Mike Daisey's Monologue Series Returns to PS 122

Last spring monologuist Mike Daisey created 13 new shows in 13 weeks in a daring new series at P.S. 122 called All Stories Are Fiction. Plucking from events that befell him in the years, days, and sometimes minutes before he walked onstage, Daisey weaved together brand-new shows, creating one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-seen-again monologues before the eyes of the audience each and every time.

Now the creator of 21 Dog Years and the monologuist the New York Times has dubbed "the master storyteller" and the Seattle Times calls "a cross between Noam Chomsky and Jack Black" is back at P.S. 122 on Monday nights from March 14 through May 9 at 7:30 PM, this time taking aim at nothing less than happiness itself.

The rules are deceptively simple: 45 minutes before show time, Mike goes into his dressing room with a legal pad and a Sharpie and creates an outline. At 7:30 sharp, Mike emerges and tells his tale for the assembled audience for the first and only time. Over two months these monologues will address the essential question of happiness: what role does it play—or should it play—in our lives?

"Each night is designed to stand on its own," says director Jean-Michele Gregory, "but there are arguments and motifs that will develop and be sustained, and over the span of this larger canvas the stories will juxtapose in ways that simply can't happen in traditional theater." P.S. 122 will be offering single tickets for $10, or a $50 pass that allows admission to the entire series.

There is nothing else on the New York stage like this; with All Stories Are Fiction Mike Daisey provides a truly singular theatrical experience. "We're delighted to have Mike Daisey back in residence at Performance Space 122 where his Tesla coil-like brain will unleash its power on an unsuspecting world," says Performance Space 122 Artistic Director Vallejo Gantner.

TITLES AND DATES FOR ALL STORIES ARE FICTION:

March 14: WHERE WATER MEETS WITH WATER
Being that every river, in time, pours down to the sea.

March 21: ON LACKING CONVICTION
Not every child thrown to the wolves becomes a hero.

March 28: GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Diplomacy: the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

April 4: TENSION IS THE GREAT INTEGRITY
The lost science of each piece held precisely in place.

April 11: SERENITY THROUGH VICIOUSNESS
A useful guide for rank amateurs and seasoned professionals.

April 18: JUST AS THE LIGHT FAILS
In twilight, in the dark, on each and every doorstep.

April 25: YES, THERE WILL BE DANCING
Simple questions on the afterlife, answered plainly.

May 9: TO BE ANNOUNCED
An entertainment whose nature can not yet be divulged.

SHOW DETAILS:

Performance schedule for All Stories Are Fiction is Mondays at 7:30 p.m. from March 14th to May 9th. Tickets are $10 or $50 for entire series and are available at ticketweb.com or by phoning the Performance Space 122 box office at (212) 477-5288.

ABOUT MIKE DAISEY:

Mike Daisey is a monologuist who works in a uniquely extemporaneous fashion, always without a script, composing entirely before live audiences, telling and re-telling his stories night after night until the shows find their shape.

It was through this provocative process that his hit show 21 Dog Years was forged. That monologue, about the years he spent at the internet giant Amazon.com, played for six months Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Daisey has since performed the show in London and Edinburgh, and at Intiman, Berkeley Repertory and Portland Center Stage. Daisey's monologue of theater and its discontents, The Ugly American, has been workshopped at Manhattan Theatre Club and The Cape Cod Theatre Project and will receive full productions this year at the Spoleto Festival, ACT Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Daisey's latest monologue, Monopoly!, just premiered at the Ohio Theatre last month, produced by Les Freres Corbusier.

Since the launch of All Stories Are Fiction at P.S. 122 in 2004, Daisey has created new episodes of ASAF for Portland Center Stage, ACT Theatre, and Seattle SketchFest. His other works include I Miss the Cold War and Wasting Your Breath. Daisey is currently at work on a second book, Happiness Is Overrated, a collection of essays dedicated to the proposition its title asserts.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Jean-Michele Gregory works with solo performers and writers to create works based on biographical material, and since 1998 has served as constant collaborator, dramaturg and co-conspirator on all of Mike Daisey's monologues. She directed 21 Dog Years from its inception in the garages of Seattle to its premiere Off-Broadway, as well as productions in London, Edinburgh, Seattle's Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Rep and Portland Center Stage, and she continues to work closely with Mike in the development and shaping of new shows, including Wasting Your Breath, The Ugly American, I Miss the Cold War, Monopoly! and the ongoing series All Stories Are Fiction. She's currently writing a memoir about her grandmother's life in pre-war Poland and the fantastic series of events that led her family to Texas.