The Performing Garage Presents Obie Award Winner Winsome Brown's Newest Work HIT THE BODY ALARM

Winsome Brown, the actress and writer who enjoyed considerable success with her solo play THIS IS Mary Brown at La MaMa last year, returns to the stage with her newest work, HIT THE BODY ALARM, presented by The Performing Garage (33 Wooster St.), with previews set to begin September 20 prior to the solo play's official opening night September 22. Directed by Brad Rouse and Winsome Brown, HIT THE BODY ALARM is scheduled to run through October 2, 2016.

Created and performed by Winsome Brown, HIT THE BODY ALARM is a solo performance event that blends the classic texts of John Milton's LOST PARADISE and James Joyce with new, material that reflects the world we live in today by Ms. Brown and Mr. Rouse. The score is by John Zorn.

The combination results in four tales of imprisoned souls on the brink of the abyss:

--Satan after he has fallen from Heaven

-- Eve before she eats the fruit

--a struggling actress so determined to end her own life without a trace that she commits infanticide

-- and the title piece, a chilling tale about the failures of our penal system

"Hit the body alarm" is a prison slang for how a guard responds when a prisoner falls to the ground. In the quartet of tales in HIT THE BODY ALARM, each central character is a body in crisis.

These four tales are bound together by Sean Hagerty's sound design, in which live sampling of voices creates a strange and beautiful soundscape of lost souls. Recorded music by John Zorn completes the sonic universe of the play, with lighting design by Michael O'Connor.

According to Ms. Brown, she undertook the project to debut specifically during this election year: "As the United States stands on the brink of a major election, HIT THE BODY ALARM explores the irrevocable decisions we make as human individuals, and the permanent consequences they bring."

Winsome Brown is a writer, director, and Obie-award winning performer. Her most recent play THIS IS Mary Brown - about her iconoclastic and wickedly funny Irish immigrant mother -- played in NY at LaMaMa last year, and travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The New York Times praised Mary Brown for being "lovely, poignant and honest," and The Scotsman called it "warm & funny, beautiful... inspiring." Ms. Brown has also performed in THE BURIAL AT THEBES at Irish Rep, and played Hillary Clinton in the opera WOMEN: THE WAR WITHIN at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

The Performing Garage Presents is The Wooster Group's artist-in-residence program. It is supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.