Photo Flash: First Look at Elevator Repair Service's ARGUENDO at Public Theater

The Public Theater presents the world premiere of Elevator Repair Service's ARGUENDO, directed by John Collins. The production, featuring Maggie Hoffman, Mike Iveson, Vin Knight, Susie Sokol, and Ben Williams, will run through Sunday, October 6, with an official press opening on Tuesday, September 24. Check out a first look at the cast in action below!

Single tickets, starting at $66.50, can be purchased by calling (212) 967-7555, www.publictheater.org, or in person at the Taub Box Office at The Public Theater at Astor Place at 425 Lafayette Street. The Library at The Public is open nightly for food and drink, beginning at 5:30 p.m., andJoe's Pub continues to offer some of the best music in the city.

Last year, The Public Theater co-produced, to great acclaim, Gatz (a unique word-for-word staging of The Great Gatsby) created and performed by Elevator Repair Service (ERS), one of America's most acclaimed theater ensembles. This season, The Public reunites with ERS for a co-production of ARGUENDO, a playful riff on the 1991 Supreme Court case Barnes v. Glen Theatre. In this provocative case, a group of exotic dancers, citing the First Amendment, challenged a ban on public nudity. ERS stages the oral argument of the case verbatim with their signature theatricality, wit and physical precision. The production design features a breathtaking swirl of animated text projections by celebrated visual artist, Ben Rubin who designed The Public's Shakespeare Machine.

ARGUENDO is designed to be a thought-provoking piece of theater. Every performance on Wednesdays and Sundays will be followed by talkbacks with ERS Artistic Director John Collins, and constitutional law scholars and journalists who write about the Court. These talkbacks, beginning on Wednesday, September 11, will not only give audiences a chance to learn more about the history of the case, they will give them a chance to participate themselves, in the discussion that the Court itself has begun.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus