Mike Carlsen and Aaron Roman Weiner to Star in WITHOUT at Planet Connections

Mike Carlsen and Aaron Roman Weiner star in the headliner of the staged reading series: WITHOUT, a new play by Michael Puzzo at Planet Connections.

Two strangers are tortured and held prisoner for unspecified crimes...could it have anything to do with a catastrophic & unexplained worldwide event?

IF YOU GO:

Without

Written by Michael Puzzo, Directed by Glory Kadigan

Benefitting WIN (Women In Need)

July 8 @ 7:00 PM

LATEA Theater

Part of the 2017 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, June 12 - July 9 at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk Street, NYC - between Rivington & Delancy streets on the Lower East Side. Visit www.planetconnections.org for tickets and information.

The reading series of Planet Connections Theatre Festivity is a prime opportunity to view great working in an early stage. Without is no exception. This gripping drama explores the ancient principle of one person action can save ... or destroy a world.

?"Good theater should be like a town hall that brings groups of people together to make a statement, start a discussion, or support a cause independent of itself. The Planet Connections Festivity supplies a place for theater artists to do all of the above and much more" says -Prolific playwright, director, and actor, Michael Puzzo and PCTF founder Gorly Kadigan have assembled a top-notch group of artists to deliver this plays memorable message.

Chiming in was actor, Mike Carlsen, who plays Tooley, one of the two "accused" in Without: "Michael Puzzo is without a doubt one of my favorite writers out there today and to do this reading with Planet Connections to benefit winnyc.org is an honor." Broadway veteran, Aaron Roman-Weiner, concluded with this: "Michael Puzzo and I have been good friends for over 15 years, and I'm always eager to hear, through his writing, what's on his mind. Right now I think he's thinking what lots of us are thinking, and this play is a bold and scary imagining of the current political climate pushed to its limits."

Without concludes the reading series of this year's festivity.

Michael Puzzo (Playwright) is a writer, actor, producer and member of LAByrinth Theater Company since 1997. Productions of Mr. Puzzo's plays include; SPIRITS OF EXIT ELEVEN (The Lion Theater @ Theater Row), THE SLASHER'S LAMENT (The New Ohio), LYRIC IS WAITING (Irish Repertory Theater), MY SOUL THE PAVEMENT (Prithvi Theater in Mumbai) THE 11a.m GIRL SAYS "GOODNIGHT" (Access Theater) 5 SANDWICHES (Gene Frankel Theater) and THE DIRTY TALK which has been performed all over the world. His work has been published by Dramatist Play Service, Smith & Kraus, Indie Theater Now and New York Theater Experience . Acting includes new works by: John Patrick Shanley, Stephen Adly Guigis, Brett C. Leonard, David Bar Katz and Lynn Nottage. In the fall he will be assistant director on Mr. Shanley's new play The Portuguese Kid at Manhattan Theater Club.

Glory Kadigan (Director) Ms. Kadigan founded Planet Connections Theatre Festivity and served as the Producing Artistic Director for six seasons. She also founded Playwrights For A Cause and served as Producing Artistic Director four four seasons. Among her directing credits: World Premieres of ReGina Taylor's Biting the Bullet and John Patrick Shanley's Doublecross at the Playwrights for a Cause benefit at the Atlantic Theater, St. Anne's Soup (Israel Horovitz, World Premiere), Breaking Philip Glass (Israel Horovitz, World Premiere), Her Speech (Erik Ehn, World Premiere), Over the River and Through the Woods (Neil LaBute, World Premiere), Two Minute Warning (Neil LaBute, World Premiere), Safe by Penny Jackson (14th Street Y), Stain by Kristina Poe (Nylon Fusion), Five Sandwiches by Michael Puzzo (Nylon Fusion), The Picture of DorIan Gray (MT Works), Two Rooms (Workshop Theatre), Most recently, she directed Erik Ehn's Clover at La Mama. This summer, directing the World Premiere of Erik Ehn's Quiet House and Lyle Kessler's Mean Girls. Ms. Kadigan is also a playwright whose work as been presented in Singapore, London and New Zealand.

M?ike Carlsen (Tooley) is an actor based in New York City. He has been seen on broadway in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia (TONY Award 2007 - Best Play) and his Off-Broadway credits include: The Wood at the Rattlestick Theatre, WTC View at 59E59; L(Y)RE at Ars Nova and Spirits of Exit Eleven at the Lion Theatre on Theatre Row. Mike is currently playing "Mikey Politano" on the Emmy-nominated Netflix comedy UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT. Other TV credits: LAST WEEK TONIGHT; 30 ROCK; PAN AM; PERSON OF INTEREST; LAW & ORDER; LAW & ORDER: CSI; and RESCUE ME. FILM credits: MENTOR, WRECK IT RALPH, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES (with Liam Neeson), 11:55 (opposite Julia Stiles), LOST CAT CORONA, and CUSTODY. Go to www.100monologues.com and check out the monologue NICE SHOES which was one of Eric Bogosian's original monologues from his one man show WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE

Aaron Roman Weiner (Feldman) Broadway: Fool For Love. Recent Off-B'way: Bill Cain's 9 Circles, Lone Star Spirits (Crowded Outlet), The Insurgents, Radiance, and Thinner Than Water (all with LAByrinth Theater Company), Two Thirds Home (Broken Watch). Recent regional: The world premiere of Rachel Bonds' Swimmers (Marin Theater Company), Rounding Third (Hangar Theatre), A Steady Rain (TheaterWorks, Hartford), The Glass Menagerie (Steppenwolf Garage), Touch (Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago. Jeff Award nomination). Television: for four seasons, Agent Brooks on The Americans. Recurring roles on Crisis, and Made in Jersey. Other TV includes The Following, and Person of Interest. Films include Side Effects, Public Enemies, and The Express. Proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company.

Jill Shackner (Girl) Broadway: LES MISERABLES. Off-Broadway: Safe (14th St Y), Iowa (Playwrights Horizons), A Charity Case (Theatre Row), Landscape of the Body (Signature). Film: "Drafted," "On Monday of Last Week," "Staring at the Sun," "Eugenia and John," "Text Me," "Paper Man," "House of D." TV: "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," "The Americans," "The Michael J. Fox Show." jillshackner.com.

Production Team:

Ali Arkane (stage directions) is an actor based in his native New York City. His most recent work is preforming the lead role of Douglass in a staged reading of PERP, by Lyle Kessler, directed by Alec Baldwin at The Actors Studio. Prior to that, he was in a film "Alfred Hitchcock Prepares," directed by Elizabeth Kemp, where he plays Alfred Hitchcock. He has studied with Barbara Poitier, Elizabeth Kemp, and Susan Aston. He is a finalist at The Actors Studio.

Tyler Winthrop (Stage Manager) New York credits include Extinction (Guild Hall), SAFE, The Pavilion, Other(s), Slaughterhouse-Five (FringeNYC), Cupid and Psyche, Rockabye Hamlet, what do you mean (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends and I Know What Boys Want. She was the Production Stage Manager for the Playwrights for a Cause Benefit Event for the New Yorker's Against Gun Violence, featuring new works by Israel Horovitz, John Patrick Shanley, Dominique Morisseau, ReGina Taylor, and Penny Jackson. Tyler is involved with The Public Theatre's Employee of the Month Show hosted by Catie Lazarus. Tyler holds her MFA in Stage Management from Rutgers University. Credits include Eurydice, La Dispute, An Evening of Clifford Odets, and Another Part of the Forest.

Jacob Subotnick (Sound Design) is a NYC based composer and sound designer who has designed over 90 Off and Off-Off Broadway productions. Selected Off-Broadway: A Midsummers Night Dream (Masterworks Theater); Donkey Punch (SOHO Playhouse); InnerVoices 2014 (TBG Theater); Any Given Monday(59E59). Selected Off-Off-Broadway: The Ballad of Rodrigo (Funny...Sheesh: Nominated for Outstanding Original Music NYITA 2015); Virus Attacks Heart (Nominated for Outstanding Sound Design PCTF 2014); Tulpa or Anne and Me (Winner: Outstanding Sound Design PCTF 2011); The Picture of DorIan Gray (Nominated for Outstanding Sound Design PCTF 2010); The American Play (The Dirty Blondes/FringeNYC 2015); The Tunnel Play (The Dirty Blondes/FringeNYC2014); Why You Beasting?, Judgement Day (FringeNYC 2013). Selected Regional: Hair (Mount Washington Valley Theater: Nominated for Outstanding Sound Design NHTA 2010). www.jacobsubotnick.com