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'all wear bowlers' starts today

By: Feb. 17, 2005
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The dreamscape vaudeville all wear bowlers, created and performed by Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle, is set to play a limited engagement at the OBIE award-winning HERE Arts Center from Thursday, February 17th - Saturday, March 12th.  Official Opening is Sunday, February 20th at 8:30 PM.  This production is a part of HERE's 2004-05 season featuring six premiere productions developed by their resident artists, four festivals, three visual art exhibitions and the anticipated purchase of their space.

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The premise of all wear bowlers is simple.  Two silent film clowns fall off the screen to find themselves trapped in a live clown show.  Caught in an existential nightmare, they employ all the tricks of their trade in an effort to escape it.  all wear bowlers is a two-person absurdist play that melds physical comedy with visual metaphor, stage magic and vaudevillian patter in an exploration of identity and memory, nostalgia and amnesia.  Elements drawn from the desolation of Samuel Beckett, the beauty of René Magritte and the pathos of Laurel and Hardy collide, creating a surreal landscape of venomous ventriloquists and belligerent bowlers.

all wear bowlers has been in development for over three years, during which time the co-creators Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle have been awarded grants from the Independence Foundation, the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative and the New York State Council on the Arts.  Through this support, they had the opportunity to develop the clown characters and routines with renowned new vaudevillian David Shiner (Fool Moon) as well as probe the show's darker modernist dramaturgy with director Aleksandra Wolska.  Lyford and Sobelle further developed the show through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) at HERE Arts Center.  Most recently, all wear bowlers earned rave reviews as part of the 2003 Fringe Festival in Philadelphia and launched its first commercial run with Philadelphia's 1812 Productions.

Trey Lyford (Wyatt) is an Associate Artist with the OBIE award-winning theatre company The Civilians, where he has developed/performed in Paris Commune and Gone Missing.  Other theater credits: Aspen Comedy Festival ('05), Actors Theatre of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, Arden Theatre, Folger Theatre, Hangar Theatre, The Wilma, HERE and Soho Rep.  He has performed with the Pig Iron Theatre Company and the Joe Goode Performance Group.  Trey is the recipient of a Princess Grace Award and the Fabergé Theatre Excellence Award.  He holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in Acting from UCSD.

Geoff Sobelle (Earnest) has been a Philadelphia-based actor since 1999.  He is a company member of the Pig Iron Theatre Company ("Best Theatre, 2002" - Philadelphia Citypaper), an ensemble-based theatre troupe dedicated to creating original work.  Their award-winning pieces have garnered international acclaim in New York, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Germany and Brazil.  Geoff studied theatre and literature at Stanford University and was trained in physical theatre at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris.  In August, Geoff was named "best of theatre 2004" by Philadelphia Magazine.

This production includes direction by Aleksandra Wolska, films by Michael Glass, lighting by Randy "igleu" Glickman, sound by James Sugg and costumes by Tara Webb.

all wear bowlers has been developed over the last two years through HERE's Artist Residency Program (HARP), which provides development, commissions and full production support.  Since opening in 1993, the OBIE-award winning HERE Arts Center has housed New York's most daring and unique theatre, visual art, puppetry, music and dance in its three theatres, two art galleries and café.  Previous works originally produced by HERE include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique, Camryn Manheim's Wake Up! I'm Fat, and original musical and dance works created and directed by Executive Director Kristin Marting.  In 2003, HERE launched its Secure HERE's Future campaign to purchase its space and secure a permanent position as one of the city's preeminent presenters of multidisciplinary art. 

HERE Arts Center supports the work of artists at all stages in their careers through full productions, artist residency programs, festivals and subsidized performance and rehearsal space.  All work at HERE is curated based on the strength and uniqueness of the artist's vision. 

This production of all wear bowlers is made possible, in part, by the Axe-Houghton Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Individual Artist Program of the New York State Council on the Arts; and the Peg Santvoord Foundation, the Independence Foundation and the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, a program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts; and PMD Promotions.  HERE's 2004-05 season sponsors are Boru Vodka (liquor) and the Village Voice (media).

all wear bowlers will play as follows at HERE Arts Center (145 Sixth Avenue, one block below Spring Street): Wednesday through Sunday at 8:30 PM, with the first preview performance set for Thursday, February 17th.  Official Opening is Sunday, February 20th at 8:30 PM.  NOTE: Monday, February 28th is a special benefit performance. The run concludes on Saturday, March 12th.  All tickets are $20.00, with benefit tickets (Monday, February 28th) at $40.00.  Purchases can be made online at http://www.here.org or by calling SmartTix at (212) 868-4444 or visiting the HERE Box Office from 4 PM until curtain.  For more information on all wear bowlers, visit HERE online at http://www.here.org.






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