Urban Research Theater presents PLAY/WAR 7/15-8/14

URBAN RESEARCH THEATER presents the world premiere of PLAY/WAR, an explosive journey through intimacy, violence, and liberation. The performance explores the intermingling of play and war through an encounter between two nameless men, one in army camouflage and the other wearing a business suit. Over the course of the hour-long performance, the relationship of these two men passes through aggressive confrontation, childhood innocence, erotic potential, and more. PLAY/WAR explores contemporary masculinity through original dialogue, choreography, and songs ranging in style from traditional folk and sacred music to hip-hop.

PLAY/WAR will run for five weeks at Medicine Show Theatre (549 West 52nd Street, third floor) from July 15 through August 14 (Thursday - Saturday) at 8:00pm. Tickets are $20 (students $12) and available from Brown Paper Tickets. In addition to the run of performances, Urban Research Theater will present a series of related events including three intensive performance workshops (August, dates TBA) and a symposium on "Masculinity and Embodied Practice" (July 29) presented in partnership with the Movement Research Studies Project.

URBAN RESEARCH THEATER develops original theatrical performances out of a continuous, long-term practice of "embodied research" to create works that integrate narrative and image with an irreducible liveness in performance. Although theatre that combines heightened physicality with open-voice singing and realistic acting may be more familiar to Europen, the subject matter of PLAY/WAR is distinctly American, urban, and contemporary. The performers, who have decades of combined experience in intense physical and vocal training (Grotowski, Barba, Meredith Monk) were recently described by NYTheatre.com as "masterful."

For more information, visit http://www.urbanresearchtheater.com/site/performance.htm