Rogue Machine to Open World Premiere of Jonathan Caren's NEED TO KNOW, 10/25

Rogue Machine presents the World Premiere of Ovation Award winning playwright Jonathan Caren's NEED TO KNOW, directed by Bart DeLorenzo and opening at 7pm Sunday, October 25, 2015.

Lilly and Steven are smart, talented and charming. Their next-door neighbor is not. After moving into a new apartment, they meet the man they now share a wall with -- Mark Manners, an aspiring fiction writer and longtime tenant of the building. The couple proceeds to Google-stalk Mark and have a field day mocking his website...until they realize the walls are thin. Did he hear everything they said about him? When they try to resolve the newfound awkwardness, tensions escalate in ways none of them could ever have predicted.

"This season Rogue Machine looks at what we think we know and what we don't know. Do people become how we see them? What is the relationship of observer and observed? Does that relationship affect reality? Did I mention it's a season of black comedies?" said Artistic Director John Perrin Flynn.

Rogue Machine received the American Theatre Wing's 2014 National Theatre Company Grant, given only to 12 theatre companies in the country. The company draws upon the diverse and extensive experience of its collective while creating high-quality productions by contemporary playwrights who specifically address our culture and time. Rogue Machine believes theatre to be an integral part of community life, a sacred space where audiences gather to be challenged, inspired, entertained, and provoked. By nurturing and introducing new works, Rogue Machine engages this community with arts that create dialogue and resonate long after the curtain closes.

"I have always been an enormous fan of Hitchcock's movies and the way in which the violent mysteries in life crouch only barely beneath the placid surface, waiting to spring. Since our world has so many more surfaces than in Hitchcock's day, we also have many more places to hide," said director Bart DeLorenzo.

Jonathan Caren (Playwright) has had his plays developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Roundabout, Ars Nova, Rattlestick, Williamstown, The New Group, EST, The Flea, and in The New York Fringe where he won Best Play for Catch The Fish. The Recommendation won 2 L.A. Ovation Awards in 2014, including Most Outstanding Production, and the 2013 Craig Nowell Award for Best Play after receiving its World Premiere at The Old Globe, followed by a New York Premiere at the Flea and subsequent production by IAMA. He is a MacDowell, Dramatist Guild, Space, and New York Stage and Film Fellow and has received multiple commissions. He is a graduate of Juilliard's Playwrights Program where he was a two-time Lecomte du Noüy award winner. Jonathan is a 2015-16 member of The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group at Primary Stages.

"This is not a play about social media. It's about paranoia and presumptions in a time when we're filtering through these infinite fragments of information. Are we any closer to the truth about each other, or are we being led further astray?" said playwright Jonathan Caren.

Bart DeLorenzo (Director) is the recipient of four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards including the Milton Katselas Award for Career Achievement, six LA Weekly awards, three Backstage Garlands, and TCG's Alan Schneider Director Award. He is the founding Artistic Director of the Evidence Room Theater in Los Angeles. Recent work with the company includes Marivaux's The False Servant, Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play, Len Jenkin's Margo Veil, and Adam Bock's The Receptionist, produced with the Odyssey Theater. Bart has helmed the world premieres of Steven Drukman's Death of the Author and Donald Margulies's Coney Island Christmas at the Geffen Playhouse. He directed Sharr White's Annapurna at The New Group (NY), Charlayne Woodard's The Night Watcher at Studio Theatre (DC), and the world premieres of Kimber Lee's tokyo fish story, Carla Ching's Fast Company, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Doctor Cerberus, and Donald Margulies's Shipwrecked! An Entertainment at South Coast Repertory, Voice Lessons at the Zephyr, Cymbeline at A Noise Within, King Lear with LA's Antaeus Company, The Projectionist at the Kirk Douglas Theatre/CTG, and Charles Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica at [Inside] the Ford. He is a graduate of Yale University and the American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard. He is on the faculty at CalArts.

Rogue Machine Theatre (Best Production for three years - Ovation, LADCC Awards) presents plays that are new to Los Angeles. The company has garnered recognition for their work in upwards of 75 awards and nominations, including the Polly Warfield Award for Excellent Season in Small to MidSize Theater, funded by the Nederlander Organization, and BEST PRODUCTION Awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, LA Weekly, Ovation, and Garland voters. Last season's Penelope was nominated for four Stage Raw Awards, including Best Production and their production of c*ckwon the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Ensemble and Best Lead Performance. After Rogue Machine introduced Los Angeles to the world premiere of Small Engine Repair by John Pollono, it became a critical and box office hit Off-Broadway in 2013 and has been published by Dramatists Play Service. In Los Angeles, it garnered LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Best Production - Intimate Theater, Best Direction, Best Ensemble, Backstage Garland Awards: Best Production, Writing, Ensemble. Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Best Production, Best Writing, and Best Direction, LA Weekly Awards for Best Production, Playwriting, LA Times CRITIC'S CHOICE, LA Weekly "GO", Ovation Recommended, Top 10 LA Theatre experiences, and was a Bitter Lemons Top Rated Show in 2011. Pollono's next world premiere in Los Angeles, Lost Girls, will open Off-Broadway this November. One Night In Miami... by Kemp Powers (winner of the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Production) recently became Baltimore Center Stage's best-selling production in their 52-year history and just finished a sold-out run at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Henry Murray's Treefall has been produced by six other American theatre companies and published by Dramatists Play Service.

THE CAST:

Corryn Cummins (Lilly) is a multi-award winning actress and company member at Rogue Machine, where she last appeared in the LA premiere of David Harrower's Blackbird (LA Weekly Award, Duo-Performance) and produced Small Engine Repair (Ovation, LA Weekly and LADCC Awards, Best Production). Most recently she work shopped JC Lee's Women of a Certain Age at the Ojai Playwright's Conference. Other notable Los Angeles credits include Alice in The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll (Theatre @ Boston Court), the LA premiere of Tracy Letts' Killer Joe (Lost Angeles, Ovation Awards: Ensemble & Production), the LA premiere of The Lonesome West (The Odyssey), The Box and Ophelia in Hamlet Max (both with SacRed Fools), A Hole in the Dark (The Blank), the LA Premiere of Adam Rapp's Bingo with the Indians (Rogue Machine), Hotel Bardo(t) and the Atlanta/LA/Berlin tour of The Black Glass (both with Padua Playwrights), Sunny Afternoon and King Dick (The Gangbusters, Best of Hollywood Fringe Festival). Chicago credits include: Fahrenheit 451 (Steppenwolf), Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession (Lookingglass, adapted and directed by David Schwimmer and Joy Gregory) and The Hot l Baltimore (Mary-Arrchie, directed by David Cromer, Jeff Award: Supporting Actress).

Tim Cummings (Mark) appeared in the Broadway revival of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune (w/ Edie Falco & Stanley Tucci, Dir. Joe Mantello), the Off-Broadway run of The Guys (in 2001, 2006, and 2011, opposite Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Amy Irving, Carol Kane at The Flea, Dir. Jim Simpson). He is the recipient of two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, two LA Weekly Theatre Awards, two Broadway World Awards, two Obie Awards, and eight StageSceneLA Awards. Recent LA credits include The Woodsman at Coeurage Theatre, Nine Hours at The Blank Theatre (Young Playwrights Fest), Reunion and Eurydice at South Coast Rep, The Normal Heart at The Fountain, The Phantom Tollbooth at Mainstreet, The Firebird at LA Phil/Disney Hall, The New Electric Ballroom at Rogue Machine, The Walworth Farce and War at Theatre Banshee, Camino Real and Tartuffe at The Theatre @ Boston Court, Only Say The Word at EST/LA, The Pursuit of Happiness at Laguna Playhouse, and The Outsiders at REDCAT.

Lucas Near-Verbrugghe (Steven) appeared on Broadway in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Ritz. He was seen in Love's Labour's Lost, with original music by Michael Friedman, and Macbeth at The Public Theater, the NY premiere of Leslye Hedland's Assistance; and the world premieres of boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and Oorah! by Bekah Brunsteter. Lucas made his LA theater debut in Seminar opposite Jeff Goldblum at the Ahmanson. He's worked with Alex Timbers, Joe Mantello, Moises Kaufman, Trip Cullman, Evan Cabnet and Sam Gold among others. TV credits include Law and Order and Law and Order: SVU, as well as a recurring role as Josh Porter on NBC's Grimm. Film projects include Our Idiot Brother, A Birder's Guide to Everything, as well as the upcoming The Tiger Hunter with Jon Heder and Danny Pudi, A Woman, A Part with Maggie Siff and John Ortiz, The Bad Guys and Lazy Eye.

PRODUCTION and DESIGN TEAM:

John Perrin Flynn (Producer/RMT Founding Artistic Director) has produced all 30 of the main stage productions, including (LA Times - CRITIC'S CHOICE) productions of A Permanent Image, Dying City, One Night In Miami, and Lost Girls. He directed The New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh, Three Views of the Same Object by Henry Murray, and A Bright New Boise by Samuel D. Hunter (all named - LA Times CRITIC'S CHOICE). Additional directing credits include Enda Walsh's Penelope, and the critically acclaimed Los Angeles premiere of Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, (CRITIC'S CHOICE - LA Times; GO - LA Weekly, CRITIC'S PICK-Backstage, Ovation RECOMMENDED) as well as the award winning World Premiere of Henry Murray's Treefall (published by the Dramatists Play Service in 2010) and the Los Angeles premiere of Rogue Machine's inaugural production, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, by Jeffrey Hatcher. He was the Executive Producer and Director of Lifetime's long-running award winning series Strong Medicine, has produced two other series and 14 television movies or miniseries including the Emmy nominated Burden of Proof. John received the LA Weekly "Career Achievement Award" in 2012.

Matthew Elkins (Producer) is a founding member and Producing Director of Rogue Machine. He produced Blackbird, Yard Sale Signs, the LA Premiere of Stop Kiss (co-director) and RMT's inaugural production of Compleat Female Stage Beauty, among many others. With Rogue Machine, Matthew has appeared in the Los Angeles premiere of c*ck(winning a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award - BEST ENSEMBLE), and the West Coast Premiere of Falling as well as the West Coast Premiere of A Bright New Boise (LA Weekly Nomination for Best Actor). He directed MilkMilkLemonade for Rogue Machine and Raised in Captivity for the PRT Co-op. He has acted on the stages of the Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Asolo Rep & the Utah Shakespearean Festival.

Stephanie Kerley Schwartz (Set Design), Chu-Hsuan Chang (Lighting Design), (Lighting Design), John Zalewski (Sound Design), E.B. Brooks (Costume Design), Ilana Rozin (Assistant Director), and Daniel Coronel (Stage Manager).

NEED TO KNOW opens at 7pm on October 25th and runs Saturdays at 5pm, Sundays at 7pm and Mondays at 8pm through December 13, 2015 (no performance Nov 16th). ROGUE MACHINE is located at 5041 W. Pico Blvd., LA, CA 90019. Tickets are $30 - $35 and can be reserved at 855-585-5185 or at www.roguemachinetheatre.com Twitter @RogueMachineLA, Instagram @RogueMachineTheatre FB: www.facebook.com/RogueMachineTheatre.

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