Dance Theater Workshop Presents Rude Mechs In The Method Gun 3/2-12

Critically acclaimed Austin, TX ensemble, Rude Mechs, returns to New York and makes its Dance Theater Workshop debut with the New York premiere of THE METHOD GUN, a piece exploring the life and techniques of Stella Burden, an apocryphal actor-training guru of the 60s and 70s. Ms. Burden's training technique, The Approach - often referred to as "the most dangerous acting technique in the world" - fused Western acting methods with risk-based rituals in order to infuse even the smallest role with sex, death and violence. Physically visceral and visually haunting, THE METHOD GUN is a play about the ecstasy and excesses of performing, the dangers of public intimacy, and the incompatibility of truth on stage and sanity in real life. THE METHOD GUN re-enacts the final months of her company's rehearsals for their nine-years-in-the-making production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

Hailed as "brilliantly orchestrated" by John Beer in Time Out Chicago, and "Best Touring Production of 2010" by Columbus Alive!, THE METHOD GUN is written by Kirk Lynn and directed by Shawn Sides. Rude Mechs' previous New York appearances include GET YOUR WAR ON at 59E59 in 2007 and LIPSTICK TRACES at the Ohio Theatre in 2001.

Critics have said about THE METHOD GUN:
"charming... gorgeously rendered... both stunning and haunting." American Theatre Magazine

"If you only have time to see one show, make it The Method Gun. It is an honest, brave and often hilarious exploration of the creative process...as absurd and awe-inspiring as it can be." - Louisville Courier-Journal

Performances will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the Bessie Schönberg Theater, Mar 2-5, 8-12 (Wednesday - Saturday, Tuesday - Saturday) at 7:30pm and Mar 5, 11 (Saturday, Friday) at 10:30pm. There will also be a Coffee and Conversation pre-show talk on Mar 2nd (Wednesday) at 6:30pm, a Post-show Talk on March 4th (Friday), and a free wine reception following every performance. Tickets are $30 and are available online at dancetheaterworkshop.org, over the phone at 212.924.0077, and in person at the box office. Dance Theater Workshop Members, Students and Seniors are eligible for a $10 discount ($20 Tickets). Box office hours are Monday - Friday from 5pm - 9pm and
Saturday - Sunday from 12pm - 8pm. Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Tickets for The Method Gun are also available as part of the X-Pass, Exchange NYC's flexible and affordable season pass. For more information and to purchase the X-Pass, visit www.xpass.org

METHOD GUN is part of Exchange NYC 2010-11, a city wide season of new work by America's most innovative theatre companies, including The Civilians' recent, widely-acclaimed premiere of IN THE FOOTPRINT: THE BATTLE OVER ATLANTIC YARDS and Taylor Mac and the Talking Band's sold out THE WALK ACROSS AMERICA. Tickets for METHOD GUN are available as part of the X-Pass, Exchange NYC's flexible and affordable season pass. For more information and to purchase the X-Pass: www.xpass.org

About the Artists
RUDE MECHS Since 1995, Rude Mechs has created a mercurial slate of original theatrical productions that represents a genre-defying cocktail of big ideas, cheap laughs, and dizzying spectacle. What these works hold in common is the use of play to make performance, the use of theaters as meeting places for audiences and artists, and the use of humor as a tool for intellectual investigation. We tour these performances nationally and abroad; maintain The Off Center, a performance venue in Austin for arts groups of every discipline; present nationally recognized artists; and run Grrl Action, a year-round
arts mentoring program for teenage girls.Rude Mechs is an ensemble-based theatre company that operates with a full company of 28 members. We create original plays that we produce in Austin, TX, and tour nationally and internationally. Our touring productions include THE METHOD GUN, GET YOUR WAR ON, HOW LATE IT WAS HOW LATE, CHERRYWOOD and LIPSTICK TRACES. GET YOUR WARY ON and LIPSTICK TRACES were both presented Off-Broadway. THE METHOD GUN was selected for the 34th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2010.

Rude Mechs has received over 180 local and national awards and nominations for our work. We've enjoyed two Off-Broadway premieres and toured to top national venues such as The Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), The Wexner Center (Columbus, OH), and Woolly Mammoth (Washington DC). We seek to participate in the international community of artists by contributing to festivals such Austria's SommerSzene, the Galway Arts Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (winner Total Theatre Award for Best New Play by an Ensemble), the Kiasma Festival, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, and the Under the Radar Festival in NYC. Our emergence into this community was marked by a feature in the New York Times that identified Rude Mechs as one of three companies in the country "making theatre that matters." We are deeply proud to represent Texas as a home for cutting-edge theatrical practice.

KIRK LYNN (Playwright - THE METHOD GUN) is a founder and one of six Co-Producing Artistic Directors of Rude Mechs. With Rude Mechs, Mr. Lynn has written and adapted more than a dozen plays including LIPSTICK TRACES, REQUIEM FOR TESLA and I'VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY, winner of a National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Award. Mr. Lynn also adapted THE WRESTLING PATIENT, a finalist for a NEA New Play Production Award, for 40 Magnolias (Boston). He wrote MAJOR BANG for The Foundry Theatre (NYC), with whom he is working on a new commission about "value" and its myriad meanings in America. Mr. Lynn received his M.F.A. from the Michener Center for Writers and currently teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.

SHAWN SIDES (Director / Ensemble - THE METHOD GUN) Shawn Sides is a founding member and Co-Producing Artistic Director for Rude Mechs in Austin, TX. With Rudes, she has co-conceived, adapted, and directed a new work every year, give or take, since 1996 and has toured to venues including Walker Arts Center, UCLA Live, The Wexner Center, Galway Arts Festival, Edinburgh/Aurora Nova, Szene-Salzburg, and Espoo/Kiasma, Helsinki. She recently co-directed The Provenance of Beauty by Claudia Rankine with Melanie Joseph at the Foundry Theatre and the Rudes' re-enactment of The Performance Group's Dionysus in 69 with Madge Darlington. She's currently working with Kristina Wong and Katie Pearl on Wong's next piece Cat Lady. Shawn is the Alpert/Hedgebrook Residency Prize winner for 2010.

Funding
A project of Creative Capital, THE METHOD GUN is part of Exchange NYC, a city-wide season of work by America's most innovative theatre companies. Information at www.exchangenyc.org. THE METHOD GUN is presented with the support of No Boundaries: A Series of Global Performances, presented by Yale Repertory Theatre and World Performance Project at Yale.

Dance Theater Workshop is the preeminent U.S. based center for dance and performance that maintains an uncompromising mission to identify, present, and support independent contemporary artists and companies to advance dance and live performance in New York and worldwide. Dance Theater Workshop supports innovative artists through all facets of their creative process and offers audiences the opportunity to experience and engage with artistic expression in bold and evocative ways.

Dance Theater Workshop's 2010 - 2011 Season Supporters (as of July 1, 2010)

Private support provided by: Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Fund for the City of New York, FUSED: French U.S. Exchange in Dance of the New England Foundation for the Arts, The Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Jerome Foundation, The Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, Multi-Arts Production Fund (MAP), National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, The New York Community Trust, Open Society Foundations, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust, The Shubert Foundation, Inc., Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Corporate support provided by: Bloomberg L.P., Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

Public support provided by the following government agencies and elected representatives: National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Kate D. Levin, Commissioner, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, Historic Preservation, Speaker Christine C. Quinn, New York City Council, State Senator Thomas K. Duane.

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