Christina Masciotti's ADULT Plays Abrons Art Center, Now thru 2/15

This January, playwright Christina Masciotti whose most recent play VISION DISTURBANCE, directed by Richard Maxwell, was described as a "showcase for Masciotti's gift for writing" by The New York Times, "brilliant ... and ... unforgettable" by The New Yorker, and named one of the Top Ten Plays of 2010 by Time Out New York, will premiere her latest play ADULT, presented by Darling and Company in association with terraNOVA Collective, at Abrons Art Center.

ADULT is about a deadbeat dad who attempts to salvage a relationship with his estranged college-age daughter. Performances are today, Jan 30-Feb 15, Thurs-Sat, 8 pm at Abrons Art Center located at 466 Grand Street, New York, NY. Running Time 85 minutes, without intermission. Tickets are $20. For reservations and performance schedule, go to www.abronsartscenter.org or call (212) 598-0400.

Starring Jimmie James as Stanley, Betsy Hogg as Tara and directed by The New Group's Ian Morgan, ADULT is set in a strife-torn, ethnically mixEd Pennsylvania town squirming through years of economic decline. After many misguided efforts to stay afloat, Stanley has receded into the compact, bitter shell of his own confused thoughts, and seeks out familial consolation. He invites his 18-year old daughter, Tara, to spend her first winter break from college with him in his recently- robbed row home that doubles as his gun shop. She accepts his invitation, but underneath the gloss of hope that their relationship might be repaired, all the issues that have kept them apart come roiling to the surface, and threaten to shut them out of each other's lives for good.

"ADULT is about a father and daughter from two different worlds trying to bridge the huge gulf between them. Instead, they fall into a new hole with every attempt at communication. But they keep trying," says Masciotti.

"I see a lot of dignity in the idiosyncrasies of spoken language. I make no attempt to mask the weirdness or surface wrongness of how people speak. What I think emerges from that is a fuller dimension of character, replete with the curious vulnerabilities and inadequacies that we all share. I want the audience to have raw access to all of that," affirms Masciotti.

CHRISTINA MASCIOTTI's work has been produced and developed in New York City at venues including PS 122, Abrons Arts Center, New York Theatre Workshop, The New Group, and CUNY's Prelude Festival. Her most recent play Vision Disturbance was featured in The Public Theater's 2011 Under the Radar Festival, Arts Emerson's 2013 TNT Festival, and it has been translated into German, Spanish, and Italian for recent international tours; it is currently being translated into French for a tour to France and Croatia in Spring 2014. Her play Social Security will premiere at The Bushwick Starr in March 2015.

Masciotti has been honored as a Berks County Community Foundation SPA Fund Fellow, a multiple-year finalist for The Princess Grace Award, and a nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, and the Francesca Primus Award. Her work has been supported by The Greenwall Foundation, the French American Fund for Contemporary Theater, NYSCA, the Independence Community Foundation, LMCC, and The Puffin Foundation. She studied playwriting at Brown University and earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

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