Flux Theatre Ensemble Presents AJAX IN IRAQ, 6/3-25

Flux Theatre Ensemble will present the New York Premiere of Ellen McLaughlin's (The Persians; Helen) AJAX IN IRAQ, June 3-25 at Flamboyan Theater at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center (107 Suffolk Street at Rivington). The production will be directed by Flux Artistic Director August Schulenburg (Director of Flux's A Midsummer Night's Dream) and will feature Matthew Archambault, Tiffany Clementi, Sol Crespo, Joshua Koopman, Mike Mihm, Stephen Conrad Moore*, Lori E. Parquet, Anna Rahn*, Christina Shipp, Raushanah Simmons*, Chudney Sykes*, and Chinaza Uche. The creative team will include Costume Design by Lara De Bruijn, Set Design by Will Lowry, Props Design by Kelly O'Donnell, Dramaturgy by Heidi Nelson, Lighting Design by Kia Rogers, and Sound Design by Asa Wember. The production will be Stage Managed by Jodi Witherell.
*Appearing courtesy of the Actors' Equity Association

Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin's mash-up of Sophocles' classic play Ajax and today's war in Iraq. The play follows the parallel narratives of the ancient Greek military hero Ajax and a female American soldier, both undone by the betrayal of a commanding officer. Originally developed over sixteen months in 2009 with the graduate acting students at A.R.T. and inspired by material collected from interviews with Iraq war veterans, Ajax in Iraq explores the timeless ways soldiers struggle to make sense of war.

"Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace."
The New York Times (Ellen McLaughlin's The Persians)

"McLaughlin's poetic reconstruction demonstrates that, perhaps even more than Shakespeare, it's the Greeks who are our truest contemporaries." The Village Voice (Ellen McLaughlin's Helen)

The production, presented by Flux Theatre Ensemble will play a four-week engagement at the Flamboyan Theater at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center (107 Suffolk Street at Rivington), June 3-25; Thursday through Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm with additional performances Tuesday, June 7 at 7pm and Wednesday, June 22 at 8pm. Tickets ($18/$15 students) may be purchased online at www.fluxtheatre.org or by calling 866-811-4111.

ELLEN MCLAUGHLIN (Playwright) Ellen's plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, Helen, The Trojan Women, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq and Penelope. Producing theaters include The National Actors' Theater, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company, the Actors' Theatre of Louisville, the Intiman in Seattle, the Mark Taper Forum in L.A., the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Almeida in London and the Guthrie Theater in MN. She is the recipient of grants from the Fund for New American Plays and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the winner of The Great American Play Contest, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. McLaughlin is also an actor, best known for originating the role of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, a role she played in all of the U.S. productions as well as on Broadway.

AUGUST SCHULENBURG (Director) is a director, playwright, actor, and the Artistic Director of Flux Theatre Ensemble. August directed Flux's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (Backstage Pick of the Week) and the staged readings of Volleygirls and The Dream Chain. He has also directed for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and Equalogy, a theatre for social change. As a playwright, his plays include Riding the Bull and The Lesser Seductions of History, and have been produced and developed at theatres like The Lark, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Portland Stage Company, Riot Actors of Washington, Dayton Playhouse, Abingdon Theater Company, Gideon Productions, Impetuous Theater Group, Decades Out, Adaptive Arts, and Flux Theatre Ensemble; and published in Stage and Screen, The New York Theater Review, and the Midway Journal. As an actor he was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Ezekiel in 8 Little Antichrists.

FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE produces transformative theatre that explores and awakens the capacity for change. As an ensemble-artist driven company, Flux believes that long-term collaboration and rigorous creative development can unite artists and audiences to build a creative home in New York. Flux is the proud recipient of two NYC Fringe Festival Awards: in 2007 the Village Voice Audience Favorite Award for August Schulenburg's Riding the Bull and in 2008 for Heather Cohn's "Outstanding Direction" of Other Bodies. In 2008 nytheatre.com chose Flux Theatre Ensemble as one of their "People of the Year" saying "This rising theatre company had a hit in the New York International Fringe Festival with Other Bodies, written by artistic director August Schulenburg, and then went on to mount the fall's most ambitious indie show, Johnna Adams's Angel Eaters Trilogy." Flux received a Citation for Excellence in Off-Off Broadway Theatre from the Independent Theater Bloggers Association and seven New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations for The Angel Eaters Trilogy including a win for Best Sound Design. In 2010, director Heather Cohn was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for The Lesser Seductions of History.