5th Wall and TheatreLAB Present Quick-Witted Dark Comedy HAND TO GOD

5th Wall Theatre's artistic director Carol Piersol and TheatreLAB's artistic director Deejay Gray announce their upcoming co-production HAND TO GOD, an ingenious contemporary comedy that shocked and delighted audiences for years on the Off-Broadway and Broadway circuits before nabbing five Tony nominations including one for Best New Play. The local production of this play that opens July 13th at The Basement in downtown Richmond features a talented local cast led by Adam Turck playing both Jason and his demonically possessed hand puppet, Tyrone. A host of other talented actors fill out the ranks including Kimberly Jones Clark, Anne Michelle Forbes, Adam Valentine, and Fred Iacovo.

This boundary-pushing play is directed by Gary C. Hopper, who says about this production, "One critic aptly described HAND TO GOD as a play where 'Sesame Street meets The Exorcist!' The juxtaposition of these two worlds will provide the audience with a highly charged evening of theatre as the play careens from intense moments of hilarious comedy to quiet moments of tenderness and heartbreak. And all of this instigated by a possessed hand puppet named Tyrone."

This lightning-paced comedy is manned by a talented local stage crew including direction by Gary C. Hopper; scenic design by David P. Melton; lighting design by Michael Jarett; costume design by Elizabeth Weiss Hopper; sound design by Joey Luck; properties design by Barry Green; puppets by Heidi Rugg; fight choreography by Aaron Anderson; dialects by Erica Hughes; photography by Tom Topinka; assistant stage management by Connor Scudder; and production stage management by Kelsey Cordrey.

HAND TO GOD is set in Cypress, Texas, a small and sleepy town where Margery (Kimberly Jones Clark) struggles to regain equilibrium after the death of her husband leaves her in a pit of grief. Seeking solace in her local Methodist church led by Pastor Greg (Fred Iacovo), Margery and her son Jason (Adam Turck) become part of the church's Christian Puppet Ministry where Jason meets Jessica (Anne Michelle Forbes) and brooding loner Timothy (Adam Valentine)...but they all quickly find that these puppets might be a little more than they can handle when Jason's puppet, Tyrone, starts taking on a devilish life of his own and begins drawing everyone around him into acts of sin. Can the congregation survive the subversions of this foul-mouthed puppet, and if they do, will they ever be the same? Laced with hilariously acidic humor and razor sharp insights into the parts of human nature often considered too dark to reveal, HAND TO GOD delivers the one-two punch of a story that gets you thinking and laughing all in one delightfully profane production.

July 13th-28th at The Basement, located at 300 E Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia. Tickets are $32 (Students $20 - group rates available). 5thwalltheatre.org/tickets

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