First Floor Theater Announces Staff Changes; Sets MATT & BEN, 'AMERICAN POLITICS' & More for 2014-15 Season

Heading into its third season, First Floor Theater continues its commitment to visceral acting, immersive design, and collaborative dramaturgy with a new artistic process, refined mission statement and staff changes reflective of this new approach. This new process explores radical collaboration between actors and designers, where all are invited to define the world of the stories we stage.

FFT's new mission affirms its commitment to this process and its effectiveness in creating theater that challenges and provokes audiences: First Floor Theater stages stories of individuals facing moments of radical change. By combining visceral acting, immersive design, and collaborative dramaturgy, FFT expands these stories to ask urgent social questions.

Alongside this mission, First Floor Theater is proud to announce a transition in staff.

First Floor Theater Staff is now:

Hutch Pimentel- Artistic Director

Amanda Fink- Managing Director

Will Bishop- Artistic Producer

Andrew Cutler- Associate Artistic Director

Andrew Rovner- Production Manager

Alexis Chaney- Development Director

Nora Bingham- Marketing Director

First Floor Theater is also proud to announce the addition of Company Members Jesse Roth and Luke Grimes.

First Floor Theater is proud to announce its 2014/15 season, featuring one world premiere, one Chicago premiere and the return of its annual literary festival. The season opens with Matt & Ben, Brenda Withers & Mindy Kaling's uproarious and irreverent send-up of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's attempt to make it big with Good Will Hunting, directed by Managing Director Amanda Fink. Next up is the Chicago Premiere of A. Rey Pamatmat's Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them, directed by Artistic Director Hutch Pimentel, an electric portrait of a brother and sister on the brink in the middle of nowhere. Closing out the mainstage season is the World Premiere of Company Member Emmett Rensin's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, an explosive examination of the new American far right, directed by Artistic Producer Will Bishop. And in the summer, FFT's Annual LitFest returns, promising new work from celebrated Chicago playwrights, based on the life and work of a classic author, who was selected by the attendees of FFT's season kick-off party.

After a season inspired by literature, from the Greeks, to Elizabethan England, to a children's masterpiece, the next season investigates three different contemporary American experiences: the pursuit of making it big, creating family, and redefining the line between personal and political.

First Floor will be a Resident Company with Collaboraction Theatre for the entire 2014/15 Mainstage Season, performing all shows in the Pentagon Theatre in The Flat Iron Arts Building.

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First Floor Theater's 2014/15 Season:

MATT & BEN
By Mindy Kaling & Brenda Withers
Directed by Managing Director Amanda Fink
Starring FFT Associate Artistic Director Andrew Cutler with Brandon Moorhead

November 16-December 13, 2014

It's 1995 and best friends and struggling actors, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are trying to catch their next big break by writing a screen adaptation of Catcher in the Rye. When the finished script for Good Will Hunting literally falls from the ceiling, they are forced to renegotiate their friendship in their competing quests for fame. The Office's Mindy Kaling offers an uproarious glimpse at how Hollywood's golden boys went from anonymous to A-list.

The Chicago Premiere of

EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM
By A. Rey Pamatmat
Directed by Artistic Director Hutch Pimentel
Starring Company Member Luke Grimes with Kevin Matthew Reyes

January 11-January 31, 2015

After their parents' sudden departure, Filipino-Americans Edith, 12, and her brother, Kenny, 16, are left alone in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Things seem dire until Kenny brings home his new friend Benji, and the three become a force to be reckoned with. Wielding only their latchkey wit and a bb gun, the trio asserts a new definition of American family.

The World Premiere of

THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS
By Company Member Emmett Rensin
Directed by Artistic Producer Will Bishop
Starring Managing Director Amanda Fink, Associate Artistic Director Andrew Cutler, Company Member Kate Cornelius-Schecter with Christopher Deakin

April 17-May 9, 2015

In this explosive world premiere, a group of young Tea Party staffers struggle to discover who among them leaked the information that's sinking their senatorial campaign. The traditionalist campaign manager butts heads with the pragmatic political director in their struggle to unearth the mole, and no one's secrets are safe. This new play challenges audiences to see the personal motivations behind political aspirations, and confront their own prejudices in the process.

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About First Floor Theater - First Floor Theater stages stories of individuals facing moments of radical change. By combining visceral acting, immersive design, and collaborative dramaturgy, FFT expands these stories to ask urgent social questions. FFT was named the "Best New Theater Company" in the Chicago Reader's Best of 2013 Reader's Pick edition. For more information on First Floor Theater, visit firstfloortheater.com.

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