HOAXOCAUST! Set for FringeNYC, 8/15-21

QUESTING BEAST PRODUCTIONS will present the return of Barry Levey's HOAXOCAUST! as part of the 18th Annual New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC, directed by Jeremy Gold Kronenberg (Caroline, or Change - NYIT Award Outstanding Production of a Musical Nominee).

HOAXOCAUST! will play a limited engagement at Venue #12: 64E4 Underground (64 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery). Performances are Friday, August 15th at 9:15pm, Saturday, August 16th at 2:45pm, Sunday, August 17th at 2:00pm, Tuesday, August 19th at 6:00pm and Thursday, August 21st at 9:30pm.

What role should past horrors play in defining our religious views, our self-perception, even our politics? Is there such a thing as a contemporary Jewish identity independent of the Holocaust? Should there be? What if the Holocaust had never happened? Join Barry in an unbelievable round the world adventure as he tracks down deniers from Illinois to Iran, meets engineers and ex-presidents, and dodges a brother in Hungary and a boyfriend back home on a journey to discover the shocking truth.

The idea behind Hoaxocaust! began when former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, catapulted to Americans' attention. In an interview with JSpace, Barry Levey shares how he "became really fascinated, surprised, shocked, and horrified that he [Ahmadinejad] was denying the Holocaust and getting so much press for it. At first I thought it would be hysterical to put on stage everything deniers would say, and obviously it would be ridiculous and it would just be a laugh riot... but then I realized that anything I was going to write was probably going to be a little scary, in addition to hopefully still being funny."

HOAXOCAUST! was developed at the The New Group ("If the purpose of art is to provoke, I have never seen anything that did it more successfully than Hoaxocaust!" -Peter Alkalay, Chairman), received a workshop production at Theater for the New City and was also part of Prospect Theater Company's Dark Nights Series at 59E59 Theaters.

Tickets are $18 and will go on sale July 18th. Tickets may be purchased online or on your smartphone up to 30min prior to the performance at www.fringenyc.org. Tickets may also be purchased in person at FringeCentral the day prior to the performance, or at the performance venue 15min prior to the performance (credit card only).

Photo by Dixie Sheridan