DADDY'S BOY World Premiere Set for NYC Dream Up Festival, 8/30-9/6

Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival 2015 presents Daddy's Boy, a world premiere play written by Cristian Avila where the wrestling ring becomes a battleground sexuality, family and identity. Avila directs a cast of eight, including David Conrad Brouillard, Julia Gyory, Aya Esther Hayashi, Jonathan Palmiotti, Christopher Staley*, Kyle Stockburger, Rachel Wharton, and Nick Zale. Six performances will be staged at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (bet. 9th and 10th Streets), New York, NY 10003 from August 30-September 6, 2015. *Member, Actors' Equity Association. AEA Showcase.

Proceeds from tickets sales will be donated to The Tyler Clementi Foundation.

Daddy's Boy begins in the ring, with 17 year old national wrestling champion Milo facing off against his childhood best friend, J.T. This match is not just a physical battle but a battle of values, since Milo identifies as queer and J.T. represents the homophobia of Milo's Texas hometown that his two fathers fled from for more liberal Manhattan. As Milo is about to win the match, homophobic slurs are directed at him which serves to fuel his victory. Milo's victory is recorded and the footage goes viral, prompting a media backlash that triggers a horrific assault on his life. This tragic event and Milo's bravery drive his "straight acting" dads to face their internalized homophobia and fears they have projected onto their child. Can they come together as a family to support their son as he embarks on the long road to forgiveness and healing?

Daddy's Boy is about celebrating who you are, but also about the inevitable challenges that come with doing this. While it is often easier to give in to social pressures to fit in, Milo refuses to repress who he is and this, in turn, empowers other characters to think about their own identities. The play is very much in touch with present issues facing the LGBTQ community and the impact of the media on their movement, asking, "how much progress has actually been made?"

The play's staging is extremely clever in that its framework is dictated by the dynamics of a wrestling match, with whistle blows ending the scenes and a Chorus of 'home' and 'away' fans responding to the dialogue and interacting with the audience. The Chorus adds their own opinions, picks sides and even acts as the voice of social media. The Chorus becomes a vehicle of violence towards the end of the play and perpetuates stereotypes, encouraging us to look at the way we respond to news and how picking sides can restrict us from looking at all sides of an issue.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by visiting Smarttix.com. For more information, visit the show website at www.dreamupfestival.org.

Performances will be held from August 30-September 6, 2015 on the following schedule: Sunday, August 30 at 8pm; Monday, August 31 at 9pm; Thursday, September 3 at 9pm; Saturday, September 5 at 5pm; Sunday, September 6 at 2pm; and Sunday, September 6 at 8pm.

The runtime for Daddy's Boy is approximately 60 minutes with no intermission.

Cristian Avila (playwright/director) is a theatre artist based in New York City. He holds an M.A. in theater from L.I.U. CW Post. His undergraduate studies were at UC Berkeley where he received a B.A. in Dramatic Art. He recently attended Anne Bogart's Master Class at SITI Company and the 2014 SITI Summer Intensive at Skidmore College. PTC credits include: Daddy's Boy (workshop) (playwright/director), Big Love (assistant director), Alice (co-director/collaborator), Falling in Line (assistant director). Other stage credits include Secret Love/Peach Blossom Land (director/collaborator, TDPS Berkeley); 20 Questions (Chris, TDPS Berkeley); The Last Unicorn (Rukh, TDPS Berkeley); Napoleon, the Camp-Drag-Musical (Lord Sheridan, TDPS Berkeley). Television: "Club TV" (VJ, Channel 9 San Francisco).

The sixth Dream Up Festival (www.dreamupfestival.org) will be presented by Theater for the New City (TNC) from August 30 to September 20, 2015, offering a lineup of wide-ranging and original theatrical visions embracing drama, musicals, improv, aerial and more. This year, owing to growing popularity, the festival has expanded beyond its primary venue. Previously, all productions were presented at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. This year, 19 productions will be presented at TNC and seven will be presented at an outside venue, The Producers Club Theaters at 358 West 44th Street.

The festival is dedicated to new works. TNC feels this festival is especially needed now in a time of declining donations to the arts, when grants are not being awarded due to market conditions and arts funding is being cut across the country and abroad. The festival aims to push ideas to the forefront through imaginative presentations so as to challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of the way art illuminates the world around us.

Meet the Cast

David Conrad Brouillard is a native New Englander, who fortified his reputation as the Artistic Director of the famed Zipper Factory Theater, turning a rather wearisome and weak Off-Broadway house into a thriving cultural mecca in the heart of midtown Manhattan. The Zipper offered legitimate Off-Broadway repertoire and served as a creative home to artists like Downtown's Justin Vivian Bond, Bridget Everett, Our Lady J, international burlesque sensations Murray Hill + Dirty Martini, composers Ricky Ian Gordon, Todd Almond and Michael John LaChiusa and more. At the Zipper he attracted and produced stars like Margaret Cho, Bebe Neuwirth, Kathie Lee Gifford, Rosie O'Donnell, Megan Mullay, Joy Behar, Ute Lemper, Henry Rollins and more. After the Zipper David was the director for a multi-million dollar arts non-profit and a hot downtown performance based supperclub, with nightly live bands, singer and dancers. He is a consultant for the Dayton Gay Mens Choir, The Arts Council Of Rockland and Go Broadway. He teaches musical theater in NYC, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile.

Julia Gyory has been seen in shows including Anything Goes (Reno Sweeney), Thoroughly Modern Millie (Gloria), Pirates of Penzance (Edith), Chess (Reporter), and many more. She has recently been accepted into the CAP21 2-year program and plans on furthering her Musical Theatre education.

Aya Esther Hayashi is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, whose dissertation focuses on the music and theatre produced within participatory media fan cultures. Apart from her academic work, she is a classically trained flutist and occasional musical theatre performer. She primarily performs at the Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (Roosevelt Island, NYC) and has volunteered since 2010 as the assistant director/choreographer for MSTDA's children and teen theatre programs. Recent performance and directing credits include Urinetown, The World Goes 'Round, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Working, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Songs for a New World. She also serves as an adjunct lecturer in the Music Department at Hunter College, trying to entertain freshmen at 8am with the exploits of dead Viennese composers.

Jonathan Palmiotti recently graduated with his BFA in Musical Theatre from Long Island University Post. Past credits include Rent (Benny), Little Shop of Horrors (Seymour), Marat/Sade (Kokol), a devised version of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis/White Knight), and more. He also had the privilege to perform at the Plaza Hotel, the Prudential Center in New Jersey, the Midtown International Theatre Festival, and the Avant Garde festival.

Christopher Staley is an actor, director, and yoga teacher. Previous credits include Alice vs Wonderland (Mad Hatter/Caterpillar) and AJAX (Odysseus u/s) at American Repertory Theater, Julius Caesar (Soothsayer/Octavius) at Indiana Repertory Theater, Madame Butterfly (Kurogo) at Opera Carolina, Hamlet (Rosencrantz) with Empirical Rogue Theater and Macbeth (Malcolm) with Shelter Theater Group. MFA in Acting from A.R.T. Institute at Harvard University, B.S. from Skidmore College. Proud member of Actors' Equity Association.

Kyle Stockburger is a theatre artist based in New York City. He holds an MFA in Acting from CalArts and has performed with the CalArts Center for New Performance at REDCAT in Downtown Los Angeles, UDG at the Teatro Experimental in Guadalajara, Mexico and at Chashama studios in New York City. His written work includes the play 4some and musical revue What I Did For Love. He recently premiered his solo piece The Real Coyote Ugly at Dixon Place as part of their annual HOT! Festival.

Rachel Tuggle Whorton is a performer, director, and arts educator. A classically-trained pianist, Rachel has appeared as music director and performer with groups across the country. Recent performance credits include Sapien Sapien Sapien (Baby Crow Productions), Lakeside Lullaby (Provincetown Playhouse), The Runaway Clone (Ruckus Rockwell), and the short film Micro (Halleloo Productions). Recent directing/MD credits include Little Shop of Horrors (NYU mainstage), META (Deborah Zoe Laufer), Through the Glade (UnFringed Festival), My Other Job (Emerging Artists Theatre), and Underground: An Unauthorized Ben Folds Jam Session, an immersive theatrical song cycle which premiered in April as part of the Forum on Site-Specific Performance. Rachel also works as an adjunct instructor at NYU, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D., and as a teaching artist with The Leadership Program. Love and thanks to Darren for being generally awesome.

Nick Zale is entering his senior year at Montclair State University pursuing a BFA in Musical Theatre. Previous shows include Hair (Claude), Parade (Frankie), City of Angles (Peter), the original cast of Life of The Party (Chertovsky), and more.