Kitchen Theatre Reveals Surprise Entertainment for its Upcoming Holiday Party

Kitchen Theatre Company has let the elf out of the bag!! The surprise entertainment at this year's Holiday Party and Fundraiser will be a special reading of David Sedaris's The SantaLand Diaries by Kitchen Theatre favorite actor Karl Gregory. The party will include festive eats and wonderful local wine and beer. It's happening for two nights only: December 13 & 14 at 7:00 PM.

The Santaland Diaries is a decadent dose of irreverent holiday humor, based on Sedaris's real-life job as a Macy's Elf. Broadcast annually on NPR, this popular seasonal standard has been adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello into a screamingly funny one-person play. Karl Gregory reprises his role after his sold out appearances as Crumpet at the Kitchen in 2005 and 2010. As the Lansing Star wrote, "The audience chortled, laughed, and finally howled at Crumpet's un-elflike antics."

As Sedaris' cynical alter ego, actor Karl Gregory portrays an out-of-work New Yorker who, on a whim, responds to a want ad for "holiday elf." Through intense training, a Santa-size list of the do's and don'ts of acceptable elfin behavior, and all the ups and downs that come with the adventure, this not-so-innocent job seeker transforms into a "low key kind of elf" endearingly named "Crumpet." With a cool and critical eye, Sedaris scrutinizes the outrageous behavior of frayed families and fellow employees ranging from unemployed actors to displaced white-collar workers. His behind-the-scenes look at Macy's Santa Land as Crumpet caustically counts down the dysfunctional days 'til Christmas in this merrily malicious anti-holiday cult classic treat.

With just 200 tickets to sell, the Kitchen has instituted dynamic pricing for this event and fundraiser. The first fifty tickets sold for $50, and the next sixty are going for $60. Hurry up and get yours today! All proceeds from this benefit event will provide vital support for the Kitchen's bold, intimate, and engaging theatrical and community programs.

Karl Gregory Previous NYC credits: From White Plains (Fault Line Theatre, GLAAD Media Award), FROGS (Fault Line Theatre), Mother's Da (FringeNYC Encore Series), BecauseHeCan (Personal Space Theatrics), The Servant of Two Masters (PS122). Regional: Ever So Humble, The 39 Steps (Hangar Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew (SFSTL), The Importance of Being Earnest (Trinity Rep). Karl was a Resident Company member with Kitchen Theatre Company for five seasons, in over 40 productions. Favorite shows include: Hand To God, Buyer & Cellar, Peter and the Starcatcher (SALT Award), Gutenberg! The Musical!, Fully Committed (SALT Award), SantaLand Diaries, Swimming In The Shallows, The Drunken City, as well as title roles in A Perfect Ganesh, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Servant of Two Masters. He is currently featured in KTC's production of Every Brilliant Thing. TV: ALPHA HOUSE, NIGHTCAP. He is also in a new webseries called "Precious Cargo". BFA- Syracuse University, MFA- Brown/Trinity Rep. He and his husband, Andrew, now split their time between NYC and Ithaca. www.karlgregory.com

David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked,Me Talk Pretty One Day,Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and his most recent book, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, each of which became an immediate bestseller. The audio version of Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls is a 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album. He is the author of the NYT-bestselling collection of fables entitled Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (with illustrations by Ian Falconer). He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. Sedaris' pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in "The Best American Essays." There are over ten million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into 25 languages. He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name "The Talent Family" and have written half-a-dozen plays which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler's Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service. David Sedaris' original radio pieces can often be heard on the public radio show This American Life. David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His latest audio recording of new stories (recorded live) is "David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure" (November 2009). A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). Since 2011, he can be heard annually on a series of live recordings on BBC Radio 4 entitled "Meet David Sedaris." David Sedaris' new book is a collection of his diaries, entitled Theft By Finding, Diaries (1977-2002)(May 2017). An art book, about David Sedaris' diary covers was also just published and edited by Jeffrey Jenkins, entitled: David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium (October 2017, Little, Brown and Company). A forthcoming book of essays entitled Calypso is set to be published June 2018, and a second volume of his diaries is expected for summer 2019.

ABOUT THE KITCHEN THEATRE COMPANY

Bold, intimate, engaging... Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC), now in its 27th season, is downtown Ithaca's critically acclaimed and nationally recognized year-round professional theater company, specializing in regional and world premiere plays. KTC's intimate 99-seat theater is in a beautifully renovated, LEED-certified building in the West End neighborhood of downtown Ithaca, New York. KTC is the first not-for-profit recipient of the David R. Strong Memorial "Small Business of the Year" Award from the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce and receives public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the Tompkins County Tourism Program. The Kitchen Theatre Company also receives general operating support from the Shubert Foundation.

December 13 & 14, 2017 at 7:00 PM

Kitchen Theatre Company

417 W. State/MLK, Jr. St. Ithaca, NY 14850

TICKETS

• Online at kitchentheatre.org

• By phone at (607) 272-0570

• In person Monday-Friday, 10:00 AM-6:00 PM at the Kitchen offices (409 W. State St.) and Saturday-Sunday, 12:00-4:00 PM at the theater (417 W. State St.)

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