Photo Flash: Culture Project's THE JUNKET Celebrates Opening with Mike Albo and More

Culture Project examines contemporary American mores with two journalistic theater pieces in rep. Straight from Joe's Pub, The Real Americans, a compelling and uniquely galvanizing new work written and performed by Dan Hoyle, joins The Junket, a new, hilariously scandalous solo show based on scandalous actual events, written and performed by Mike Albo, coming to Culture Project from an extended run at Dixon Place. Performances began March 13rd and will run until April 20th at the Lynn Redgrave Theater (45 Bleecker Street, NYC). Last night, march 16, was the opening night for THE JUNKET. Check out photos below!

Escaping his hipster bubble in San Francisco, Dan Hoyle spent 100 days searching to bridge the divide between the liberal, achingly hip, moral-relativism of gentrified city life and the conservative, absolutist, often aggressive populism he found in small-town America. The Real Americans tells of Hoyle's time living out of his van and sleeping in backyards and parking lots, sharing meals and conversations with cowboys, Reaganite union coal miners in Appalachia, soldiers, rural drug dealers in the Mississippi Delta, itinerant preachers, creation theory experts in West Texas, and closeted gay fundamentalists. Hoyle sought to see the world through their eyes in search of country wisdom and a way to reconcile the divide between the Two Americas. Instead, he found himself at ground zero of our country's growing economic inequality and increasingly polarized politics. The Real Americans is written and performed by Hoyle, developed with and directed by Charlie Varon, and proudly presented in partnership with Marsha Garces Williams.

Hoyle won the distinguished 2007 Will Glickman 'Best New Play' award for his previous show, Tings Dey Happen, which reveled in long runs at The Marsh in San Francisco and Off-Broadway, where it was nominated for a 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Performance.

What's it like to be a scapegoat? Writer/performer/comedian Mike Albo presents his newest solo show The Junket, about what happens when your freelance job turns out to be your worst enemy. In this hilarious, harrowing, thinly-veiled tale, a struggling writer (named, um, Mike Albo) gets a freelance gig to pen a column for the country's most influential newspaper. It's a dream come true, and after years of low pay, Albo thinks he may finally be able to afford NYC's new luxury loft lifestyle (he even gets a new stylish boyfriend). But after he goes on an over-the-top, ill-fated press junket, he becomes a gossip item on the city's snarkiest, meanest blog, and is thrown into an acrimonious war between old and new media. The Junket is a much needed investigation into the compromised state of modern journalism, provoking questions about how we get our news and who gives it to us.

Helmed by acclaimed theater director David Schweizer, with video effects by Larry Shea, The Junket is a wildly funny but emotionally painful account of New York's backbiting media scene, the inner workings of the fashion industry, and what it takes to survive as a writer in our chattering, challenging, increasingly unaffordable culture.

Photo Credit: Timmy Blupe