Mac Wellman's MFA Playwrights Present the Weasel Festival 7/28-30

The fifth-annual Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival is excited to present three original plays and a short film at the East 13th Street Theater from July 28th to July 30th. Solely produced and written by playwrights from Mac Wellman's groundbreaking Brooklyn College MFA program, this year's Weasel festival features talented alumni Corina Copp, Benjamin Gassman, Kobun Kaluza and Amber Reed. Each playwright will riff off the stories of The Apocrypha - the infamous religious texts that didn't make the Bible's cut. Not decreed to be divinely inspired, the Apocrypha books are ancient Greek texts that were ripped and pasted back into the Bible throughout history. Filled with luminous stories of prophets, angels, intrigue and heresy, the off-the-record Apocrypha is the perfect inspiration for a festival of peculiar plays by playwrights working outside the canon.

LOCATION: East 13th Street Theatre, 136 East 13th St.
DATES/TIMES: Weds. July 28, Thurs. July 29 & Fri. July 30 @ 7.30pm
TICKETS: $18/15 students, reserve tickets at bringaweasel@gmail.com

Each night features three short plays and one short film:
WALTZ: an adaptation of The Story of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and The Song of Three Children. By Corina Copp; Directed by Meghan Finn
A woman is falsely accused, so an angel stands ready to cut judges in two: so goes divine justice.

Purimacolo: an adaptation of The Story of Esther.
By Benjamin Gassman; Directed by Julia Jarcho
Mussolini's mistress is crashing the Purim play.

Red Ass: The College Years, Sophomore Year: an adaptation of
The Second Book of Esdrus. By Kobun Kaluza; Directed by Judith Smith
On a sandy cove in the Pacific Northwest, Red Ass the turtle seeks prophetic wisdom and sophomore advice from his fellow animals.

A stop animation film adaptation of The Book of Tobit, by Amber Reed

The experimental Brooklyn College MFA program, led by the celebrated playwright Mac Wellman, has decisively shaped New York downtown theatre over the last 10 years. Alumni of the program include Thomas Bradshaw, Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee and Ken Urban. The program has spawned the annual Weasel Festival, now in its fifth year, as a vital breeding ground for new work. Previous playwright/producers include Normandy Sherwood, Erin Courtney, Kate Ryan, Scott Adkins, Sibyl Kempson, Richard Toth, Bianca Bagatourian, Susan Dunlap, Trish Harnetiaux, Laura Jones-Katz, Karinne Keithley, Matt Korahais, Kristen Kosmas, and Valerie Work.