Red Bull Theater Continues Their 2016-'17 Season with New York Premiere of David Ives's THE METROMANIACS

Red Bull Theater (Jesse Berger, Artistic Director) today announced the cast for their next Revelation Reading on Monday March 20th (7:30pm) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street): David Ives's THE METROMANIACS, adapted from Alexis Piron's La Métromanie, directed by Craig Baldwin. Christian Conn, Carson Elrod, Peter Kybart, Adam LeFevre, Amelia Pedlow, Tony Roach, and DIna Thomas will be featured. Tickets are available at www.redbulltheater.com or by phone at (212) 352-3101.

Adapted from Alexis Piron's La Métromanie, the fight for true love involves mistaken identity, misplaced ardor, and manic would-be poets in David Ives's warm and witty 'transladaptation' of this rediscoverEd French farce.

"Frankly, I fell in love with the title. There's not much like realism in The Metromaniacs. We're in a levitated reality that's the exact counterpart of the vernacular, set-in-an-inn comedies the English were writing at the time. This is champagne, not ale. The play was a lip-smacking scandal in its time. When my friends ask me what it's about, I always say The Metromaniacs is a comedy with five plots, none of them important. But that's part of its beauty. We go to certain plays to inhabit a world elsewhere, and La Métromanie is that kind of play. Piron doesn't want plot. He wants gossamer and gorgeousness, rarified air and helpless high-comic passion. A purer world. Characters drunk on language, fools in love with love. In other words, the way the world was meant to be. Given what's in our newspapers, a few yards of gossamer may be just what the doctor ordered. So gossam on, mes amis, gossam on...," said David Ives.

David Ives was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play for Venus In Fur, which has been produced all over the country and the world, and was turned into a film by Roman Polanski. He is also well known for his evenings of one-act comedies All In The Timing and Time Flies. Other plays include New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza; The Liar (adapted from Corneille); The School For Lies (adapted from Molière); Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain); Ancient History; and Polish Joke. A Chicago native and a former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he lives in New York City.

Red Bull Theater's OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings present staged readings of new and rarely performed classic plays from all eras and cultures. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as the cornerstone of our mission, Red Bull Theater is dedicated to the rediscovery and re-investigation of classics from all eras and cultures, and to the development of new plays of heightened language and classical themes. Revelation Readings provides a unique opportunity to hear these plays performed by many of the finest actors in New York.

Revelation Readings are Monday evenings at 7:30 PM, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Hudson Streets). Tickets for Revelation Readings are $42, with Premium Seats available at $64. For complete list of Readings and up-to-date cast information for upcoming Readings, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

Up next on the mainstage: The Government Inspector, directed by Jesse Berger which will open this Spring at a theater to be announced. All politics are local. Gogol's deeply silly satire of small-town corruption offers a riotous portrait of rampaging self-delusion. When the crooked leadership of a provincial village discovers that an undercover inspector is coming to root out their commonplace corruption, the town weaves a web of bribery, lies, and utter madness. This New York Premiere of acclaimed playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's (Stage Beauty) adaptation offers a hilarious reminder of the timelessness of bureaucracy and buffoonery. Cast and design team, as well as performance schedule, will be announced shortly. Single tickets will go on sale next month.

Red Bull Theater, hailed as "the city's gutsiest classical theater" by Time Out New York, is the not-profit Off-Broadway theater company specializing in plays of heightened language. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, Red Bull Theater embraces the imagination of theatergoers through intimate, imaginative productions of great classic stories from all eras and cultures.

Acclaimed as "a dynamic producer of classic plays" by The New York Times, Red Bull Theater has previously staged productions of Pericles, The Revenger's Tragedy, Edward the Second, Women Beware Women, The Duchess of Malfi, The Witch of Edmonton, The Maids, The Dance of Death, Loot, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Volpone, 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, as well as last season's hit productions of Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling and Sheridan's The School For Scandal as well as Coriolanus earlier this season! The company's work has been hailed as "the most exciting classical theater in New York" (Time Out New York), "Dynamite!" (The New York Times), "Triumphant" (Associated Press), and "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years" (Variety).

Red Bull Theater's work has been recognized with multiple Drama Desk, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, Callaway and OBIE Award nominations and awards, including the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Revival in the 2015-'16 season (School for Scandal). The company has staged nearly 150 Revelation Readings, named by the Village Voice "Best Play Reading Series," also developing new plays of heightened language and classical adaptations through workshops and offering educational programs for students of all ages. Post-play Bull Session discussions with scholars following select Sunday matinees and Readings are free and open to the public.

Red Bull Theater offers Master Classes throughout the year. Taught by top working professionals including Kathleen Chalfant, John Douglas Thompson, Olympia Dukakis, Heidi Griffiths, and Patrick Page, Red Bull Theater's intensives and workshops cover a variety of disciplines, including auditioning, text, voice, movement, clowning, stage combat, and acting Shakespeare. Classes are open to adults at all levels of training or experience. They range from one to four days with limited class sizes to allow one-on-one attention. You can enroll in any combination of classes, or take the whole series for a year-long training experience.

For tickets and more information, visit www.redbulltheater.com or call (212) 352-3101.