Rising Phoenix's F**KING IMMACULATE Begins Tonight

After the critical success of its recent Lucille Lortel Award winning Off-Broadway production of Martin Moran's All the Rage (produced with piece by piece productions), acclaimed new play company Rising Phoenix Repertory presents the world premiere of RPR Company Member Sarah Shaefer's new play F**king Immaculate. Building on the company's successful downtown site-specific play series Cino Nights, Rising Phoenix Rep is attempting to grow and expand on its innovative development/production process for new plays, building in a longer rehearsal period and focusing on an even more intimate and immersive experience for artists and audiences alike. The plays will be staged in an Upper West Side apartment to be disclosed to patrons who make reservations in advance. Seating is strictly limited to ten people per night.

Shaefer's play was commissioned and written specifically for the apartment space in which it will be performed. In the play, lovers Alex and Alice have been struggling together for years, trying to eke out a living as artists, until finally Alex gets a huge break at a large New York art gallery. Even as his career seems poised to explode at the opening night party, back home in the isolation of their apartment, his success blows apart the cracks in their relationship.

The production will feature Briana Packen (Big Gay Italian Wedding) and Chris Bellant (Fairfield, upcoming Thieves at Rattlestick). Performances start tonight, January 28th and run through February 4th.

Full performance schedule:

Wednesday, January 28th

Thursday Jan 29th at 7pm

Friday Jan 30th at 7pm

Sat Jan 31st at 7pm

Monday Feb 2nd at 7pm and 9pm

Tuesday Feb 3rd at 7pm

Wednesday Feb 4th at 7pm

Running time approximately 55 minutes. Tickets: $10 suggested donation. For reservations please call 212.946.5198 and you will receive a call or email back with exact performance location details. For more information, visit www.risingphoenixrep.org.

Sarah Shaefer (Playwright) is a playwright, actor and producer. Writing credits include The Gin Baby (Mermaid Sand Productions/Kid Brooklyn Productions, NYIT nom for best play), I Can't Explain It Better Than That (Rising Phoenix Rep), Mermaid (Rising Phoenix Rep, Fuck (Fresh Produced), The Blow Job Injury (Barrow Group Core Ensemble/Fresh Produced), The Queen and the Pawn's Ballsack (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival/Abingdon Theatre Company), Shitfuck Rip-Ups (Sarah/Leah Productions), Pornologues (Mermaid Sand Productions/Breezy Productions), Deliver Us Some Email (Primary Stages ESPA), K-Hole (Primary Stages ESPA), Totally Preggers (Primary Stages ESPA), Five Tiny Little Minutes (Primary Stages ESPA/Fresh Produced). Her play Sunk Like A Ship On Fire was a 2012 ESPA*Drills finalist. Upcoming work: All's Well That Ends Happy will be produced at IRT by Mermaid Sand Productions and Breezy Productions. Selected acting credits include A Fable (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Bus Stop (William Inge Theatre Festival), Bring A Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood (Brooklyn College MFA Playwrights) as well as workshops at New York Theatre Workshop, LAByrinth Theater Company, Page 73, Primary Stages, New Dramatists, Young Playwrights, Classic Stage Company. Selected film credits include Yelling to the Sky (Berlin International Film Festival), A Quintet (Chelsea Film Festival), Tiger Lily Road (Manhattan Film Festival). She is the artistic director of the NYIT award winning company Mermaid Sand Productions. She is a proud member of Rising Phoenix Rep, Actors' Equity, and the Dramatists Guild of America.

Daniel Talbott (Director) is an actor, director, writer, literary manager of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and the artistic director of the Lucille Lortel and NYIT Award-winning Rising Phoenix Rep. His plays include Slipping (The Side Project, Rattlestick), Yosemite (Rattlestick), Afghanistan Zimbabwe America Kuwait (Encore/Rattlestick upcoming), What Happened When (Rising Phoenix Rep/HERE), Someone Brought Me (Quince Productions), Mike and Seth (Quince, Encore, The Side Project), Extraordinary Things (Rising Phoenix Rep), and Gray (Your Name Here). Recent directing work includes A Fable (piece by piece/RPR/Rattlestick), Gin Baby (IRT), Scarcity (Rattlestick/Hill Town Plays), Mike and Seth (Encore), Slipping (Rattlestick), Afghanistan Zimbabwe America Kuwait (Rattlestick/Encore), Lake Water (Neighborhood Productions), Eightythree Down (Hard Sparks), Much Ado About Nothing (Boomerang), Squealer (Lesser America), and The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC - Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play). He is a graduate of Juilliard and of Solano College Theatre's ATP, teaches at Primary Stages/ESPA, and is a proud member of {Your Name Here} and Lesser America.

Briana Packen (Alice) NY Theater: Big Gay Italian Wedding / Funeral (Off B'way), Encounters: The Laronde Project (IRT), I Can't Explain It Better Than That (Rising Phoenix Rep), Lysistrata: Rape Play (Players Theatre). Upcoming feature film: A Little Crime Of Passion. Briana specializes in contact improv and devised ensemble choreography. She is the founder of Breezy Productions (2014) and co-creator of Loose Lips Podcast available on iTunes!

Chris Bellant (Alex) film credits include the Warner Bros. thriller Into the Storm, Fairfield with Juliet Landau, and Living with the Dead with Selenis Leyva, Chris Riggi, and Robert Clohessy. He was recently nominated for best actor in a feature film for The Backseat at the International Indie Gathering in Cleveland. He can also be seen on the A&E series Those Who Kill. Onstage, he has appeared Off Broadway in Unhealthy, Snow Angel by David Lindsay-Abaire, and The Believers, at The Storm Theater. He has also starred in Annie Baker's The Aliens at the Stonington Opera House and Daniel Talbott's Extraordinary Things in New York with Rising Phoenix Rep. This year he will star in Loserville, a feature film that he co-wrote, and Thieves with Rising Phoenix, Weathervane, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

Caffe Cino Fellowship and New York Innovative Theatre Award winning Rising Phoenix Repertory was founded in 1999 by Artistic Director Daniel Talbott, and produces both in the Indie Theatre and Off-Broadway, in traditional spaces and site-specifically around New York City. Recent productions include A Fable (co-produced with piece by piece productions and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), the Lucille Lortel Award winning Off-Broadway run of All the Rage (co-produced with piece by piece and The Barrow Group), Elective Affinities (co-produced site-specifically with piece by piece and Soho Rep), Slipping (produced with piece by piece and Rattlestick), and Too Much Memory (also with piece by piece), which transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop's Fourth Street Theatre after winning the FringeNYC award for Outstanding Play in 2008. Rising Phoenix Repertory produces an ongoing series called Cino Nights, inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino- one of the original birthplaces of Off-Off-Broadway theatre - for which the company has commissioned over twenty playwrights to write new, full-length plays, which are fully produced site-specifically in the intimate back room of East Village restaurant Jimmy's No. 43 on a shoestring budget. Two volumes of Cino Nights plays have been published by The New York Theatre Experience and are available in stores and online at Indie Theater Now. Rising Phoenix Rep serves as a home base for a company of theatre professionals that encourages an open exchange of work and ideas within the greater theatre community.

Photo Jody Christopherson

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