KEEP YOUR BAGGAGE WITH YOU Extends Run at TNC

Theater for the New City has announced that Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times), written by Jonathan Blitstein and directed by Daniel Talbott, will begin an extension of 10 performances starting Thursday September 16^th at 7pm at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, between 9th and 10th Streets. Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) was first presented as part of the Dream Up New Plays Festival in early August 2010. 

Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) is a challenging new play told in seven scenes taking place over several years as we witness the devolution of a friendship between two young men.  As they confront their failed relationships and careers, insecurities arise about their identity, spirituality, and integrity.  The play looks at how friendship, family, and especially love are possibly compromised by the digital age.

The cast of Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) is Daniel Abeles*, Nate Miler, Laura Ramadei*, and Molly Ward*.

Jonathan Blitstein is an emerging playwright from Chicago, whose prior projects as an independent screenwriter and film director have screened at international festivals, in theaters, and on television.  He began his career as an actor, singer and dancer in Apple Tree Theater's youth program.  A BFA graduate of NYU, his award-winning debut independent film Let Them Chirp Awhile (avail. on Netflix) was completed on a shoe-string budget in 18 days, with the support of Kodak.  The script was recently made available in the Permanent Collection of the Margaret Herrick Library at AMPAS. Jonathan studied acting and playwriting at NYU, The Second City, The Piven Theater, LAByrinth, and Primary Stages.  Keep Your Baggage With You (At All Times) is his first play produced in New York.

Daniel Talbott's most recent work as an actor includes the Theatre for One project in Times Square and around NYC, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis), Master Builder (Irish Rep), Rocket City (Alabama Shakespeare Festival),Tartuffe (McCarter Theatre/Yale Rep), Marat/Sade (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and the feature film Pretty Bird and The Big C on Showtime. Recent directing work includes Footprint (Red Fern Theatre), Afterclap, Birthday and Nobody (Rising Phoenix Rep at the

Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy's No. 43), The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC - Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play), and Fall Forward (Sitelines/River to River Festival). His play Slipping was produced at Rattlestick last summer with Piece by Piece Productions (named one of the top ten plays of 2009 by The Advocate), and will be published this year by Dramatists Play Service. He is the artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep (recipient of the 2007 NYIT Caffe Cino Fellowship Award), one of the

literary managers of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a teacher at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), and a graduate of Juilliard.

The set and prop design for Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) is by Eugenia Furneaux-Arends; costume design is by Tristan Raines; lighting design is by Benjamin Tevelow; sound design is by Janie Bullard. It is produced by Brian Miskell.

Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) performs at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, between 9th and 10th Streets, at the following times: Thurs Sept 16 at 7pm, Fri Sept 17 at 7pm; Sat Sept 18 at 2pm, Sun Sept 18 at 2pm, Weds Sept 22^nd at 7pm, Thurs Sept 23^rd at 7pm, Friday Sept 24^th at 7pm; Monday Sept 27 at 7pm, Tues Sept 28 at 7pm, and Weds Sept 29^th at 7pm.

Tickets are $15 and may be purchased at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/758485

The running time is 72 minutes.  For more information about Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) and the DreamUp Festival, visit www.dreamupfestival.org or www.theaterforthenewcity.net.