NICK & ZOE Comes to The Fridge Festival

The Arctic Group has commissioned playwright Daniel Talbott (Slipping and Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait) to write a new short play that will be performed on a double bill with Steve McMahon's Sad Indie Love Song in Series B of their inaugural FRIDGE Festival. The festival runs August 31 - September 10, and Series B will play Thu 8/31 at 9pm, Sun 9/3 at 7pm, Wed 9/6 9pm, and Sat 9/9 at 7pm.

About the festival: Born in response to the news that the NY Fringe Festival would not take place in the summer of 2017, The FRIDGE Festival is a multidisciplinary theater festival that will feature new works by both established and emerging artists, placing no restrictions on pieces and representing a wide variety of genres. All plays include (nay, feature) the same fridge. FRIDGE Festival playwrights are: Jenny King & The Barrington Collective, Suzanne Willett, Daniel Talbott, Steve McMahon, Matthew Minnicino, MJ Halberstadt, Glenn Marla, Korde Arrington Tuttle, Katie Cappiello, and Jordan G. Teicher.

Half of all performances will be FILL OUR FRIDGE nights; in which tickets can be purchased with non-perishable goods instead of money. In anticipation of National Hunger Month, these donations will be delivered to a food bank local to the theater - a reflection of the company's belief that the arts play an essential role in the community.

Talbott's play, Nick and Zoe, begins at 3:28 am. Mid-August in West Harlem. One of those summer nights that feels like the oxygen is being burnt out of the air. Nick lies on the floor, wearing only a pair of dirty white socks. Zoe, lit by the light of the refrigerator, huddles against the doorway of Nick's kitchen in the dark. Both of their lives have been irrevocably changed. We start at the end and work back.

NICK & ZOE is directed by Shira-Lee Shalit and features Will Pullen (SWEAT, SCARCITY) and Erica Pappas (UGLY LITTLE SISTER/NYU). The design team is Raul Abrego (Sets), Tristan Raines (Costumes), Kia Rogers (Lighting), Daniel Melnick (Sound), David Anzuelo (Violence and Sex). The production stage manager is Vanna Richardson, Steve McMahon is assistant directing, and Declan Maloney Drummond is the standby. 

Daniel Talbott (Playwright) is currently a writer for The Weinstein Company and Spike TV on The Mist, based on the Stephen King novella, and in development with Jim Parsons' company That's Wonderful Productions for a feature film, Yosemite. His hour-long drama pilot Summer has been optioned and is in development with Sonar Entertainment and Killer Films. He is a writer, director, and actor, as well as an artistic associate of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, associate artistic director of {Your Name Here}, and artistic director of the Lucille Lortel and NYIT Award-winning Rising Phoenix Rep. His plays include Slipping (Rattlestick, The Side Project), Yosemite (Rattlestick), Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait (Rattlestick/piece by piece, Encore), What Happened When (Rattlestick, Your Name Here, Rising Phoenix Rep/HERE), Someone Brought Me (Quince Productions), Mike and Seth (Quince, Encore, The Side Project), Extraordinary Things (RPR), and Gray (Your Name Here). Recent directing work includes Ugly Little Sister (NYU), First Born (The Actors Studio), Selkie (RPR/Weathervane), Thieves (Weathervane/RPR/ Rattlestick), F**king Immaculate (RPR), A Fable (Rattlestick), Gin Baby (IRT), Scarcity (Rattlestick/Hill Town Plays - OBIE Award), Lake Water (Neighborhood Productions), Eightythree Down (Hard Sparks), Much Ado About Nothing (Boomerang), Squealer (Lesser America), and The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC - Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play). He received a 2011 Theater Hall of Fame Fellowship and was also named one of the 15 People of the Year by nytheatre.com. He is a graduate of Juilliard, is a proud member of Lesser America and Echo Theatre, and a member of The Actors Studio.

Shira-Lee Shalit (Director) is an award-winning director, chosen by Steven Spielberg as one of 18 Finalists out of 12,000 directors for his Fox/DreamWorks TV show, "On The Lot." Associate Artistic Director of the Barefoot Theatre Company, Shira-Lee has directed many productions, workshops and staged readings, most notably Stephen Belber's Fault Lines (TBG Theatre), Adam Rapp's Through the Yellow Hour & Halley Feiffer's How to Win Friends Then Kill Them (LAByrinth Theater -Intensive Ensemble) Maggie Bofill's Second Fiddle (EST, Cherry Lane Theatre) and many more at The Actors Studio, Dixon Place, NYMadness, Nylon Fusion, The Lark, Vertigo Theater, Jewish Plays Project the Writers Guild Screenplay Series, etc. Shira-Lee's feature film debut, A-LIST starring Academy Award nominee Sally Kirkland, won the Audience Award at the Milan International Film Festival, and the Gold Remy Award for Best Comedy at Worldfest. Her short film, FULL CYCLE, which she wrote, was a Finalist in the Student Academy Awards, and her short OPEN AIR starring Lynn Cohen (Sex and the City, Munich) screened at over 50 film festivals, winning Best Short at 5 of them. A Presidential Scholar of the Arts Awardee, Shira-Lee is a member of the Barefoot Theatre Co, Rising Phoenix Rep, The Actors Studio PDU, and is on faculty at Columbia and NYU.

Erica Pappas (Zoe) Second collaboration with Daniel Talbott, following Charlotte Miller's Ugly Little Sister (Lee Strasberg Institute). Most recently played May in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love at the Lee Strasberg Institute, which participated in the ITSelf Theatre Festival in Warsaw, Poland. Other roles include Christina in Shatter and Mary Warren in The Crucible. A graduate of NYU Tisch through the Strasberg studio. www.ericapappas.com

Will Pullen (Nick) recently wrapped the Pulitzer-prize winning production of Lynn Nottage's SWEAT for director Kate Whoriskey in his Broadway debut. Last summer he starred in the Williamstown Theatre Festival's productions of Tennessee Williams' ROSE TATTOO, opposite Maria Tomei and Christopher Abbott and Wendy Wasserstein's AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER, opposite Kate Walsh. He was most recently seen recurring in FX's spy drama, THE AMERICANS, opposite Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys and can be seen in the Andrew Neel film, GOAT, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Last year, Will appeared in THE GOOD WIFE, ELEMENTARY and filmed Jenji Kohan's HBO pilot DEVIL YOU KNOW, directed by Gus Van Sant. Will is a recent graduate of Syracuse University's theater department and quickly booked five back-to-back theatrical productions in New York: SCARCITY at the Rattlestick; MARIE ANTOINETTE at Soho Rep; YOUR MOTHER'S COPY OF THE KAMA SUTRA at Playwrights Horizons; THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN at Signature Theatre Company; and PUNK ROCK at MCC. Will was nominated for the prestigious Clive Barnes Award, honoring the most promising young actors, for his work in THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN, and was also nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for his role in PUNK ROCK.

The Arctic Group is a (mostly) theatre collective founded by Ran Xia, Charlotte Arnoux, Florence Lebas, Victoria Giambalvo, and Adrian Burke. We create a space for the harmonious, explorative destruction. We resist comfort and convenience. Failure is our common language. Disclaimers are our enemy. With an appetite for the irregular and an itch for the bizarre, we collide, connect, collaborate, and create. Pick a snowflake out of an avalanche. Take the polar bear plunge.