ART/WNY Closes 2014-2015 Season With RUST BELT GROTESQUE

The American Repertory Theater of WNY's 2014-15 season wraps up with an one-act showcase entitled RUST BELT GROTESQUE with darker regional historical tales of murderers, rapists, a Vaudevillian performer's fall from grace and incredibly dumb brothers.

Featured writers include Artie Award nominee for Best Original Work, Justin Karcher, Artie Award for Best Original Work, Matthew LaChiusa being joined by acclaimed writers Mark C LLoyd and James Marzo.

RUST BELT GROTESQUE rears its macabre head on April 30th and snakes to May 23rd at ART in the Box, 16 Linwood Avenue, Buffalo NY 14209. Showtime is at 7:30 pm, Thursday through Saturday. Price of admission is $25 General/$20 Online, $18 Student & Military Veteran/$15 Online.

"Each collection of works are unique in reflecting the spirit of Buffalo, New York." Playwright Matthew LaChiusa commenting on RUST BELT GROTESQUE.

"Every piece has a voice and creative depiction of how each playwright views the history and the people of the region. Whether the piece takes place in the 1800's or present time, the common story core lies in Western New York's rusted bones and weathered spirit."

In a directorial debut at ART/WNY Carly Weiser oversees a story of two off-kilter individuals finding themselves on the banks of the Niagara River disposing the result of their "passionless crime" in Justin Karcher's MOST OF AMERICA'S WATER COMES THROUGH RUST BELT EYES. ART/WNY also sees the acting debut of both Meagan Kemple and Michael Seitz as they portray a brooding couple looking for doughnuts, goat cheese and the cause & effect behind the restless spirits of Buffalo.

"Where you and I are standing is covered head to toe in abandonment. It's in the bones you see, our bones, buried like beautiful cancer in the marrow." Writes Justin Karcher in MOST OF OF AMERICA'S WATER COMES THROUGH RUST BELT EYES, "Buffalo always been abandoned; it just doesn't know it. I mean we can feel it, deep down in Marianas Trenches."

Buffalo was a thriving Vaudevillian scene in the late 1800's as the circuit saw the rise of unknowns to the spotlight of fame and fortune on the stages of the Hippodrome, Shea's and the Lyceum. MR PUSSY written by Matthew LaChiusa is a fictional account of one such individuals rise from humble beginning to the coveted Keith-Albee circuit only to see fate have the last laugh. "The irony of Life is simple." Says Michael J Starzyski as the Vaudevillian star Captain Butterpalms, "Always expect the unexpected and never take the expected for granted."

"I wrote MR PUSSY for the first Buffalo Infringement Festival and always connected to the work." LaChiusa on his original piece. "The connective tissue between this piece and the region is that this city, this area, has a history of rising to the cusp of greatness but some factor, some twist of fate has this success going 'wide right' or 'no goal' in the end."

Described as "innocence lost in the city", Mark C Lloyd's KILLING SIMONE features both ever-so-versatile actors Priscilla Young-Anker, Mike Leszcyzynski, Bryan Figueroa and ART/WNY newcomer Jasmine S. Ramos. This piece centers on a horrendous 1960's murder/rape in Kew Gardens New York city. The murderer was caught and sentenced and sent to a Attica prison where he escaped and ran to the suburbs of Buffalo New York and he held a couple hostage for an hour and then raped the woman.

"I took what happened in New York City and the main character and I added certain incidents that happened at the house." Mark C Lloyd on KILLING SIMONE. "Its a loosely based story on that hour but it still has the terror in the violence that happened that night. The violence and terror is very grotesque and it happened in the suburbs of Buffalo New York."

The compelling story of three plotting dimwitted brothers comes to life in James Marzo's NO ONE WILL KNOW that features ART/WNY alumni David C Mitchell, Christopher Standart, Sean Marciniak, Aaron Krygier and the ART/WNY debut of Tim Goehrig and David Moran. Gail Golden returns to ART/WNY to direct the piece. In describing his work, James Marzo outlined the history behind NO ONE WILL KNOW, "my play is about the murder of John Love, committed by the Thayer brothers in the township of Boston in 1824. The Thayers were tried, convicted, and hanged for their crime in Niagara Square on June 17th, 1825. It was the last and only execution in the city of Buffalo held by public officials for the punishment of a crime."

On the piece's relevancy pertaining to RUST BELT GROTESQUE, Marzo highlighted that NO ONE WILL KNOW "John Love's murder was a dark part of Buffalo history and the macabre, sordid details on how the Thayers perpetrated the crime stirred a tremendous amount of interest within the general public at that time. There were only approximately 2500 people living in Buffalo in 1825. However, the execution became a major spectacle drawing between 20,000 to 30,000 people from all over the region. People travelled as far as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada to witness the execution."

Reflecting on the past and present related in his work Marzo concluded. "The sordid details and motives surrounding a certain incident still stirs interest in the minds of the general public and how we deal with the matter of sorting out the appropriate punishment for these crimes will always be subject to debate."

Overall RUST BELT GROTESQUE is best described by playwright Justin Karcher, "The Buffalo experience is not one that can be summed up by just simply a positive or negative news story, but by the penicillin grime in the cracks of the city, by the gonorrhea gleam in the gaze of our shadow history. If our lives are grotesque, then we must embrace this grotesqueness. We're freaks and must shout out that we're freaks." Promising an evening of alternative views on the region's history, Karcher explains why. 'Like those Southern writers, we write about freaks, because we're still able to recognize what they look like...freaks haunted by false hope, chased by a history they shouldn't repeat, taunted by an unsure future... RUST BELT GROTESQUE is an exploration of Buffalo's freakish literary and historical identity."

For ticket information on RUST BELT GROTESQUE please call 716-634-1102 (9 am to 4:30 pm; M-F) or visit www.artofwny.org. Special discounted rates are available for Arts Industry individuals and groups. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, 7:30 pm.

To post a comment, you must register and login.