SO WHAT IF I LOVED YOU Set for Merseles Studios, 8/21-24

Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) presents 68 Productions' (68P) "So What If I Loved You," a multimedia one-woman show by Summer Dawn Hortillosa debuting August 2014 at exciting new venue Merseles Studios.

"So What If I Loved You" runs August 21 to 23 at 8 p.m. and August 24 at 7 p.m. at Merseles Studios, 339-345 Newark Ave. (at Merseles Street), Jersey City, NJ. Tickets are $12 in advance online and $15 at the door. They are available at SoWhatIfILovedYou.BrownPaperTickets.com.

The show, called SWIILY for short, is about a young woman haunted by memories of a lost lover. Unable to sleep, she remembers various incarnations of this man through two monologues and an original song. Hortillosa's sharp wit and sense of rhythm and poetry keeps this piece shifting-quirky one minute, uproarious the next, sassy, then painful, then touching, then right in your gut.

To make SWIILY happen, Hortillosa launched a Kickstarter that reached its $1,500 goal only halfway through its month-long campaign. The community rallied behind her, pushing the crowdfunding campaign way over its goal, ending at $2,342.

SWIILY may be Hortillosa's brainchild, but it's also the work of several New Jersey and New York artists including director and 68P co-founder Liliane Wolf, director of photography Alex Pergament, video editor DeukYun Hwang and others.

"It's really exciting to be able to work with so many talented local artists," said Hortillosa. "It's amazing to see how so many people are touched by the story."

The Asian-American playwright, director and actress burst onto the scene in 2012 with "Secrets; Love," a finalist in the Downtown Urban Theater Festival in New York City and is best known for "Kookspeak," her comedic one-woman show that toured regional festivals from 2012 to 2014.

Hortillosa's new show, SWIILY, will be one of the first major productions in Merseles Studios. Both 68P and JCTC are focused on bringing new works by and for diverse peoples to Jersey City, which has a burgeoning arts and theater scene.

"You have to make your own opportunities," said Hortillosa. "I grew up with a single mother who was chronically ill and couldn't go to college. I was supposed to go to Duke, but had to work and take care of her. I was beginning to think that maybe I wasn't meant to write Broadway plays or be involved in theater at all.

"(But then) I realized that I needed to make my dreams happen. I wasn't going to just give up. I started working as a journalist and started exploring the arts scene around me," she continued. "Jersey City's grown so much in the past five years because we are industrious. We make things happen."

For more information, visit SoWhatIfILovedYou.com. See a trailer: http://youtu.be/4QXs2QkB-V8

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