MTC Education Department's Stargate Theatre Company to Stage DEEPER THAN SKIN This Weekend

The Stargate Theatre Company, a project of Manhattan Theatre Club's Education Department will perform an original piece, Deeper Than Skin, this Saturday, August 22nd at 3:00PM and 7:00PM at MTC- Stage II at New York City Center (131 W. 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues). Each performance will last approximately forty-five minutes and will be followed by a talkback onstage with the performer-writers. After the 7:00PM talkback, there will be a brief reception in the theatre lobby.

Both performances are at maximum capacity; however, individuals wishing to attend may be placed on a waiting list by arriving at the theatre 30 minutes prior to curtain. Questions can be directed to whandy@mtc-nyc.org.

The Stargate Theatre Company provides court-involved youth the paid opportunity to engage in a theatre-making experience that develops workforce readiness and life skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. With the guidance of Stargate's Co-Artistic Directors, Emmy Award-winner and playwright Judy Tate and director Stephen DiMenna, the ensemble composes, rehearses and performs a drama reflecting their collective identity and their aspirations, ideas and fears about themselves and the world.

Deeper Than Skin is a forty-five minute original play inspired by the company members' reflections on family and home life. Through expressionistic poetry, dramatic dialogue, commentary on current events, and dance, Deeper Than Skin explores how legacy impacts and influences all aspects of the creators' lives.

The 2015 Stargate Theatre Company is generously funded by Sharon Sullivan and Jeffrey B. Kindler, The Monteforte Foundation and Noah and Susanna Schankler, Amy and David Abrams, and The Bendit Family Foundation. The pilot season in 2013 of the Stargate Theatre Company and a subsequent dissemination and planning initiative were underwritten by the Leon F. Lowenstein Foundation, and the 2014 iteration was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation's Good Neighbor Committee.

Manhattan Theatre Club, under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, has become one of the country's most prominent and prestigious theatre companies. Over the past four and a half decades, MTC productions have earned numerous awards including six Pulitzer Prizes and 19 Tony Awards. MTC has a Broadway home at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street) and two Off-Broadway theatres at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street). Renowned MTC productions include Constellations; Casa Valentina; Outside Mullingar; The Assembled Parties; Venus in Fur; Master Class; Good People; The Whipping Man; Time Stands Still; The Royal Family; Ruined; Come Back, Little Sheba; Blackbird; Shining City; Rabbit Hole; Doubt; Proof; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Love! Valour! Compassion!; A Small Family Business; Sylvia; Putting It Together; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Crimes of the Heart; and Ain't Misbehavin.' For more information on MTC, please visit www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

Founded in 1989, MTC's Education Program has enriched and illuminated the lives of thousands of students of all ages and will continue to grow as an integral part of Manhattan Theatre Club. Among the program's goals are deepening students' understanding of themselves and the world through the medium of theatre; helping to develop a knowledgeable, perceptive new audience for the theatre and for the arts in general; and improving the ability of classroom teachers to teach the arts and to incorporate arts education into curricula.