Boiling Point Players Opens New Season with 'Improvised Play x 3'

Houston Theater Company, Boiling Point Players, opens their 2016-2017 season with a three-night series of improvised plays, An Improvised Play x3, produced by Cone Man Running Productions and showing November 13 through 15 at 8:00 PM at Obsidian Theater. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at www.boilingpointplayers.com.

Each of the three performances will be audience-inspired, meaning the cast will ask members of the crowd to shout their suggestions before the play begins, then watch as the cast turns those few words into a full production. The performing cast will consist of seven women from the Houston area, plus an additional member playing along in the sound booth: Kacie Adams is ecstatic to be working with Boiling Point Players for the first time in addition to getting to pal around with some seriously talented improv folks. She could be seen earlier this year in Armageddon Dance Party, along with Spontaneous Smattering 8. You can also catch her in The Five Minute Mile, currently showing. She doesn't know what kind of show you're in for, but whatever happens, she hopes you enjoy.

Jessica Brown, CTA is a native Houstonian and graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She is the Director of Station Theater and Co-Owner of Phase 3 Comedy, LLC. Jessica oversees PR & Marketing as well as Station's Applied Improvisation initiative that helps businesses build better customer service using improvisation skills. She is a Certified Tourism Ambassador and Texas-Friendly Hospitality Trainer. She has coached Station Theater's Launchpad student troupe for more than 10 seasons and serves as Producer and Director of Marketing for the Houston Improv Festival, Trill Comedy Festival, and BeachProv Women's Improv Retreat in St. Augustine, FL. She has recorded two audiobooks, several radio commercials, and is working on her own improv + travel lifestyle podcast called If Here, Then What?

Brittny Bush has a BA in Theater- Acting and Directing from the University of Houston. She has performed with many local theater companies including Interactive Theater, Main Street, Classical Theater Company, Mildred's Umbrella and Cone Man Running Productions. She has worked as a Teaching Artist in local theaters and after-school programs for the past 10 years and is thrilled to join Boiling Point Players in this improvisational endeavor. Autumn Clack is thrilled that IPx3 has finally come to fruition! Originally from Houston, Autumn got her BFA in Theater from Adelphi University in New York and studied at London Dramatic Academy. She studied improve with Massive Creativity and is currently one half of the improve duo, Ophelia's Rope, and a co-founder of Boiling Point Players. Some favorite past roles include Lysander in Boiling Point Players' A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lindsay in Cone Man Running's Give/Take, Esther in Mildred Umbrella's Pollywog, and Marcie/Lily in Celebration Theatre's The Beebo Brinker Chronicles.

Alison Coriell received her MED from the University of St. Thomas and her BFA in Theater from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She has studied improv at UCB Theater, iO Theater, Peoples Improv Theater, The Annoyance Theater, ComedySportz, The Second City and Station Theater. She is a graduate of the School at Steppenwolf and the Second City Conservatory. Most importantly, Alison is a mother to two beautiful little girls and a wife to a hot lawyer.

Ruth S McCleskey is over the moon that BPP is doing improvised plays! She graduated from the University of Houston, magna cum laude, with a BA in theater and a few years later, started studying improv with Massive Creativity. Amongst her favorite theater credits are Demetrius in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Importance of Eating Earnest, In Juliet's Garden, Secrets of a Soccer Mom, Sylvia, Hedda Gabler in Hedda Gabler, The Truth of a Lie at the Heart of a Deception, Wizard of Oz, The AntiChrist Cometh, Macbeth Mixup, Three Bags Full, Romeo and Juliet, The Nerd, Sordid Lives, Pinocchio Commedia, You Can't Take It With You, Romantic Comedy, Carl the Second, and Blueness/Grayness. Ruth performs in the two-person long form improv group Ophelia's Rope and is a co-founder of Boiling Point Players.

Callina Stiku received her BA in Theater from the University of Houston. loves Boiling Point Players! This is her second production with them, her first as Dawn in A New Dawn Cabaret. She has also been seen recently in Horse Head Theater's production of The Judgment of Fools. Other credits include Main Street Theater's The Revolutionists, Landing Theater's Gambrels of the Sky, Mildred's Umbrella's Dollface, Ensemble Theater's Platanos y Collard Greens, Cone Man Running Productions's Give/Take, Fade to Black's Edmonia's Marble, Alley Theater's Houston Young Playwright Exchange and was a regular actor at Interactive Theater. You can see her as Calpurnia in To Kill A Mockingbird with A.D. Players in March 2017.

Christine Weems is a founding member of Cone Man Running Productions. She directed Boiling Point Players' inaugural production, Secret of a Soccer Mom, as well as last season's all-female A Midsummer Night's Dream. Recent acting credits are mostly sketch (hooray!). Recent directing credits include The Right Kind of People, As Bees in Honey Drown, The Importance of Eating Earnest, and Ruthless! the Musical. She is the Artistic Director of Cone Man Running's Spontaneous Smattering 24-hour play festival series as well as Playhouse 1960's Short Play Festival. Much love to the men in her life that make all this possible - her husband and sons, Michael, Tommy, Jack and Sammy. www.cweems.com The inspiration for the improv trifecta derived from Boiling Point Players' cofounders, Autumn Clack and Ruth McCleskey, and their alter-ego as Ophelia's Rope, a Houston improv duo who has recently performed at the Chicago Improv Festival this past May. Now, after years of training, workshops and investigative reading, Clack and McCleskey have decided to "fall, then figure out what to do on the way down," as the great Del Close said.

AN IMPROVISED PLAY X3 , produced by Cone Man Running Productions shows 8 p.m. November 13 through 15 at Obsidian Theater. For more information, please visit www.boilingpointplayers.com. $15

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