Stage Left Studio Presents STABILIZED NOT CONTROLLED 3/11-25

Drama Desk Award-nominated solo performer and three-time Manhattan Monologue Slam winner, Frank Blocker, returns to Stage Left Studio (214 W 30^th St.) to begin previews of edgy new comedy STABLIZED NOT CONTROLED, about tenant/landlord relations and facing change in a turbulent world. STABILIZED NOT CONTROLLED previews Sundays, March 11 and 25, 5:00 pm. Tickets are $20 each.

Using conversations, statements and events witnessed and heard in New York City, Blocker spins the yarn of a murderous landlord evicting stabilized tenants by any means necessary as a new subway line is built beneath them.

“Leave Manhattan?  Not on your life!”  Declares septuagenarian sex addict in recovery, Lorna Breedlove, as she gathers the lost souls of her building to fight for their homes.  The tenants join forces and climb through “the system” discovering an unscrupulous attorney, passionate to apathetic City employees, subway construction, and the landlord’s escalating attempts at violence.  Like most New Yorkers, these tenants are either in a 12-step program or should be.  Their coping skills might save them if the landlord doesn’t kill them first.

Evil (typical) New York landlord “KILLER” JOE is plotting against the tenants of his building.  He’s already gotten rid of one, and another has passed under suspicious circumstances. Lorna Breedlove, a septuagenarian sex addict in recovery and den mother of the building, will not be moved.  The rest of the tenants will follow her lead:  THOMAS the log cabin accountant, middle-aged stoner JP, and repentant retiring priest Father Benedict to name a few. All is happening in a race with the new subway line, bringing more change and more people to the turbulent surroundings. Killer Joe enlists sadistic lawyer (redundant) Roveena, a preying mantis breaking the very laws she swore to uphold.  So JOE takes matters into his own hands without noting the danger of one’s own petard. The tenants battle through the red tape of City government and a slightly corrupt legal system, but as all true New Yorkers will explain:  “Leave Manhattan?  Not on your life!” All 17 characters and most lines spoken have been witnessed or heard in New York City.  Any correlation to any NYC landlord vs. tenant situation is purely coincidental, yet inevitable.

Cheryl King, proprietor of Stage Left Studio, has been a supportive force behind the show when it was first conceived as Fearless Moral Inventory and has been lending a dramaturgical hand every since.  King signed on as producer and hopes to announce a full run of the play in May, after her critically-acclaimed Left Out Festival plays through April.  Blocker will be performing parts of Stabilized during the Festival.  King first met Blocker at LOF in 2008 where she signed on as director of his previous solo show, Drama Desk-nominated Southern Gothic Novel.  Their relationship has continued in many forms as Blocker regularly performs in King’s Forbidden Kiss LIVE as a vocalist, comedian and monologist, and helped coach King in her currently-running show Grapefruit, Mondays at Stage Left Studio. 

The development process involved coaches, directors and dramaturgues, often in overlapping roles.  Character actor and writer/artist Jeffrey Edward Peters has been helping with the final direction and structure of what was first devised with Helena Judd, long before the show had a title.  In addition to King’s assistance with coaching, Blocker enlisted the help of vocal coach Amy Jones, and movement and staging coach Kathy Kelly Christos, working in weekly sessions for a year on characterization.  Christos’ goal was to assist Blocker with making each character physically recognizable on first glance, while Jones helped the actor with the vocal acrobatics required in this 17-character piece.

King states, “Blocker is an amazing character actor who makes each person unique, and he’s a veteran.  Even acting coaches like to use acting coaches.”

In addition to appearing in April’s Left Out Festival, Blocker travels to Jacksonville, Florida, in late April to conduct a Master Class in Character Acting at Florida State College. He will also perform solo play Southern Gothic Novel for students and the community.

Set design is by Edward Morris, coaching by Amy Jones and Kathy Kelly Christos, development & dramaturgy by Helena Judd, Cheryl King and Jeffery Edward Peters, technical direction by Murray Scott Changar, and sound design by Kenneth Allen and Kathy Kelly Christos, and is produced by Cheryl King Productions in association with E-Merging Writers.

Watch clips from STABILIZED NOT CONTROLLED on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCpNfkVBVDs

Click here to purchase tickets and learn more information about STABILIZED NOT CONTROLLED.