See Platform Group's ROUGHLY SPEAKING Before it Closes

Enthusiastically received by the press and public alike, Shara Ashley's Zeiger's drama Roughly Speaking will play its final performance at Tada, located at 15 West 28 Street, on Sunday, November 20. Conceived and produced by The Platform Group, in cooperation with Xavier Mission's Welcome Table Soup Kitchen, "Roughly Speaking is a giant labor of love", noted Zeiger. "It's a play about the people you don't see and the ways we are all the same."

The remaining performance schedule for Roughly Speaking is Thursday-Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm. There will be an additional performance on Monday, November 14 at 8pm. All tickets are $25.00, with $3.00 from each ticket sold going towards purchasing backpacks for the homeless. Reservations: 212-868-4444 or www.theplatformgroup.org. The approximate running time of the show is 90 minute. Members of the press are invited to all performances.

A new play with rap based on over 200 interviews with New York City's homeless, Roughly Speaking presents a look into a world most people would prefer not to acknowledge. One seen through the eyes of Lightning Bolt, a rapper bound only by his wheelchair and a cast of diverse characters on a not so typical day at the soup kitchen. An existential struggle of survival begs questions of love, loss, and what's next. Roughly Speaking is a drama about those who are caught in a system which exists more to maintain the status quo, rather than offer a way out.

The Roughly Speaking cast features Franz Jones* (Broadway's Big River), Danny Bolero* (Broadway's In the Heights & Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat), Christopher Michael McLamb*, Steven J. Michel*, Michael Twaine* (European Tour of West Side Story), Madeline McCray*, Troy Valjean Rucker* (National Tour, Jesus Christ Superstar), Shara Ashley Zeiger* and Joanie Anderson. (* - Member of Actors' Equity)

Roughly Speaking is directed by Celine Rosenthal (Broadway's Leap of Faith & Seminar). Set Design is by Jonathan Wetjen. Lighting Design is by Sophie Talmadge Silleck. Costume Design is by Shirlee Idzakovich. Stage Manager is Megan Roberts. Assistant Stage Manager is Ari Grossman. Assistant Director is Benjamin Abraham. Dramaturg is Nancy Kelly.

Shara Ashley Zeiger is the founder and Artistic Director of The Platform Group, where she acted in and produced Savage in Limbo and The Ladder Series. Her play The Dark Place was part of the 2014 Emerging Artist Theater's New Works Festival. As a devised work teaching artist she has developed 14 new plays with The Queens Theatre. Shara's theatre acting credits include the National Tour of Moliere's Imaginary Invalid and appearances at La Mama E.T.C., PS 122, Theater for the New City, Kitchen Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre and Buck's County Playhouse. She is on the reader selection committee for The O'Neill Center's National Playwrights Conference and sits on the board for NY's Educational Theater Association. www.SharaAshleyZeiger.com

Celine Rosenthal is a Tony-nominated producer (Leap of Faith, Seminar), an NYU Tisch alum, and graduate of The New School for Drama's MFA Directing Program. She is a founding member of Neela Theatre Project in Mumbai, and a Musical Theatre Factory Board Member. Her work has been seen at NYMF, New York City Center, MMAC, 54 Below, 59E59 and in the Broadway's Future Songbook Series at Lincoln Center. Recent projects include Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries, David Grieg's Yellow Moon, and Bekah Brunstetter's Little Man.

The Platform Group was formed in early 2010 as a call to action by Artistic Director Shara Ashley Zeiger. Their mission is to create work that challenges, inspires and provides a place to stand on. They seek to elevate both their audiences and creators. In early 2011 they produced a sold-out Off-Broadway run of John Patrick Shanley's Savage in Limbo. In 2012 they produced The Ladder Series, a staged reading series of 9 new full length plays, working with over 80 theatre artists, which lead to further development, world premieres, and publishing of some of the works. http://www.theplatformgroup.org.