Natalie Birriel's SPEAK! Set for Rough Draft Festival Tonight

Natalie Birriel is proud to announce a performance of her autobiographical solo show Speak! at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center tonight, March 28th at 7:30 pm. Directed by Andreas Robertz, Speak! is a 90's music driven show about Natalie's journey from being a stutterer who couldn't say her own name to not being able to shut up! Speak! is a heartbreakingly funny and inspirational tale for anyone who has ever felt held back from saying what they truly wanted to say! This special performance is part of the Rough Draft Festival at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City.

Set in Miami, Florida just as the Funk of the 80's was ending and the hip hop/grunge period of the 90's was beginning, in Speak! we witness the plight of Natalie trying to find her voice. We also meet her Puerto Rican/Cuban/African American/Jewish posse who helped and inspired her with their own amazing voices and who in their own way had something that prevented them from saying what they really meant to say. Speak! explores the thing that unites us all, which is our need to be heard and understood.

Speak! started as a solo piece in the basement of University California, San Diego. Locking herself in a rehearsal space in the college basement she listened to music from her pre-teen years, to seek inspiration. While listening to any one of her musical giants from Chaka Khan to Erykah Badu to the Cranberries she began to improvise and record scenes and dialogue. During this process she also utilized family videos her mother had created. Inspired by the support of the faculty at UCSD Natalie continued developing her piece. After moving to NYC she started to write and rehearse her solo script as part of a weekly acting class with JoAnna Beckson. Upon joining the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Writers Lab, she continued the process of writing, rehearsing & performing her script. There she met director Andreas Robertz, who like the teachers at UCSD, saw something in Natalie's work and helped develop Speak!

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College is located at 31-10 Thomson Avenue in Long Island City, New York. Tickets for Speak! are available at the door on the night of the performance. General admission tickets are $5.00, LaGuardia student tickets are $2.00. For more information on the Rough Draft Festival, please go to: www.laguardiaperformingarts.org

Natalie Birriel is a Puerto Rican actress, comedian, writer and educator living in New York City. Her theatre credits include Christopher Ashley's Dram of Drummhicit at La Jolla Playhouse; Three Sisters: Awake at New York Theatre Workshop; Man Hat Wife, Baldwin New Play Festival; Marisol(ws) at Williamstown Theatre Festival. She also co-writes and performs in the web series Points of Service. Natalie has a MFA from UC San Diego.

Andreas Robertz (Director) has directed and produced more than 70 shows of all genres, in theaters ranging from 40 seats to 900 seats. He is Artistic Director of OneHeart Productions and a freelance director and producer working in both Germany and New York City. In New York he has directed for the Immigrants' Theatre Project, The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Around the Block, OneHeart Productions, and at the Theater For The New City and the Martin E. Segal Theatre (CUNY). He was awarded the 2006 Cologne City Award for his direction of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, and the 2008 Golden Penguin for best direction at the Penguin's Day Festival for the one-woman show 'Which is My Drug of Choice?' by Kai Hensel. Most recently he directed Noemi de la Puente's solo piece Fountain of Youth at the Mint Theater, Richard Plotz's full-length play Deceit, Christy Smith-Sloman's Negative Is Positive and co-directed Nancy Ferragallo's Charlotte's Song at theTheater for the New City. He co-directs the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Playwrights' Unit and is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab network.

Photo by Valena David Photography