Dark & Stormy Announces Cast, Director for THE DRUNKEN CITY, Running 5/14-6/7

Dark & Stormy Productions today announces the six actors and director for its upcoming regional premiere of the Outer Critics Award-nominated play The Drunken City by Adam Bock. Previously, Dark & Stormy presented Outside Providence by Edward Allan Baker, Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet, and The Receptionist by Adam Bock.

Tracey Maloney* (Linda) makes her debut with Dark & Stormy Productions in The Drunken City. Maloney has appeared at the Guthrie Theater in Tribes, Othello, God of Carnage, Circle Mirror Transformation, Peer Gynt, The Glass Menagerie, Pride & Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, Death of a Salesman (Guthrie Theater and Dublin International Theater Festival), and others. Maloney has also appeared with the Illusion Theater, Ten Thousand Things Theater, Children's Theatre Company, Pillsbury House Theatre, Jungle Theater, Workhaus Collective, The Playwrights' Center, Eye of the Storm, Hidden Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. Her film work includes Cedar Rapids, Justice, Best Man Down, and The Straight Story, among others. Maloney is the cofounder of Thirst Theater, and was named "Best Actress" by City Pages in 2007.

Sara Marsh* (Marnie) returns to Dark & Stormy in The Drunken City after appearing in The Receptionist, Speed-the-Plow, and Outside Providence. Marsh has also appeared in productions and staged readings with Park Square Theatre, History Theatre, Old Log Theater, Pillsbury House Theatre, Jungle Theater, Thirst Theater, Gremlin Theatre, Theatre L'Homme Dieu, and The Playwrights' Center, among others. A prolific Twin Cities voiceover and on-camera talent, Marsh was a series regular on season one of the web series Theater People, and her film work includes Best Man Down, How to Kill a Mockingbird, and the leading role of Lucy in New Line Cinema's feature film Sugar & Spice, among others. Next, she will be filming a leading role in Patrick Coyle's feature film The Public Domain. Marsh is the founding Artistic Director of Dark & Stormy Productions.

Ben McGovern (Bob) makes his stage debut in The Drunken City after directing Dark & Stormy's past two shows, Speed-the-Plow and The Receptionist. A prolific director, McGovern was the Associate Director of Studio Programming at the Guthrie Theater until 2011, where he directed The Edge of Our Bodies, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Ugly One, and The Caretaker. He was also the associate director of Brian Friel's Faith Healer, with director Joe Dowling in the role of Frank Harding. Prior to the Guthrie, McGovern worked with Theatre de la Jeune Lune as an assistant director, actor, stage manager, writer, and more. Jeune Lune productions include Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream; Scapin; The Man Who Laughs; Cyrano de Bergerac; Tartuffe; 3 Musketeers; and Antigone, among others. McGovern also served as Artistic Director of the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater, and his other directing credits include Thirty Days in Frogtown, The Dumb Waiter, The Bald Soprano, Skin of Our Teeth, and Flesh and the Desert, and the recent An Iliad at the Guthrie.

Kris L. Nelson* (Frank) returns to Dark & Stormy Productions after starring in Speed- the-Plow. Nelson has been seen in over 40 productions at the Guthrie Theater, including Private Lives, Othello (2004 National Tour & 2014), A Christmas Carol, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Government Inspector, Pride & Prejudice, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Ugly One, The Sex Habits of American Women, and Amadeus. He has also performed with Jungle Theater, Thirst Theater, Utah Classical Greek Theater Company, Salt Lake Acting Company, Creede Rep, and Shakespeare Theatre Company. Named "Best Actor" by City Pages in 2008, Nelson won an Ivey Award for his performance as the title character in Wellstone! (History Theater), and starred in the Ivey Award-winning production of Doubt (Ten Thousand Things Theater).

Paul de Cordova* (Eddie) makes his debut with Dark & Stormy Productions in The Drunken City. Recent credits include Almost, Maine at the Old Log Theater, The Great Divide at Workhaus Collective, and The Pride at Pillsbury House Theatre. Other credits include Angels in America: Parts I and II and [sic] at Pillsbury House Theatre, Opus and A Midsummer Night's Dream at Park Square Theatre, Dudley: Rigged for Laughter at the History Theater, and Hedda Gabler at the Southern Theater. In New York, Paul performed with Columbia Stages, Keen Company, and 3 Graces, among others. In Minnesota, he has also worked with the Guthrie Theater, Jungle Theater, Frank Theater, Children's Theater, and Skewed Visions, among others. De Cordova is an Associate Company Member at Pillsbury House Theatre.

Adelin Phelps* (Melissa) makes her debut with Dark & Stormy Productions in The Drunken City. Phelps has performed in productions and staged readings with the Minnesota Shakespeare Company, Park Square Theatre, Brazen Theatre, Workhouse Theatre Company, the American Shakespeare Repertory Theatre, John Ferguson Theatre, Freshwater Theatre, Illusion Theatre, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, Savage Umbrella, and Workhaus Collective. Phelps is a corps and founding member of Transatlantic Love Affair, and has performed in their productions of Red Resurrected, Ballad of a Pale Fisherman, Ash Land, and These Old Shoes.

Bill McCallum* makes his directorial debut with Dark & Stormy Productions with The Drunken City. McCallum previously appeared onstage with Dark & Stormy in Speed-the-Plow and The Receptionist. He also directed the Ivey Award-winning The Comedian's Tragedy by Matthew Amendt in 2008. McCallum has previously appeared in over 40 productions at the Guthrie Theater, including Clybourne Park, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (with Patrick Stewart and Mercedes Ruhl), Othello (2004 National Tour & 2014), Death of a Salesman (Guthrie Theater and Dublin International Theater Festival), The Glass Menagerie, Peer Gynt, MacBeth, The Winter's Tale, Circle Mirror Transformation, God of Carnage, Skiing on Broken Glass, and Time Stands Still. McCallum has also performed with American Players Theatre, Goodman Theater, Northlight Theater, History Theater, Minnesota Festival Theater, Theatre L'Homme Dieu, and The Playwrights' Center, among others. His film work includes The Straight Story and Meet Joe Somebody. McCallum is the Associate Artistic Director of Dark & Stormy Productions.

Adam Bock (playwright) is the OBIE Award-winning playwright of The Drunken City. His plays include Phaedra; A Small Fire (Drama Desk nomination); book for We Have Always Lived in the Castle, with music by Todd Almond; The Flowers; The Receptionist (Outer Critics nomination, Best Plays of 2007-2008); The Evidence Room; The Drunken City (Outer Critics nomination); The Thugs (OBIE Award for Playwriting); The Shaker Chair; Swimming In The Shallows (BATCC Award, Clauder Prize); Five Flights (Glickman Award, ACTA nomination, Osborn nomination); Marcy Comes Home; and The Typographer's Dream. Bock is the resident playwright at Encore Theatre, and a Shotgun Players Artistic Associate. He is a NEA grantee, a three-time resident at Yaddo, a former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a NYTW Usual Suspect, and a TDF Open Doors mentor, and a member of New Dramatists.

ABOUT DARK & STORMY PRODUCTIONS: Founded in February 2012 by Artistic Director Sara Marsh, Dark & Stormy Productions is committed to creating artistically excellent, exciting, and accessible theater for all audiences. Dark & Stormy Productions seeks to develop the next generation of theatergoers, while providing current audiences with new and exciting ways to experience the theater, by producing short, relevant, intimate productions that emphasize the immediacy of the artist-to-audience connection, using the top talent in the Twin Cities.

Dark & Stormy's first production, Outside Providence (2012), was celebrated by audiences and artists alike, and drew in theatergoers of all ages with its unconventional performance venue and unusual, intimate staging. In January of 2013, Dark & Stormy became an Actors' Equity Association Small Professional Theater (SPT), and began their first Equity season with David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow. The production was a hit with audiences and critics alike, and named one of the Top Ten Productions of 2013 by Rohan Preston of the Star Tribune. To close their inaugural season, Dark & Stormy produced The Receptionist by Adam Bock, directed by Benjamin McGovern and featuring Sally Wingert in the title role, with Sara Marsh, Bill McCallum, and Harry Waters Jr. The Receptionist exceeded all expectations, nearly selling out the entire run, and was named one of the Top Ten Productions of 2013 by City Pages theater critic Ed Huyck. Of producing The Receptionist, Marsh says,

We took an enormous gamble; financially, it the largest production we had attempted (with one SDC and five Equity contracts), and we additionally produced two free readings of Mr. Bock's other works prior to The Receptionist to introduce audiences to the playwright, using actors who were nearly all Equity. I'm thrilled our gamble paid off; the readings were a success, and The Receptionist was no less than a theater miracle: it had a perfect combination of cast, creative team, location, script, press, and slot in the season - and it was fun! The overwhelmingly positive response from our audiences, our supporters, and our donors is what prompted us to bring them The Drunken City - which was part of our Adam Bock reading series. It is different in subject and tone (in that it is a sweet and charming love story), but audiences will recognize Mr. Bock's razor-sharp wit, hint of lurking darkness, and uniquely human characters.

Jill A. Anderson, General Manager of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and Chair of Dark & Stormy Productions' Board, adds, "Adam Bock continues to be among my favorite working playwrights. After introducing him to the Twin Cities with The Receptionist, to bring The Drunken City to the stage with such a prominent cast and creative team is an exciting next step for Dark & Stormy. The support and enthusiasm our audiences showed for The Receptionist is evidence that they enjoy Bock's style of writing, too, and we can't wait to show them another side of his work with The Drunken City."

Written with his trademark richness of character and unerring ear for dialogue, Mr. Bock's The Drunken City is charming, funny, and surprisingly moving. In the heart of the city, three brides-to-be are on the bachelorette bar crawl to end all bar crawls. But when one of them begins to question her future after a chance encounter with a recently jilted handsome stranger, it creates a domino effect that turns all of their lives upside down. The Drunken City is a sweet, quirky, and clever comedy that takes a real and raw look at marriage, identity, expectations, and the ever-changing nature of love.

Dark & Stormy's Associate Artistic Director, Bill McCallum, says, "I'm thrilled to be directing The Drunken City! One of our chief objectives at Dark & Stormy is to provide our audiences with new and exciting ways to experience their favorite artists. Here, we are presenting another regional premiere by Adam Bock - a play that shows a different side to the playwright that our audiences came to love through our recent production of The Receptionist. We're performing it at an apartment complex, in a space few people have heard of, and we're using the best local actors from big stages and big screens and presenting them in our signature up-close, intimate style. And the production will be directed by an artist audiences know best as an actor, and feature the acting talents of an artist they know best as a director (Benjamin McGovern). It's going to be a very exciting show!"

The Drunken City by Adam Bock, running May 14 - June 7, 2014, kicks off Dark & Stormy's second season as an Equity theater in the Twin Cities. Dark & Stormy Productions is dedicated to exploring relevant issues and celebrating short plays by both emerging and renowned playwrights. Dark & Stormy is proud to present the regional premiere of The Drunken City.

Tickets for The Drunken City are currently available for purchase online at www.darkstormy.org or by calling 612.724.5685. Tickets are $25, with discounts for patrons under the age of 30. All shows are 7:30pm. For more information about Dark & Stormy Productions, visit www.darkstormy.org.

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