Verse Theatre Manhattan "VKTMS" begins May 5th

VERSE THEATER MANHATTAN, RICHARD RYAN, Executive Director, is please to announce the 20th Anniversary production of "VKTMS" by Beat poet MICHAEL McCLURE. Artistic Director JAMES MILTON directs. Performances begin Thursday, May 5th with an opening scheduled for Saturday, May 7 th at 8:00 pm. Performances continue Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 7:00 pm through May 29th. All tickets are $15.00, $10.00 with current student ID. TDF accepted. For tickets please call (212) 352-3101 or visit TheaterMania.com. VKTMSVKTMS is being performed at MEDICINE SHOW THEATRE, located at 549 West 52nd Street, on the 3rd Floor.

In "VKTMS," beat poet Michael McClure creates an eerie mythic underworld peopled by the victims of the Oresteia. Still in a state of shock after butchering Helen, her child and the rest of her household, Orestes and Elektra relive the horror of their childhood as the gods transform them into war chariots. VKTMS is beat poet Michael McClure's brilliant stylistic amalgamation of Euripides and Samuel Beckett into his own unique tragicomic exploration of humanity's capacity for violence.

Playwright MICHAEL McCLURE is also a poet, novelist, and essayist. Raised in Seattle, McClure came to San Francisco in 1955, where he became attached to the Beat movement and to the first stirrings of the San Francisco Renaissance. Later that year, he took part in the now historic reading at the Six Gallery, reciting his own poems alongside writers including Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg, who premiered his poem "Howl." Jack Kerouac, who attended the Six Gallery reading, later called McClure's "Dark Brown" "the most fantastic poem in America." His first book of poetry, Passage, was published in 1956, and his later volumes include Hymns to St. Geryon, Dark Brown, Ghost Tantras, Rare Angel, Scratching the Beat Surface, Selected Poems, Huge Dreams, Rain Mirror, and Plum Stones: Cartoons of No Heaven, among many others. He won an Obie for Josephine the Mouse Singer, and the police shut down his notorious play, The Beard, for 14 consecutive nights in Los Angeles. His other plays include General Gorgeous, The Grabbing of the Fairy and the collection, Gargoyle Cartoons. He has been playwright in residence at the American Conservatory Theatre and the Magic Theatre, both in San Francisco. He is also co-writer, with Janis Joplin, of "Mercedes Benz," and wrote the novels The Mad Cub and The Adept. He has released two jazz-poetry albums and a performance video with Ray Manzarek, formerly the keyboard player for the Doors, and the pair has toured extensively. McClure is a Professor at California College of Arts and Crafts. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area hills with his wife, the sculptor, Amy Evans McClure.

Director JAMES MILTON, who is also the Artistic Director of the Verse Theater Manhattan, has directed more than forty professional productions for such theatres as the NY Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse, La MaMa, American Conservatory Theatre, The Production Company, StageWest, The Magic Theatre and National Public Radio. Productions include True West, A Life in the Theatre, In the Boom Boom Room, The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi, Ghosts, Savage In Limbo and Dexter Creed (written by and starring Michael Moriarty). He has written numerous theatre scores, including one for The Tempest at Lincoln Center. He directed Christopher Fry's Venus Observed for Verse Theater Manhattan, as well as the American premieres of Craig Raine's 1953 and The Urban Stampede, an opera by Andrew Gant and F. D. Reeve. Also for VTM, he adapted and directed Kings and War Music, two volumes of Christopher Logue's version of Iliad; War Music toured the mid-West and extensively in England. His collaborations with Mr. McClure include a score for The Feather at the Magic Theatre, direction and score for The Masked Choir at the Production Company and direction of The Button at Theatre for the New City.

Designer UTA P. BEKAIA has designed in NY City for the past seven years, producing visual art, costumes, fashion, set design and styling in many different venues of arts. Among his theatre credits are designs for Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble, Steps Theatre Productions, The American Living Room at HERE, Adhesive Theatre and Bronx Arts Ensemble. Uta's art can be seen at http://utabekaia.50megs.com/

Featured in the cast of "VKTMS" are DAVID ARTHUR BACHRACH, GREG FORO, ZEBEDIAH HOMISON, SUSAN IZATT, TOM KNUTSON, ELIZABETH RUELAS and KATIE TABER.

Verse Theater Manhattan is the leading theater company in the English-speaking world devoted exclusively to verse drama. Its most recent production was "THE FOREVER WALTZ" by noted poet and playwright GLYN MAXWELL, produced in association with the WorkShop Theater Company. VTM's productions have been critically acclaimed by The New York Times and The New York Post, and have delighted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The company's work has been seen at the Harold Clurman, HERE Performance Space, and the 92nd St Y, among other distinguished venues. The many celebrated verse dramatists VTM has collaborated with include theater legend Christopher Fry, NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, and New Republic Poetry Editor Glyn Maxwell.

Performances of VKTMS begin Thursday, May 5th with an opening scheduled for Saturday, May 8th at 7:00 pm. Performances continue Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 7:00 pm through May 29th. All tickets are $15.00, $10.00 with current student ID. TDF accepted. For tickets by phone please call 212.352.3101; tickets may be purchased online 24/7 at TheaterMania.com. VKTMS is being performed at MEDICINE SHOW THEATRE, located at 549 West 52nd Street, on the 3rd Floor.