One-Woman Show I'M MINDFUL...OF MY ANXIETY to Premiere at Medicine Show Theatre

A new original one-woman show entitled I'm Mindful...of My Anxiety will premiere at the Medicine Show Theatre in New York the first week of May, running May 1 through May 6 at 7:30pm.

The show explores the conflicts that can arise when the quest for better focus, clarity and calm collides head-on with an increasingly frantic world. This personal search by one woman is at once, comical, poignant and uplifting as she desperately tries to juggle the demands of modern life while keeping her cool - and her sanity. Along the way, she gets some help from yoga, Beethoven and Joe DiMaggio.

The show was written, produced and performed by Elizabeth Wine, a New York City-based writer, actor and theater producer. After a successful career as a writer, editor and digital content consultant, she returned to her first love, the theater. Elizabeth went to acting conservatory and became a member of the company at Medicine Show Theatre, one of the oldest experimental theater companies in New York City. MST is the inheritor of a long tradition of Vaudeville, modernist and expressionist theater, with strong influences from the New York School. Elizabeth is now on the Board of Directors of the theater as it nears its half-century mark. The two disparate realms of theater and journalism overlap in Elizabeth's lifelong passion for storytelling. Each discipline prizes both the overarching idea and the tiny detail that will lay bare universal truths of the human condition. She received her Bachelors degree in letters from the University of Oklahoma, and her Masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She completed a one-year acting conservatory at Michael Howard Studios in New York City. She spent time studying with Deborah Kampmeier, Naomi Thornton, Joan Darling, Angela Pietropinto and Polina Klimovitskaya, as well as Fay Simpson and Patsy Rodenburg.

The show was directed by Ashley Wren Collins, a New York City-based producer, director, choreographer, actor and writer. She received her BA in English and Theatre Arts from the University of Pennsylvania and her MFA from the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Collins produced and acted in the feature film, Chasing Taste, "Best Comedy" winner of the 2013 Burbank International Film Festival and the 2014 Manhattan Film Festival and available now on iTunes, Verizon FIOS and later this year on Amazon. She is the director/choreographer of the off-Broadway hit Flak House and the choreographer of Honestly Abe and Foxy Ladies Love Boogie '70s Explosion. Collins also directs the new works and thesis projects of MFA and BFA in Dramatic Writing candidates at NYU and is the author of several books. She is currently working on a book about the 1960s folk rock band The Association, which will be published by Rare Bird Lit. Ashley's short story, "Daddy's Girl," won the SLS-St. Petersburg Review award, a scene from her play Not It premiered at the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition Conversations in America series, and she is the recipient of a writing fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Recent acting credits include, Shades at Cherry Lane Theatre, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Boardwalk Empire, and Mother Eve's Secret Garden of Sensual Sisterhood, for which she won "Outstanding Leading Actress" and was nominated for "Outstanding Choreography." Visit www.ashleywrencollins.com.

Tickets are available via the website, www.anxietyplay.com. Medicine Show Theatre is located at 549 W. 52nd St. 3rd floor. Performances are at 7:30pm, May 1- May 6. Running time 70 min.