Culture Project's Women Center Stage Opens BLONDIE OF ARABIA 4/16

Culture Project's Women Center Stage (Allan Buchman, Artistic Director & Founder) will present a limited engagement of Blondie of Arabia, written and performed by Monica Hunken and directed by Laura Newman, beginning Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street (at Lafayette Street).

Two weeks before Christmas, on the eve of the Arab Spring, Monica Hunken flew into the heart of the Persian Gulf to cater at a royal wedding party and ended up biking across the Middle East. Blondie of Arabia chronicles the true story of her desert odyssey. Audiences watch the broke, blonde American swerve her bicycle through close encounters with military capture, sex tourism, Gulf royalty and near death. Hunken plays over 20 characters in this 65-minute comedy, as she perseveres in her adventure as a parade of one, indulging her super-hero fetishism, and defeating trouble at every turn.

Monica Hunken is a world traveler, teacher, activist and internationally acclaimed solo-performer. She has developed and performed three plays from her travel adventures, the most recent of which, The Wild Finish, about her bicycle trip across Poland to find the story of her experimental theater director eccentric grandfather, was featured in Culture Project's Women Center Stage 2011 Festival and given its own Culture Project run at ABC No Rio in 2012. Her newest work, drawn from her European tour and experiences with Occupy Wall Street, will be featured in Culture Project's Women Center Stage 2013 Festival this summer.

Blondie of Arabia received its New York premiere at The Living Theatre in 2010 and since then has toured internationally to sold-out houses, three shows a day in the De Parade Theater Festival in The Netherlands, Amsterdam, and Utrecht in 2011. Blondie of Arabia was the 2011 winner of the International Festival of Independent Theatres in Prague and a 2011 Nominee for Outstanding Solo Performance from the New York Innovative Theater Awards. Presented by Women Center Stage, Culture Project's initiative to support and vigorously promote the work of women artists, and celebrate the unique contribution of women to social justice and human rights, Blondie of Arabia is written, performed, directed, and produced entirely by women.

Blondie of Arabia will play two preview performances at 8pm on April 16th & 17th, then will play the following performance schedule starting April 25th: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm. Tickets are priced at $25 and are available online at cultureproject.org or via phone by calling OvationTix at 866.811.4111.

Photo Credit: Hunter Canning