Theatre of Note presents the World Premieres of RED HELEN & SUPPER
By: A.A. Cristi Mar. 03, 2017
Theatre of NOTE announces two world premieres plays running in repertory-RED HELEN,written by Jennifer Barclay and directed by Bill Voorhees & SUPPER, written by Phinneas Kiyomura and directed by Alina Phelan. RED HELEN will preview Friday, March 24 at 8pm, and will open on Thursday, March 30 at 8pm and run through Saturday, May 20, 2017. . SUPPER will preview Saturday, April 1 at 8pm, and will open on Thursday, April 6 at 8pm and run through Saturday, May 20, 2017 - both at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.
RED HELEN rules her three grown daughters with a powerful fist. The oldest, Astrid, craves appreciation. The middle, Max, brings home money in wee bloody fistfuls. And the youngest, Bebe, has returned from her travels abroad with a fiancé, seeking her father's approval. But the father is traveling indefinitely, their family steakhouse is in crisis, and Helen's speech is deteriorating into manic loops. As her daughters try their best to break free, Helen pulls out all the stops to keep them in her grip. Red Helen is a dark and twisted comedy about bloody money, blood-red meat, and blood relations.
JENNIFER BARCLAY (Playwright, Red Helen) is a Chicago-bred actor-turned-playwright, recently relocated to the DC area, where she is a member of Arena Stage's 2017-18 Playwrights' Arena. Jennifer is the recipient of the National New Play Network's 2016 Smith Prize for Political Theatre; a commission to write Ripe Frenzy, a play about the media's impact on our nation's mass shooting epidemic. Ripe Frenzy was developed at Woolly Mammoth and will premiere at New Rep in Boston in 2018. Jennifer's plays have been produced and developed by Steppenwolf, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, REDCAT, The Kennedy Center, Center Stage, The International Theatre of Vienna, The Edinburgh Fringe. Awards: Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award, Kennedy Center National Science Playwriting Award, Pinter Review Gold Medal. Fellowships: MacDowell Colony, VCCA, Hawthornden International Writers Retreat. Residencies: South Coast Rep Shank Playwright in Residence 2009-10, Playwrights Collective member at Center Stage 2015-16. Education: Northwestern University and UC San Diego (MFA with Naomi Iizuka). Jennifer is an Assistant Professor of Playwriting and Performance at the University of Maryland. Currently, she is developing a new play about human trafficking with the support of a University of Maryland Faculty Research Grant, in collaboration with director Shana Cooper and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co.
BILL VOORHEES (Director, Red Helen) has been involved in theatre for the last 31 years working regionally in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Theaters include The Show Below, The Thistle Dew, MSTW, COTC, The Geery Theatre, The Chautauqua Playhouse, River Stage, and California Stage. Some favorite roles have been in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Orphans, An Evening With John Wilkes Booth, Amadeus, Children of a Lesser God, The Elephant Man, and Banshee. Directing credits include Extremities, The Boys Next Door, Dog Logic, The Miracle Worker, and Beirut. Bill also was an Artist-in-Residence at Folsom High School and an instructor at Sacramento Country Day Private School. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he had a stint working on Family Guy/American Dad for Fox TV Animation. In the six years that he has been a member of Theatre of NOTE, Bill has directed two world premiere productions including Kirsten Vangsness' Potential Space and Skeleton Stories. He also works at the world-famous B-movie studio, The Asylum, which produces such hits asTransmorphers, the Sharknado movies, and the SyFy TV series Z Nation. Film/TV credits include Real Time with Bill Maher, Megashark vs. Mechashark, Ardennes Fury and last year he made his national TV debut fighting zombies as Wrecking Ball on Z Nation. Every year for the last fifteen years, Bill heads back to his hometown of Sacramento to be a Respondent at the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival which is in its 62nd year and hosts over 60 schools annually.
The cast of RED HELEN features: Lynn Odell, Channing Sargent, Amanda Celine Miller, Sigi Gradwohl, and Greg Nussen.
The Koch Brothers are infamous, super-rich, right-wing reactionaries from Wichita, Kansas. Trained in business and politics at their father's knee, and bestowed with his oil wealth and his company, Koch Industries, the brothers are litigious multibillionaires who fund ultra-right-wing causes and candidates in an attempt to shape America in their image.
This play is definitely NOT about the Koch Brothers.
SUPPER follows four super-rich and estranged brothers as they reunite in Japan on the eve of their eldest brother's wedding. What follows is a strange and savage feast of lies, recriminations, and bitter truths served with a side of jet-black humor. SUPPER is a brute farce custom built for the age of Trump.
PHINNEAS KIYOMURA (Playwright, Supper) is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, former skate punk, and dad living in Los Angeles, CA. His critically acclaimed plays (Lydia in Bed, Figure 8, Woods, Phrazzled) have been produced at Theatre of NOTE, Padua Playwrights and SacRed Fools, among others. He is a FIND Screenwriters Lab Fellow (for his feature Beds and Graves), an ABC Disney Writers Lab Fellow, winner of the Klasky Csupo writing competition, and wrote on Twisted (Freeform). He has developed projects for New Regency, Mark Gordon Co., and ABC Studios. He is currently in development on several projects, including:Internment, a passion project inspired by his father's experiences in the Japanese American internment camps, and Ring of Fire, an exploration of faith and madness. He appears as an actor in upcoming features Kill Me, Deadly and After We Leave. His graphic novel, 442, is now available on the St?la app for iPhone and Android.
Alina Phelan (Director, Supper) has been a NOTE member since 1999 and has acted in and directed several plays in her theatre home. Past directorial escapades include Possum Carcass in 2014 and a remount of the favorite NOTE holiday classic A MulhollandChristmas Carol in 2012. As an actress, she was most recently seen in D Deb Debbie Deborah, Rio Hondo, Entropy, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. She is devoted to supporting live theatre, and truly hopes that you have a healthier family life than the family sitting down to dinner in Supper.
The cast of Supper features: Darrett Sanders, Joel Scher, Alex Elliott-Funk, Will McFadden, and Keiko Elizabeth.
RED HELEN and SUPPER feature the design talents of an impressive array of Los Angeles-area designers including Set Designer Aaron Francis, Lighting Designer Bosco Flanagan, Sound Designer Michelle Cullen (Red Helen), Sound Designer Dean Harada (Supper), Costume Designer Shelby Saelens (Red Helen), Costume Designer Amanda Maciel Antunes (Supper), and Fight Choreographer Bo Foxworth. Red Helen is stage managed by Kelly Egan. Supper is stage managed by Aaron Saldaña.
RED HELEN will preview on Friday, March 24 and will open on Thursday, March 30 at 8pm.
SUPPER will preview on Saturday, April 1 at 8pm and will open on Thursday, April 6 at 8pm.
Performances of RED HELEN and SUPPER will alternate evenings, Thursday-Sunday, and both will close on Saturday, May 20. All performances, including
back-to- back performances on Saturday, May 20, will be presented at Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N Cahuenga Blvd (just north of Sunset) in Hollywood.
Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm.
Ticket prices are $25; students and seniors $20. Come back to see the second show in the rep and the ticket price is $15. For tickets and details, please call 323-856-8611, or visit www.theatreofnote.com to purchase tickets online and to view the complete schedule.
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