Gloucester Stage Presents World Premiere of A MEASURE OF NORMALCY, Now thru 11/1

Gloucester Stage proudly presents the world premiere of Lucas Baisch's A Measure of Normalcy from tonight, October 22 through November 1 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA.

Developed as part of the Gloucester Stage 2015 Apprentice Playwriting Program, A Measure of Normalcy follows an array of lost souls as they straggle inside a quickly emptying Midwestern mini-mall. In the bleak late summer nineteen-year-old Casey Calloway works the food court tending to her burrito stand while Ari, Casey's cousin, runs a shifty business out of their grandmother's basement. The arrival of Gus, the new-hire, incites an unveiling of secrets within this stagnant community.

Filled with balloon animals, cartoon flashbacks, cheap raps, and hallucinogenic gecko feces, this dark comedy questions what it means to be "normal" in a place of overwhelming simplicity. In his Gloucester Stage directorial debut David R. Gammons directs a cast featuring Ellen Colton, Lydia Barnett-Mulligan, Gabriel Graetz, Sarah Elizabeth Bedard and Eliott Purcell. Mr. Gammons is excited to bring Baisch's work to Gloucester Stage audiences, "Welcome to a world that will feel both banally familiar and alarmingly alien. Lucas Baisch's mesmerizing new play is populated by a colorful cast of lovable lost souls, all caught in a purgatorial spin-cycle of haunted pasts, monotonous dead-end jobs and broken dreams of a brighter future. Each seeks escape and redemption from the oppressive routines that trap them and the watchful eye that records their every attempt at connection and catharsis. Each seeks to define and obtain some measure of peace, some baseline of normalcy."

Playwright Lucas Baisch explains his unique perspective, "Normalcy represents the kind of stories I want to tell as I want to tell them....taking seemingly mundane jobs, places, and circumstances and turning them upside down to heighten their theatricality as well as incorporating elements of television and video game storytelling to create an unseen and obscure dramatic world." As the Gloucester Stage 2015 Playwriting Apprentice in the inaugural season of the Gloucester Stage Apprentice program, Gloucester Stage has been Mr. Baisch's artistic home for the 2015 season. Lucas Baisch is a playwright, performer, and visual artist originally from San Francisco and based in Chicago prior to his arrival at Gloucester Stage. His work has been read and developed at Chicago Dramatists, InFusion Theatre Company, Salonathon, Victory Gardens Theater, Links Hall, American Theatre Company, The Wulfden, The DeYoung Museum, SF Playground, and DePaul University's annual Wrights of Spring. Productions. His work includes The Scavengers at the The Healy Theater at Depaul University, directed by Bonnie Metzgar, and Zipped & Pelted at The Wulfden/Chicago Fringe, directed by Katrina Dion. Mr. Baisch holds a: BFA in Playwriting from DePaul University. As part of the NeverDark Series, Gloucester Stage will present a staged reading on Baisch's play, The Scavengers on Tuesday, November 3 at 7:30pm.

Director, designer, and theatre educator David R. Gammons makes his Gloucester Stage directorial debut with A Measure of Normalcy. His recent productions include the world premiere of John Kuntz's Necessary Monsters; the New England premieres of The Whale, and The Motherf**ker with the Hat which received the 2013 Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Production and Outstanding Actress; Red which received the 2012 Elliot Norton Awards for Outstanding Production and Outstanding Actor; Blackbird at SpeakEasy Stage Company; Cherry Docs, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and My Name is Rachel Corrie at the New Repertory Theatre; the world premieres of Walt McGough's The Farm and John Kuntz's The Salt Girl at Boston Playwrights' Theatre; The Winter's Tale as part of the Shakespeare Exploded Festival at the American Repertory Theatre; and The Comedy of Errors, Medea, The Hotel Nepenthe, The Duchess of Malfi, and Titus Andronicus for which Mr. Gammons received the 2007 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for Actors' Shakespeare Project. Mr. Gammons is on the Theatre Arts Faculty at MIT and The Boston Conservatory, and has directed productions there and at Harvard University, Brandeis University, Boston College, and Suffolk University, among others.

Lydia Barnett-Mulligan most recently played Viola in Twelfth Night at Elm Shakespeare Company and Kitty in Saving Kitty at the Nora Theatre. She has trained and performed at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA, since the age of 15, where selected credits include Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Ice Glen, both directed by Tina Packer, The Servant of Two Masters, The Tamer Tamed, Dibbledance, and Twelfth Night. She is a seasonal actor with Actors' Shakespeare Project, where plays include Measure for Measure, The Cherry Orchard, Macbeth, and The Merry Wives of Windsor .Regionally, her credits include The Physicists with Roger Rees at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Pericles at Elm Shakespeare; Romeo and Juliet at the Putney Gardens; Steel Magnolias and Miracle on 34th Street at Stoneham Theatre; 123 and Outlaw Jean with Fresh Ink Theatre; Shakespeare On Love at Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth with Shakespeare Now.

Ellen Colton is a two-time winner of the IRNE award (Independent Reviewers of New England). She has been part of Shear Madness at the Charles Playhouse in Boston since 1997, and also performed in the show at the Lake George Dinner Theatre in New York. Ms. Colton's credits include Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Over the River and Through the Woods, Kong's Night Out, and Beyond Belief with Lyric Stage Company of Boston; Good People, Well, Morning's at Seven, Light Up The Sky, Kong's Night Out, Tale of the Allergist's Wife at Northampton's New Century Theatre; The Last Jews at Boston Playwright's Theatre; The Porch at Stoneham Theatre, West Springfield's Majestic Theatre, Springfield's City Stage; The Misanthrope with New Repertory Theatre; Divine Sister, The Women, and Brooklyn Boy with SpeakEasy Stage. For the last 28 years in the New England area, she has served as secretary of the Screen Actors' Guild, and treasurer of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and now, proudly, she continues as secretary of the newly merged union, SAG-AFTRA. Since 1997, Ms. Colton has served proudly, as the vice-chair of the local branch of Actors' Equity Association.

Sarah Elizabeth Bedard's previous credits include Shockheaded Peter with Company One; Phèdre with Actors' Shakespeare Project; A Christmas Carol at Berkshire Theatre Festival; Dibbledance SWAY with Shakespeare & Company; Taliesin at Mettawee River Theatre; Three with Boston Public Works; and Translations and Arcadia with Bad Habit Productions. This year, Ms. Bedard participated in The Boston Theatre Marathon's Warm-Up Lap; workshops at Boston Playwrights' Theatre and the Mad Dash. She is a freelance fight choreographer as well. Ms. Bedard holds an M.F.A. in Acting from Brandeis University.

Gabriel Graetz has appreared asYepikhodov in The Cherry Orchard, Witch/Fleance/Angus in Macbeth, and Fabian/Ensemble in Twelfth Night with Actors Shakespeare Project; Manus in Translations and Carson in Gross Indecency with Bad Habit Productions; Sam/Nick/Ensemble in It's a Wonderful Life at Stoneham Theatre; Rev. Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest with Moonbox Productions; Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Brown Box Theatre Project; and Puck/Demetrius in Shit-faced Shakespeare with Magnificent Bastard Productions. Additionally, Mr. Graetz leads tours as the painter John Singleton Copley through the Freedom Trail Foundation.

Eliott Purcell has appeared regionally in Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Two Gentlemen of Verona with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Our Town with the Huntington Theatre Company; Meet Me in St. Louis at Stoneham Theatre; Language of Angels with Happy Medium Theatre; and The Song Of Achilles with the Newton Theatre Company. Mr. Purcell is a graduate of Boston College.

NeverDark events scheduled for the run of A Measure of Normalcy include a talk back and a play reading. NeverDark is a series of second-stage events that are designed to enhance your knowledge and enjoyment of all Mainstage productions. All NeverDark events are Pay-What-You-Wish. The NeverDark events set for the run of A Measure of Normalcy are a reading of Lucas Baisch's The Scavengers, the story of three orphaned siblings who are forced to seek out truth buried in a hoarder's home, on Tuesday, November 3 at 7:30 pm at Gloucester Stage; plus a talkback following the 2 pm performance of A Measure of Normalcy on Sunday, October 25. This free post-show discussion features artists from A Measure of Normalcy.

Lucas Baisch's A Measure of Normalcy runs October 22 through November 1 at Gloucester Stage. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 pm. Following the 2 pm performance on Sunday October 25 audiences are invited to a free post show discussion with the artists from A Measure of Normalcy. Ticket prices are $28 for all performances. Tickets are $1 for ages 25 years and under for all performances. The $1 tickets are cash only and available at the door on day of performance only. Pay What You Wish tickets are available for the Saturday, October 31 matinee at 2 pm. Pay What You Wish tickets can only be purchased day of show at the door. All performances are held at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the Gloucester Stage Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visit www.gloucesterstage.com.

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