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VS. Theatre and Firefly Theater & Films Present Revised Version of COMPLETENESS, Now thru 12/7

By: Nov. 06, 2014
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The award-winning companies VS. Theatre and Firefly Theater & Films are co-producing the West Coast Premiere of a newly revised version of Itamar Moses' COMPLETENESS. The production will be directed by Philadelphia's multi-Barrymore Award-nominee and F. Otto Haas Award-winning director Matt Pfeiffer and will feature Steven Klein, Emily Swallow, Nicole Erb and Rob Nagle. COMPLETENESS will preview tonight, November 6 at 8pm and will open on Friday, November 7 at 8pm and will run through Sunday, December 7 at VS. Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles.

In this romantic comedy, Elliot, a computer scientist, builds a computer program to help Molly, a molecular biologist, with her research project, only to find that the variables in their relationship shift as rapidly as their experiment. Elliot and Molly "meet cute" at complicated times in their love and personal lives, and, in their professional collaboration as problem-solving scientists, they grapple with the unsolvable nature of life's biggest equation: how to pair.

The production brings Itamar Moses' work back to Los Angeles for the first time since his local debut with The Four of Us, also a VS. Theatre and Firefly co-production. Mr. Moses is simultaneously hard at work on his musical adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress Of Solitude, opening at The Public in New York on September 30.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST

MATT PFEIFFER (Director) is a Philadelphia born actor and director who serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre Exile. Recent directing credits: True West (Theatre Exile), the world premiere of Down Past Passyunk (Interact Theatre), The Train Driver (Lantern Theatre), The 39 Steps and The Two Gentleman of Verona (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), The Whipping Man and A Moon for the Misbegotten (ArdenTheatre), and the world premiere of North of the Boulevard (Theatre Exile). Other credits: Two River Theatre, Walnut St. Theatre, Delaware Theatre Co, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, The Gulfshore Playhouse, TheatreHorizon, and 16 seasons with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Matt is a seven-time Barrymore nominee, recipient of the F. Otto Haas Award, and a proud member of SDC and AEA.

ITAMAR MOSES (Playwright) is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, and Completeness, the musicals Nobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter) and The Fortress of Solitude (with Michael Friedman), and the evening of short plays Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to It). His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theatresacross the country and in Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, and Venezuela, and is published by Faber & Faber and Samuel French. He has received new play commissions from The McCarter Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma Theater, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, and The Goodman Theatre. On TV, Itamar has written for both TNT's MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE and HBO's BOARDWALK EMPIRE. Itamar holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Born in Berkeley, CA, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

JOHNNY CLARK (Producer) is the founder and Artistic Director of the critically-acclaimed and award-winningVS. Theatre Company. Prior to founding VS., Johnny was the producing director for Interact Theatre Company. This is his third collaboration with Firefly Theatre and good friend, Steven Klein. Johnny is also an actor, most recently seen as "Paul" in the VS. production of Cops And Friends Of Cops (multiple Critics Choice designations; nominated for Best Ensemble by the LA Weekly). Prior VS. credits: The Credeaux Canvas, Modern Dance For Beginners, Navy Pier, Beggars In The House Of Plenty, Waste Of Shame, Eric Larue, On An Average Day, Eagle Hills...Eagle Ridge...Eagle Landing, The Mercy Seat and Blackbird for which he received a Best Actor Nomination from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for his performance as "Baylis". Other favorite stage credits: Death Of A Salesman (Odyssey Theatre), Never Swim Alone (West Coast Ensemble), and Chicago productions of Life And Limb, Brilliant Traces, and A Hatful Of Rain. He has done several commercials and independent films including "Liars Club," which he co-wrote, produced and starred in. The film won First Prize at the Rhode Island Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release

The cast of COMPLETENESS features: Steven Klein (The Four Of Us, An Infinite Ache), Emily Swallow ("The Mentalist," High Fidelity), Nicole Erb (The Crucible, The Master Builder) and Rob Nagle (The Dead, Peace In Our Time).

COMPLETENESS features an award-winning design team led by Set Designer Darcy Scanlin (Richard III, A Winter's Tale - A Noise Within; Princess Marjorie - South Coast Rep). Lighting and Projection Design is by three-time Dean Goodman Award recipient Tom Ontiveros. Sound Design is by Jason Tuttle (Wait Until Dark,Lonesome Traveler). Costume Design is by VS. Theatre regular Gelareh Khalioun. Props Design is by Stephen Rowan (Fairy Tale Theatre 18+). The show will be stage managed by Samantha Franco. COMPLETENESS is produced by Johnny Clark for VS. Theatre Company and Natalia Duncan for Firefly Theater & Films.

COMPLETENESS will preview on Thursday, November 6 at 8pm and will open on Friday, November 7 at 8pmand run through Sunday, December 7 at VS. Theatre Company, 5453 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00pm & Sundays at 2:00pm. Ticket prices are $25.00 for all performances. Preview Tickets are $20.00. Tickets are available online at www.vstheatre.org or www.brownpapertickets.com or by calling 323-739-4411.

VS. Theatre Company, a Not-For-Profit 501c-(3) Public Benefit Corporation, is a small, dedicated group of passionate artists devoted to producing original works and Los Angeles Premieres by the best contemporary playwrights in America. VS. was founded in 2004 based on a passion for riveting stories and live performance in an intimate setting. Recently named "one of the top theatre companies of the last decade" by the LA Weekly,VS. has produced or co-produced major contemporary playwrights including John Patrick Shanley, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Adam Rapp, Itamar Moses, and Neil LaBute. To date, VS. has produced or co-produced fourteen plays. Standouts include: the West Coast Premere of Keith Bunin's The Credeaux Canvas, which ran for nearly six months and played to sold out houses every night; In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (a co-production with The Elephant Theatre Company), named Best Production by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle in 2008; On An Average Day, produced in Los Angeles and Chicago, garnering Critic's Choice in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Backstage, and won or was nominated for several Ovation, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and Joseph Jefferson Awards; Blackbird by Adam Rapp which was nominated for three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards including two for Best Lead Actor and three LA Weekly Awards including Best Production; and The Los Angeles Premiere of Neil LaBute's The Mercy Seat, a co-production with the FordTheatre as part of the Ford's prestigious 2011 [Inside] The Ford Winter Partnership Program. The Mercy Seat won two Backstage Reader's Choice Awards for Outstanding Performance and Production, won or was nominated for several LA Weekly Awards, and was voted a "Top Ten of The Year" by the Los Angeles Times.VS. recently opened its own space - The VS. Theatre (site of the former Black Dahlia Theatre) on Pico Blvd., and launched its first production there, The World Premiere of Ron Klier's Cops And Friends Of Cops. The sold out production received excellent reviews including "Pick of the Week" by the LA Weekly, multiple theatre awards and nominations, and extended long after its scheduled closing night.

Firefly Theater & Films: With equal footing in theater and film, Firefly has been telling compelling stories for more nearly 20 years. Founded in 1996 by actor and producer Steven Klein, Firefly first focused on theater, and its productions have won more than two-dozen awards for shows in Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Belfast, Off-West End London, and Off-Broadway. With a belief that films could be made with the cross-disciplinary collaboration typical to theater, Steven partnered with Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen to found a film collective, making 35 digital shorts from 2001-2005. The success of this project led to the expansion of the company into Firefly Theater & Films, which has since screened award-winning films at dozens of festivals internationally. Firefly's Los Angeles Film Festival-winning documentary, MAKE BELIEVE - one of Ebert's Top Docs of 2011 - is now being developed as a Broadway musical with Disney Theatricals, and it's annual Unscreened series is now completing its fourth year. Next up: Firefly's production of Geraldine Hughes' Belfast Blues - originally premiered in collaboration with the Black Dahlia in 2002 - is returning Off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre opening September 20, and the award-winning documentary PRINT THE LEGEND will be released for a limited theatrical run and as a Netflix Original Documentary on September 26.



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