WNYC & The Civilians Join for Interactive Online Forum to Share Stories of Divorce

The Civilians (Steven Cosson, Artistic Director), the award-winning New York-based theatre company known for investigation-style theater, and WNYC, the nation's largest public radio franchise, today announced a new collaboration - an interactive online forum for sharing stories of divorce.

The forum will live on WNYC's Culture site at culture.wnyc.org and at www.wnyc.org/divorcetales.

Inspired by The Civilians previous project, "You Better Sit Down: Tales from My Parents' Divorce," by Anne Kauffman, Matthew Maher, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, Janice Paran and Robbie Sublett, in which the artists interviewed their parents about marriage and divorce, the site invites audiences to share the tales, traumas, and hilarity of their parents' divorce through the storytelling medium of their choice: text, video, photography, graphics, and/or song. The site will offer tips on how to conduct interviews with one's parents to dig deeper into the tender memories and emotions divorce invariably entails: the moment their parents knew the marriage was over, the possessions their parents fought over, what it was like for them to tell their children of their decision to divorce...and the repercussions of the divorce on the family as a unit.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to watch webisodes of the live performances of YOU BETTER SIT DOWN that packed the house at Brooklyn's Galapagos Arts Space in November of 2009.

The Civilians will re-interpret the material posted to the forum at an event to be held in WNYC's street-level, multimedia performance venue, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, on June 28, 2010 at 7 pm. The Greene Space at WNYC is uniquely poised to support this type of collaboration, as it continues to amplify the collision of digital technology and live content.

This pioneering partnership marks a new way for theater to incubate online, and for theater to evolve both artistically and socially as a direct result of its online presence.

"Partnering with The Civilians on the next iteration of YOU BETTER SIT DOWN embodies WNYC Culture's commitment to engaging New Yorkers around the artistic process - as both creators and commentators," said Allison Lichter, WNYC Culture Editor. "As with all of our cultural partnerships, our goal is to bring WNYC audiences behind-the-scenes with a broad range of New York's cultural institutions and give them the opportunity to contribute to the experience."

WNYC Culture is devoted to working with New York cultural institutions in order to give New Yorkers an opportunity to be a part of the creative process as creators, producers and critics. WNYC Culture has partnered with the Whitney Museum for a "Twitter Tour" of the Whitney Biennial, as well as well numerous museums, lecture series and music venues to provide streaming audio of live concerts, readings and talks for its Talk to Me and No Cover series. The WNYC Performance Club brings New Yorkers to shows all around the city and engages in-person and online audiences with New York's vibrant performance scene. WNYC Culture contributes to citizen arts journalism, prompting debate and exchange about New York's diverse cultural offerings.

Founded in 2001 by Steven Cosson, The Civilians has created twelve original works that have been produced Off Broadway and in over 40 cities nationally and internationally, at theaters such as The Public Theater, Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse, A.R.T., HBO's US Comedy Festival, Actors Theatre Of Louisville's Humana Festival, London's Soho Theatre, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Fringe First Award, 2006). The company's recent work, This Beautiful City enjoyed a critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway run at the Vineyard Theater in 2009 receiving Lucille Lortel, Drama League and Drama Desk nominations. Gone Missing ran for seven months at Off-Broadway's Barrow Street Theater and was cited by The New York Times as one of the "10 Best Plays of 2007." The Civilians received an Obie in 2004 in recognition of its accomplishments in its first two seasons of work.

In addition to YOU BETTER SIT DOWN, The Civilians are deeply involved in their newest work, The Great Immensity, a play with music using a fictional narrative to talk about the environment and the future of our planet, which received work-in-progress showings at Princeton University in April.

For more information, visit www.thecivilians.org.

WNYC Radio is New York's premier public radio franchise, comprising WNYC FM, WNYC AM, and WQXR, as well as www.wnyc.org and www.wqxr.org. As America's most listened-to AM/FM public radio stations, reaching more than one million listeners every week, WNYC extends New York City's cultural riches to the entire country on-air and online, and presents the best national offerings from networks National Public Radio, Public Radio International, American Public Media, and the British Broadcasting Company. WNYC 93.9 FM broadcasts a wide range of daily news, talk, cultural and music programming, while WNYC AM 820 maintains a stronger focus on breaking news and international news reporting. Classical 105.9 WQXR is New York City's sole 24-hour classical music station, presenting new and landmark classical recordings as well as live concerts from the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, among other New York City venues, immersing listeners in the city's rich musical life. In addition to its audio content, WNYC produces content for live, radio and web audiences from The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the station's street-level multipurpose, multiplatform broadcast studio and performance space. For more information about WNYC, visit www.wnyc.org.