ALLIGATOR-A-PHOBIA IN 3D! Announced At Boston Playwrights' Theatre

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) concludes its 2022-23 season with Alligator-a-Phobia in 3D!, a play with music by Jay Eddy. Running from April 6-16, the play is directed by Shamus.

Alligator-a-Phobia in 3D! is a door farce/monster movie mashup about obsession and isolation-an absurd horror-comedy...with plenty of song and dance. This delightfully silly and ridiculously serious new work is a swampy adventure about love, quarantine, and how to keep from being consumed-literally-when the chaos outside turns up inside.

Playwright/composer Eddy describes Alligator-a-Phobia's music as a fusion of a range of different styles and inspirations-including rockabilly, blues, zydeco, country and funk-and the show itself as joyful, but with serious undertones as it examines themes like climate change and community.

"I wonder how we are going to make sense of the pandemic years. How we will make peace with, or seek to avoid and control, the chaos beyond our front doors," they say. "How we will reimagine what we need to be happy or the shape of a good life. How we will build our communities. How we will ever feel at home. I wonder: will I welcome change with open arms-or with a slammed door?"

Eddy is a third-year M.F.A. playwright at Boston University. Their work for the stage includes the solo musical Driving in Circles, the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Richard Rodgers Award and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award (both 2022). Director Shamus, who is a third-year M.F.A. Directing candidate at Boston University, returns to BPT after helming Eat Your Young by J.C. Pankratz last fall. Other directing credits include the recent Boston University production of the musical Once.

Alligator-a-Phobia in 3D! features Zach Fontanez as Big Mack, Leah Kreitz as Happy, Katherine Perry as Sweetness and Sam Plattus as Teeny. The ensemble includes Ernesto Garrido Gonzalez, Kendall Mcshane, Maurie Moore and Savannah Scott.

The creative team includes Scenic Designer/Props Artisan Ami Okazaki, Costume Designer Michael O'Herron, Lighting Designer Slick Jorgensen, Music Director/Sound Designer Jay Eddy, Production Stage Manager Fanni Horvath and Production Assistant Maggie Kearnan. Fight and intimacy direction is provided by Yo-EL Cassell.

All the plays in BPT's 2022-23 season were written by the Boston University M.F.A. Playwriting Program class of 2023, and co-produced with the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre as part of its New Play Initiative.

BPT's COVID-19 Safety procedures proved to be very effective in keeping audiences and performers safe last season; audiences will be required to wear masks for the duration of their time at the theatre. Up-to-the-minute information regarding performance schedules, COVID-19 protocols and ticketing can be found on the BPT website (www.BostonPlaywrights.org) under Visit Us > COVID-19 Safety.

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) is an award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new works for the stage. Founded in 1981 by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and located on the campus of Boston University, BPT produces a season of new work, an annual "marathon" of 10-minute plays and a festival of new plays by teenage writers. At the core of all of our work is our partnership with BU's renowned English Department, in close collaboration with BU's School of Theatre, as we educate and nurture the writers of the M.F.A. Playwriting Program. The Program's alumni have had their work produced in regional and New York houses as well as in London's West End, and have garnered national, regional and local awards, including Elliot Norton and Independent Reviewers of New England Awards for Outstanding New Script. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian, Managing Director Darren Evans, and Head of M.F.A. Playwriting Nathan Alan Davis, BPT is dedicated to the voice and vision of the playwright. www.BostonPlaywrights.org

The BU New Play Initiative (NPI) expresses our commitment to the School's participation in the development of new work. This special initiative provides playwrights, directors, designers, and actors with a variety of developmental options to support the collaborative creation of new work for the theatre. Students, faculty, alumni, and guest artists are given the opportunity to utilize the creativity of the rehearsal room to develop their plays, which are then presented through workshop productions. But the life of these new plays doesn't end on the BU stages. Many New Play Initiative productions are often later fully produced by member companies of our Professional Theatre Initiative. www.bu.edu/cfa/npi

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