I HATE LOVE Premieres At The 2009 Midtown Int'l Theatre Festival 7/13-7/28

Written and adapted by Kyle Baxter (Breeze off the River at Fringe) and Jon Crefeld, I Hate Love, a modern-day spin on a Shakespeare classic, will be premiering in the 2009 Midtown InterNational Theatre Festival. Presented by The Collective Objective, the production will feature direction by Mark Duncan (American Jataka Tales at Manhattan Theatre Source, Souvenir at Westport Country Playhouse).

In I Hate Love, Kira and Lieutenant Cruz are getting married...or so they think. Love is in the air, hot shot pilots from Cruz's Navy squadron are coming, but not everyone is happy about the impending nuptials. And what exactly is going on between Bennett the best man and Kira's cousin Tom? Scornful exes, anonymous texting, and even an officer or two come out in this modern day, gender-bending interpolation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

The play stars Sarah Barry as Kira and Andrew Stephen Johnson as Lt. Cruz. The cast also features Elizabeth Allerton, Danielle Beckmann, Dan Belmont, Patricia Comstock (Prince Trevor Amongst the Elephants at MITF), Austin Elmore, John Felidi, Anthony Gargano, D.R. Mann Hanson, Roi King, Blaine Pennington, Duncan Pflaster, and Elizabeth Pickett.

I Hate Love runs from July 13th to July 28th at the Dorothy Streslin Theatre in the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex at 312 West 36th Street (between 8th and 9th). The performance schedule is: Monday, July 13th at 8:30pm, Friday July 17th at 5:30pm, Sunday July 19th at 7:30pm, Saturday, July 25th at 11am, and Tuesday, July 28th at 8:30pm.

Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.midtownfestival.org or by phone at 866-811-4111.

For more information on I Hate Love, visit: www.shakespeare-remixed.com

The Collective Objective is a group of New York based actors and writers, embarking on a project to create our own path by producing our own work. To contribute what we have; to listen, learn, lead, love, inspire and build faith, to be more than one, to take upon ourselves, the strength of the many and its needs, to serve the collective objective in all its forms.

For more information on The Collective Objective, visit: www.collob.com