Pipeline Theatre Company to Present PLAYING HOT, 6/4

Pipeline Theatre Company presents PLAYING HOT as its inaugural Big Mystery Show on Saturday June 4th at 7:30pmat The Gym at Judson (243 Thompson St., NYC). Tickets ($20) are currently available for purchase online at http://www.pipelinetheatre.org.

PLAYING HOT is created by writer Kevin Armento and director Jaki Bradley, with set and prop design by Chris Bowser, lighting design by Brian Tovar, costume design by Sarafina Bush, sound design by Matt Finch, choreography by Jason Warley, music direction by Trevor Bachman, and music supervision and arrangements by James Williams, also starring as Buddy Bolden. PLAYING HOT features Louisiana-based band, the NEW ORLEANS SWAMP DONKEYS, led by James Williams on Trumpet with Miles Lyons on Trombone, Eddie Brown on Sousaphone, and Jams Marotta on Drums. The SWAMP DONKEYS will additionally be joined by Marcus Miller on Saxaphone and Khrys Williams on Trumpet. The dynamic ensemble features the talents of Pipeline ensemble member Fernando Contreras, as well as Josh Bonzie, Dante Jeanfelix, Roi King, Emma Meltzer, Cristina Pitter, and Monique St. Cyr. PLAYING HOT is produced byAri Schrier and Natalie Gershtein, stage managed by Kristy Bodall with Assistant Stage Manager Zach Donovan.

Set within a brassy dance hall, PLAYING HOT deconstructs the incredible story of the birth of jazz in New Orleans. Retracing the rise and fall of Buddy Bolden, the little-known trumpeter who pioneered the radical sound that would become America's Art Form, the show is neither biography nor period piece, neither play nor musical, but an explosive theatrical event in the style of jazz. A live brass band joins a dynamic ensemble to riff on everything from Mardi Gras and Public Enemy, to questions of appropriation and the cult of celebrity.

Pipeline Theatre Company's first-ever Big Mystery Show is a spectacular, one-of-a-kind, cross-disciplinary event featuring the work of this season's mystery artists. The project, part of Pipeline's second stage programming, provides a dedicated space for devised theater artists in the Pipeline season, and has resulted in a one-night only event that is an utterly unique audience experience.

Last season, Pipeline Theatre Company asked their community of theatre-makers of all stripes to send them their big ideas for a one-night-only developmental production. They picked just one of those big ideas and have since been secretly working with their mystery artist team to bring it all together.

Kevin Armento (Writer)'s plays include Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (59E59 Theaters, New York Times Critics' Pick; upcoming at Edinburgh Festival), Companion Piece (Pleasance Theatre, London), killers (Tom Noonan's Paradise Factory), and Good Men Wanted (Ars Nova, Arena Stage.) His work has been developed at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Dixon Place, Naked Angels, Theatre503, and The New Ohio. He is a current member of Ars Nova's Play Group, a resident artist at The Drama League, and has received commissions from the Abingdon Theatre and One Year Lease. He has been a regular contributor to Culturebot and The Huffington Post, and his spec script Comfortably Numb was recently optioned by CBS Studios. www.kevinarmento.com

Jaki Bradley (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director of new plays and musicals. Recent projects include Good Men Wanted (Arena Stage), I've Been to Sea Before (TONY Critic's Pick),#liberated (Ars Nova), and What Every Girl Should Know (TONY Critic's Pick). She has also developed and presented work with The Public, Williamstown, Naked Angels, The Flea, and Atlantic Acting Studio. As an assistant director, she has worked with Michael Greif, Leigh Silverman, Lisa Peterson, and Daniel Aukin, among others. She is a Drama League Artist-in-Residence, a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, the Williamstown Directing Corps, the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, and a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. www.jakibradley.com

James Williams (Music Supervisor and Arranger; Musician; Buddy Bolden) is a multi-talented artist and musician based in New Orleans, LA. He leads the NEW ORLEANS SWAMP DONKEYS, a band that specializes in Early Jazz with a particular focus on Louis Armstrong. Led by James, the band has performed for storied clubs and festivals across the world, including The Blue Note, Ronnie Scott's, The Hamilton, Cliff Bell's, and Ginny's; as well as North Sea, Edinburgh, Ascona, Megève, and New Orleans Jazz Festivals; plus Monte Carlo Sporting Sumer Fest, French Quarter Fest, and many more. The Scotsman called the SWAMP DONKEYS "an exuberant and fairly unstoppable force," and in comparing James to Louis Armstrong, Stephen Duffy on BBC Scotland's The Jazz House said that James "is resolutely his own man." James even led his band to viral video stardom with the traditional jazz version of the Theme song from Game of Thrones.

James is also a regular with Treme Brass Band and Hot 8 Brass Band, and has played in dozens of other bands and hundreds of musicians in New Orleans over recent years; as part of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, James sang solos and duets with Grammy-winner Dee Dee Bridgewater, earning standing ovations for both in front of huge stadium audiences and storied clubs around the world, including New York's Apollo Theatre. In all of these bands, James can be found on trumpet, vocals, and tuba (and sometimes even saxophone and trombone). PLAYING HOT marks James' theatre debut.