Mac Wellman Presents 3 2’s; OR AFAR at Dixon Place

Mac Wellman presents 3 2's; or AFAR on Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, October 6-8, 13-15, 20-22, 27-29 at 7:30 pm at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street New York, NY 10002). Tickets cost $15 in advance and $18 at door. For more information, visit online at www.dixonplace.org or call 212 219-0736.

Set in a haunted puppet theater (which looks suspiciously like Dixon Place), 3 2's; or AFAR is a meditation on philosopher Martin Heidegger's "Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer", the presence of certain suspicious and abandoned footwear, as well as an exploration of the Japanese notion of IKI (coquetry). From the critically acclaimed playwright and linguistic gymnast, Mac Wellman, comes a new play about what endangers, what is near, and what is nearer than that.

Mac Wellman's (Playwright) recent work includes The Difficulty of Crossing a Field (with composer David Lang) at Montclair and 1965 UU for performer Paul Lazar, and directed by Stephen Mellor at the Chocolate Factory. He is also working on two plays for chorus: The Invention of Tragedy (Classic Stage Company), and Nine Days Falling commissioned by the Stuck Pigs Company of Melbourne, Australia. He has received numerous honors, including both NEA and Guggenheim Fellowships and received his third Obie for Lifetime Achievement. His third novel, Q's Q, was published by Green Integer, and a volume of stories, A Chronicle of the Madness of Small Worlds, was published by Trip Street Press. His recent books of poetry are Miniature and Strange Elegies both from Roof Books. He is the Donald I. Fine Professor of Play Writing at Brooklyn College. His most recent book is LEFT GLOVE, just out from Solid Objects Press.

MEGHANN FINN (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director. In New York, her directing work has been seen at Walkerspace, PS122, 3LD, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater & Incubator Arts, Dixon Place, The 13th Street Repertory Theater, HERE Arts Center, The Bushwick Starr, Collective:Unconscious, IRT Space, Theater for the New City and the Prospect Theater Company. Ms. Finn assistant directed under Sarah Benson on the acclaimed production of Sarah Kane's Blasted at Soho Rep. She will again work under Ms. Benson on the upcoming premiere of The Lisps' Futurity written by Molly Rice at A.R.T. this Spring. Other recent directing credits include: Relative Value by Jesse Longman, Futurity by the Lisps for Motherlodge (HERE Arts), Saturn Nights by Jess Barbagallo, Waltz by Corina Copp, Blue Dress Reduction featuring Eliza Bent, HIM by E.E. Cummings, The Fake History of George the Last by Misha Shulman, A Week at the NJ Shore by Valerie Work. MFA Directing, Brooklyn College, Member of the 2009 Lincoln Center Director's Lab, 2009/10 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, New Georges' The Jam, co-founder of the longest lunch (2002-present).

CESAR ALVAREZ (Composer) is a songwriter and composer living in Brooklyn, NY. He plays in The Lisps, a Brooklyn-based rock band, teaches recording at Bloomfield College, and writes about music and science at www.musicisfreenow.org. He is developing a new musical entitled Futurity, co-written with Molly Rice and performed by The Lisps which will premiere at A.R.T. and the Walker Arts Center in 2012.

LESLIE STRONGWATER (Producer) has studied at Circle in the Square, British American Drama Academy, and Hampshire College, where she received her BA in theater studies and art history. She has directed and produced for OBIE- award-winning Peculiar Works (East Village Fragments) and Suzan-Lori Parks (365 Days/365 Plays) at The Public Theater. She was named Best Curator by Paper Magazine and given the BAX10 Arts Management Award from Brooklyn Arts Exchange for her work at Dixon Place, where she served as Associate Artistic Director for five years. She has a Master's degree in Educational Theater from NYU and currently works at The Jim Henson Foundation.

Kyle Chepulis (Scenic Design) is a founding member who helped create The Flea Theater. As a set and lighting designer, he and co-founders Jim Simpson and playwright Mac Wellman have worked together on many theatrical productions at the Flea and around the world. Kyle has received an EDDie, Obie and Bessie awards for his design work. Kyle founded and runs Technical Artistry, providing lighting design and technical consultation to museums, exhibitions, galleries, performers and visual artists. Technical Artistry has won several IESNA Lumen and E.P.R.I Awards for their lighting design work. Recently he started Tribeca Lighting, a theatrical lighting sales and rental shop supporting theater in New York City.

Brian Aldous (Lighting Design) first lit a Mac Wellman play in 1990; Crowbar, EnGarde Arts' Victory Theatre Project. That was also his first of many collaborations with set designer Kyle Chepulis. Crowbar earned the playwright an Obie award and the designers an American Theatre Wing award nomination. In the ensuing twenty years as a designer, he has lit hundreds of plays for New York and regional theatres, including the late Circle Rep (Body of Water, Escape from Paradise), Playwrights Horizons (Crazy Mary), Manhattan Class Company (Nixon's Nixon), The Flea Theatre (Future Anxiety, Mrs. Farnsworth), Cucaracha (Famine Plays), Minnneapolis Children's Theatre (Starry Messenger), Philadelphia Theatre Company (Sideman, Broken Glass) and Geva Theatre (Famous Orpheus), and even more dance pieces than plays, for choreographers like Tina Croll, Jean Churchill, Bryan Hayes, Leslie Satin, Errol Grimes and Abby Bender. He is resident designer for Symphony Space, a board member of Triskelion Arts and has lit performances and art installations of all sorts, from the Dream House to the Blue Man Group, in venues ranging from skateboarding bowls to Lincoln Center.

Chris Giarmo (Sound Designer) is an artist and designer based in Brooklyn. He is a freelance web/print designer, choreographer, composer, dancer, film-maker, actor, performance-artist, video editor/designer, producer, programmer, writer, sound designer, and beginner Japanese student. He is currently getting his masters of science in communication design at Pratt Institute and performing with Big Dance Theater, Half Straddle, and Heather Christian & the Arbornauts and was the assistant choreographer for David Byrne's most recent world tour.

NORMANDY RAVEN SHERWOOD (Costume Design) is a costumer, a playwright and a performer. She makes costumes for her company, the National Theater of the United States of America (Chautauqua!, Don Juan, Abacus Black). She has also created costumes for productions by Half Straddle, Faye Driscoll, Yehuda Duenyas, Young Jean Lee, Elizabeth Swados and The Flea Theater, and for her own works, which have been presented at the Ontological Hysteric Theater, 13th Street Rep, Skidmore College, Dixon Place and more. She was awarded a 2009 Bessie Award for Costume Design for Faye Driscoll's 837 Venice Blvd. She also writes plays (MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College), teaches college writing and is a co-curator of Little Theatre @ Dixon Place, a monthly performance series. She is currently writing and costuming a new play for the NTUSA called The Golden Veil, which will premiere at the Kitchen in May 2012.

ANNA KROUP (Stage Manager) is a producer, stage manager, and performer. She has most recently worked as a stage manager at Joe's Pub, Dixon Place, The Tank, HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Incubator Arts Project. She studied theater at the University of Rochester and is a founding member of The Opposite of People Theater Company, where she served as the production manager for 2 seasons. She is also a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Plaid Couch Productions: plaidcouchproductions.com . Look out for their upcoming festival: COUCH'D.

Jan Leslie Harding* (Something/Nothing, Puppet Designer) has been working in New York theatre since she arrived here over twenty years ago. She has been seen on Broadway in Julie Taymor's The Green Bird. Off-Broadway credits include: A Lie of the Mind, Defying Gravity, Album, Killer Joe, and Sincerity Forever for which she received an OBIE award. She has been featured in many Mac Wellman and Richard Foreman productions. Most notably in The Land of Fog and Whistles at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Birth of a Poet at the BAM Next Wave Festival and The Brothers Karamazov with EnGarde Arts. Jan Leslie is a founding member of The Flea, a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and lives in Greenwich Village with her seven year old daughter.

CHUJA SEO (Puppeteer), a native of Seoul, South Korea, has lived in New York since 2004. She holds a BA in Theater from Brooklyn College. She previously worked with Meghan Finn on Museum Piece as part of the Longest Lunch's Eat it Festival. Recently, she assistant directed a production ofThe Learned Ladies under Laura Tesman. Other New York credits include: Cookin' (New Victory/Minetta Lane), UBU (Brooklyn College), and A Week at the NJ Shore (Bushwick Starr/Dixon Place).

QUINLAN CORBETT* (Man) has appeared in Jason Grote's Habit at MASSMoCA, The Little Dog Laughed and The Play's the Thing, both at the Intiman Theatre, and Othello and Twelfth Night at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. In NYC, he has been seen in Lotus Feet, at Theater for the New City, and The Moth and The Flame with Target Margin, and has developed many new plays with the MFA playwrights at NYU. Quinlan received his MFA from the University of Washington and is a graduate of Hampshire College.

SOPHIE NIMMANNIT (Something/Nothing) received her B.A. in Theater at Yale, and has trained in mask, clown, Suzuki and other forms of physical theater. She has toured with the International Theatre Collective (St. Louis), and the LIDA Project (Denver). She recently appeared in MOSHEH at HERE's Culturemart, and with The South Wing (AOI) at the Undergroundzero Festival. Sophie directed previous Pack of Others show FLUID and co-created VOTE DEBS, an election-inspired political cabaret.

Jocelyn Kuritsky (Woman) has performed in and/or developed plays with 13P, PS 122, The Chocolate Factory, Clubbed Thumb, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Greenpoint Division, HERE Arts Center, the Lark Play Development Center, Les Freres Corbusier, Little Theatre, MCC Theater, New Dramatists, New Georges, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, Primary Stages, The Public, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Red Bull Theater, Shelby Company, Soho Rep., Target Margin, & Working Theater. She also performs regularly with her critically acclaimed theater company, Woodshed Collective, where she is an actor in residence. She has collaborated with some of NY's most innovative playwrights and directors, including Sarah Benson, Rachel Bonds, Thomas Bradshaw, Sheila Callaghan, Jonathan A. Goldberg, Ann Marie Healy, Anne Kauffman, Robert O'Hara, Tom Ridgely, Tommy Smith, Caridad Svich, Mac Wellman, José Zayas, among many others. She has also had opportunity to work with Ridiculous Theatrical Company and recent Tony nominee Maria Dizzia.