Maggie Hoffman, Mike Iveson & More to Star in The Public's ARGUENDO; Full Cast Announced

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) will begin performances for the world premiere of Elevator Repair Service's ARGUENDO on Tuesday, September 10. Directed by John Collins, ARGUENDO will run through Sunday, October 6, with an official press opening on Tuesday, September 24.

The complete cast of ARGUENDO features Maggie Hoffman, Mike Iveson, Vin Knight, Susie Sokol, and Ben Williams.

Single tickets, starting at $66.50, can be purchased by calling (212) 967-7555, www.publictheater.org, or in person at the Taub Box Office at The Public Theater at Astor Place at 425 Lafayette Street. The Library at The Public is open nightly for food and drink, beginning at 5:30 p.m., andJoe's Pub continues to offer some of the best music in the city.

Last year, The Public Theater co-produced, to great acclaim, Gatz (a unique word-for-word staging of The Great Gatsby) created and performed by Elevator Repair Service (ERS), one of America's most acclaimed theater ensembles. This season, The Public reunites with ERS for a co-production of ARGUENDO, a playful riff on the 1991 Supreme Court case Barnes v. Glen Theatre. In this provocative case, a group of exotic dancers, citing the First Amendment, challenged a ban on public nudity. ERS stages the oral argument of the case verbatim with their signature theatricality, wit and physical precision. The production design features a breathtaking swirl of animated text projections by celebrated visual artist, Ben Rubin who designed The Public's Shakespeare Machine.

ARGUENDO is designed to be a thought-provoking piece of theater. Every performance on Wednesdays and Sundays will be followed by talkbacks with ERS Artistic Director John Collins, and constitutional law scholars and journalists who write about the Court. These talkbacks, beginning on Wednesday, September 11, will not only give audiences a chance to learn more about the history of the case, they will give them a chance to participate themselves, in the discussion that the Court itself has begun.

ARGUENDO features set design by David Zinn; lighting design by Mark Barton; costume design by Jacob A. Climer; sound design by Matt Tierney; and projection design by Ben Rubin.

ARGUENDO was co-commissioned by The Public Theater; Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage; and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University. Development support provided by the Vineyard Arts Project.

MAGGIE HOFFMAN (Performer). In 1998, Hoffman co-founded the avant-punk performance ensemble Radiohole. She has performed in all eleven of Radiohole's original productions, which have toured nationally and internationally, and she co-manages Radiohole's performance venue, The Collapsable Hole, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her other performance credits include The Appeal (Young Jean Lee's Theater Company) and Major Bang (The Foundry Theatre). She also designs graphics for ERS and Clubbed Thumb, among others.

Mike Iveson (Performer). With ERS, Iveson's credits include Fondly; Collette Richland; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Shuffle; The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928); and Gatz. His select stage credits include Crime or Emergency, Dot, and So Much to Go Crazy. He tours with Sarah Michelson, NYC Players, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Dancenoise, and many others. He is the recipient of PS122's 2013 Ethyl Eichelberger Award.

Vin Knight (Performer). With ERS, Knight's credits include Fondly; Collette Richland; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Shuffle; The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928); No Great Society; and Gatz. His other credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Marie Antoinette at A.R.T. and Yale Rep; The Temperamentals; U.S. Drag; and over two dozen productions with adobe theater company. His film and television credits includeLouie, Robot Stories, Love God, and Dumped!

Susie Sokol (Performer) is a second-grade teacher at St. Ann's School in Brooklyn where she has taught since 1996. Susie began performing with ERS in 1992. Since then, she has appeared in all ERS productions. She has also worked with theater artists Katherine Profeta, Sibyl Kempson and Tina Satter.

Ben Williams (Performer) has worked for ERS as an actor and sound designer since 2004. His credits with ERS include Fondly; Collette Richland; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Shuffle; The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928); No Great Society; and Gatz; His additional recent credits include Grimly Handsome, Ich, Kurbisgeist, and When a Priest Marries a Witch. His other collaborations include The Wooster Group, New York City Players, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Diller Scofidio + Renfro. His awards for Sound Design include the 2012 Obie, 2012 Lucille Lortel, and 2013 LADCC. He is the Editor of Performance Texts for BODY, an online literary journal.

Elevator Repair Service is a New York City-based company that creates original works for live theater with an ongoing ensemble. Since its founding in 1991 by John Collins and a group of actors, ERS has built a body of work that has earned it a loyal following and made it one of New York's most highly-acclaimed experimental theater companies. Their work has been seen across America, Europe, Australia and Asia, and they have been the recipient of many awards including a 2012 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence; The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Theater Grant; the Theatre Communications Group's Peter Zeisler Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement; and (for Gatz) Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Visiting Production and Lucille Lortel Awards for Alternative Theatrical Experience and Best Director. ERS ensemble members have received OBIEs for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Lighting Design, and Sound Design.

ABOUT The Public Theater AT ASTOR PLACE

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham,The Public Theater is the only theater in New York that produces Shakespeare, the classics, musicals, and contemporary and experimental works in equal measure. The Public continues the work of its visionary founder, Joe Papp, by acting as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force, and leading and framing dialogue on some of the most important issues of our day. Creating theater for one of the largest and most diverse audience bases in New York City for nearly 60 years, today the Company engages audiences in a variety of venues-including its landmark downtown home at Astor Place, which houses five theaters and Joe's Pub; the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, home to its beloved, free Shakespeare in the Park; and the Mobile Unit, which tours Shakespearean and other classic productions for underserved audiences throughout New York City's five boroughs. The Public's wide range of programming includes free Shakespeare in the Park, the bedrock of the Company's dedication to making theater accessible to all, new and experimental stagings at The Public at Astor Place, and a range of artist and audience development initiatives including its Public Forum series, which brings together theater artists and professionals from a variety of disciplines for discussions that shed light on social issues explored in Public productions. The Public Theater is located on property owned by the City of New York and receives annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and in October 2012 the landmark building downtown at Astor Place was revitalized to physically manifest the Company's core mission of sparking new dialogues and increasing accessibility for artists and audiences, by dramatically opening up the building to the street and community, and transforming the lobby into a public piazza for artists, students, and audiences. Key elements of the revitalization included infrastructure updates to the 158-year old building, including changes to the main entry, expanded lobby, additional restrooms, and the addition of a new lounge, The Library at The Public, designed by the Rockwell Group. The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust provides leadership support for The Public Theater's year-round activities. www.publictheater.org

Pictured: Ben Williams and Susie Sokol in Elevator Repair Service's Arguendo. Photo credit: Rob Strong.