The Actors' Gang Present Solo Works 'The Need to Know' & 'Sock and Shoe' 9/17 - 10/23

Actors' Gang company members April Fitzsimmons (The Trial of The catonsville Nine, Our Town) and Daisuke Tsuji (Love's Labours Lost, 1984) bring their acclaimed solo works to the Ivy Substation company home, kicking off a new performance series with two remarkable journeys.

"The Actors' Gang is best known for its ensemble work, for big shows with large casts," comments Associate Artistic Director V.J. Foster. "With our new performance series, we want to revive an old Actors' Gang tradition in our new Culver City home and share the remarkable individual talents of our 60-plus members. These are difficult times, and we want to open up this great space of ours to our fellow artists who share the Gang's vision and ideology."

The Need to Know: A Veteran's Journey from Fear to Freedom is the LA Weekly Award-winning coming of age story written and performed by April Fitzsimmons. A former Air Force intelligence analyst and "irresistible presence" (Los Angeles Times), she brings audiences along on her personal, 20-year, all-American journey from warrior to peace activist. Joining the military at age 17, the young recruit believes that serving her country will make a difference in the world; instead, she discovers lies and deception. Traveling from a Montana jail, into the United States Air Force, through the halls of the National Security Agency and down to the beach with the Arlington West Memorial, hers is an unforgettable transformation. Directed by Steven Anderson, performances will take place Thursdays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 2 pm, September 17 through October 23 (dark Saturday, October 3).

In Sock and Shoe, former Cirque du Soleil clown Daisuke Tsuji takes us on a physical journey without words in an evening of two unique performance pieces developed in collaboration with Three Chairs Theatre Company. Sole Mate is a love song of simple means and large hope told through the manipulation of found object puppets. Death and Giggles mixes clowning, puppetry and modern dance to explore the absurdity of death with a story of one man's journey through the afterlife. Sock and Shoe will run on "Late Start Fridays" at 9 pm, and Saturdays at 8 pm, September 18 through October 23 (dark Saturdays, October 3 and 17).

In addition to the run of The Need to Know and Sock and Shoe, The Actors' Gang is gearing up to offer an eclectic series of performance, music, and film October through December.

Also in September and October, The Gang's productions of The Trial of The catonsville Nine, directed by Jon Kellam, and 1984, directed by Artistic Director Tim Robbins, will tour simultaneously; Catonsville will tour to the East Coast of the U.S. and Australia, and 1984 heads to festivals in Mexico and Spain.

April Fitzsimmons is a writer/actor/activist living in Los Angeles. She enlisted at 17 and served in the US Air Force as an Intelligence Analyst. After several trips to the National Security Agency (NSA) as an intelligence briefer, she received an honorable discharge and moved to Hollywood. She attended her first protest in 2003. Since February, 2004, she has worked with vets and volunteers to create a memorial called "Arlington West" for the fallen troops of the Iraq War at the Santa Monica Pier every Sunday. In 2005 she traveled around the country with the memorial to keep the conversation alive about the human cost of war. That August, she helped bring the memorial to Crawford, Texas and joined Cindy Sheehan and hundreds of other veterans and activists outside George Bush's ranch. In 2007 and 2008 she participated with Iraq Vets Against the War's "Operation First Casualty" as they re-enacted military raids and water-boarding on the Santa Monica Promenade. April is a company member at The Actors' Gang, teaches writing workshops for veterans, and is a founding member of the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) which supports and develops the leadership of women veterans, mentors young women considering military service, works to solve problems facing women in uniform, and provides and promotes services that are healing to women after their military service experience.

Daisuke Tsuji is a wroter/director/performer who was born in Kuwait, raised in Japan and Sacramento, and went to UCLA where he received his BA in Theater Arts. He continued his journey as an actor and clown, touring Poland with Meditations on Virginity; the United States with The Actors' Gang's 1984; and Japan with Cirque du Soleil's Dralion. Most recently, he wrote and directed Monkey Madness with the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble. Daisuke is a company member at both The Actors' Gang and Three Chairs Theatre Company.

Cristina Bercovitz (co-creator Sock and Shoe) is the Artistic Director of Three Chairs Theatre Company, and is a director, writer, puppet designer and performer. Her favorite performance credits include Possession: A Ghost Story and Shadow Puppet: Show, Believe You Me, and SAng Lee I Hear You. Her recent work as a puppet designer includes Monkey Madness at the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble and Matthew Modine Saves the Alpacas at the Geffen Playhouse. Cristina is a graduate of UCLA's Theater program with emphases in both directing and performance.

The Actors' Gang, founded in 1982 by a group of renegade theater artists, has over 100 productions and more than 100 awards to its credit, and consistently wins acclaim for its daring interpretations of Shakespeare, Buchner, Brecht, Moliere, Aeschylus, Ibsen and Chekhov, while also developing bold new plays that address the world today through a prism of satire, popular culture, and raucous stagecraft. The Gang is currently touring nationally with Michael Gene Sullivan's adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, directed by the company's artistic director, Tim Robbins, and recently completed international dates in New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong. Other Actors' Gang productions that have previously toured to cities across the U.S include Tim Robbins' Embedded, Anne Nelson's The Guys, and Jessica Blank's and Erik Jensen's The Exonerated. The Actors' Gang actively reaches out to the community with its Free Summer-in-the-Park productions for families; Artist Residency in Local Schools program; by running lower, middle and high school after school programs with children from the community; by performing special matinees for local schools; and with accessibility performances for the hearing- and sight-impaired.

From September 17 through October 23, The Need to Know: A Veteran's Journey from Fear to Freedom performs Thursdays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 2 pm (dark Saturday, October 3); Sock and Shoe performs "Late Start Fridays" at 9 pm and Saturdays at 8 pm (dark Saturdays, October 3 and 17). Tickets to all performances are $25.00 for reserved seats.

The Actors' Gang is located in the Ivy Substation at 9070 Venice Blvd. (near the intersection of Culver and Venice Blvds.) in Culver City. Two hours free parking is available throughout downtown Culver City; the Ince Parking Lot (corner of Culver and Ince) is directly across the street from the theater. In addition, several restaurants (Italian, French, Thai, Japanese, and more) are only a few blocks' walk from The Actors' Gang and offer a variety of dining options before and after the theater. The Ivy Substation is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible.

For reservations and information, call The Actors' Gang Box Office at 310-838-GANG (310-838-4264) or go to www.theactorsgang.com.

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