioner.

Cave Theatre Co. It is within caves that the first art appeared - tales of humanity carved or painted on the rock walls. Our ancestors walked deep into the earth away from all light and created stories with paint, with fire, with song. We now venture into the dark as our ancestors did and strive to do the same. The lines and shadows flicker and dance in our torchlight. The flickers on the walls create visions of worlds unknown. In this dark, raw, and fertile space - in this cave - anything is possible. www.cavetheatre.org

FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade is a theater development group with a focus on new work that produces a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater every season. FRIGID's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. FRIGID New York grew out of the annual FRIGID Festival, the first and only festival of its kind in New York City to offer artists 100% of their box office proceeds, and Horse Trade Theater Group, a self-sustaining theater development and management group. www.horseTRADE.info