MCC Theater & The Movement Theatre Company to Present PlayLab Staged Reading of QUICK SERVICE

MCC Theater and The Movement Theatre Company will present a PlayLab staged reading of Quick Service by May Treuhaft-Ali and directed by Cristina Angeles. The staged reading will take place at MCC Theater's Newman Mills Theater (511 West 52nd St, New York, NY 10019) on Friday March 3 at 2pm. For tickets, please visit mcctheater.org/tix/playlab-quick-service.

Quick Service is a play about the precarities of food service, set in an empanada shop in Chicago. Four employees try to make it through the dinner rush as something sinister rises up from the basement, ex-coworkers enact their revenge, and the oven has a mind of its own.

The cast of Quick Service will include Yadira Guevara-Prip ("Supernatural") as "Angela," Booker Vance (Choir Boy) as "Petey," Nate Miller (Ripcord) as "Greg," and Nikita Tewani (Ghosts) as "Vash." Kyra Button is the Stage Manager.

"After spending two years getting to know each other's organizations we're thrilled to officially partner with The Movement Theatre Company this year and embark on this developmental workshop and staged reading to lift up this work and this phenomenal team of artists," said Will Cantler.

"We are so excited to collaborate with MCC to bring Quick Service's words to life through PlayLab," said The Movement Theatre Company. "This reading, teaming up May's thrilling, highly imaginative voice and Cristina's joyful directorial leadership, will present the often over-looked and complex labor of the food service industry and our relationship to work."

MCC Theater's development programs, PlayLabs and SongLabs, help foster the MCC artistic community by providing writers intensive dramaturgical support, as well as the opportunity to work alongside professional directors and actors to engage public audiences in the development of new work. The series incorporates informal post-show gatherings for conversation between artists and audiences that enliven and stimulate the often solitary and insular writing and development process.

New work developed as part of PlayLabs have gone on to full productions at MCC, as well as at other nonprofit theaters in New York and overseas, adding vibrant new works to the contemporary theatrical canon.

ABOUT MCC Theater

MCC Theater is one of New York's leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 by Bob LuPone (1946-2022) and Bernie Telsey, and later joined by co-Artistic Director Will Cantler, as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, MCC fulfills its mission of through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater's celebrated productions include Kate Nash's Only Gold with a book by Andy Blankenbuehler and Ted Malawer, Donja R. Love's soft; Ross Golan's The Wrong Man; Aziza Barnes' BLKS; Jocelyn Bioh's School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play; Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike; Robert Askins' Hand to God (Broadway transfer; five 2015 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play); John Pollono's Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo's Really Really; Sharr White's The Other Place (Broadway transfer); Jeff Talbott's The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award® nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and All The Ways To Say I Love You; Michael Weller's Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride; Bryony Lavery's Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play, Tony Award® for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson's Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and musicals including Alice by Heart, Ride the Cyclone, Carrie, and Coraline. Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world.

Over the years MCC has worked with thousands of students through the innovative MCC Youth Company, school partnerships, and student matinee programs.

Executive Director Blake West joined the company in 2006. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019, unifying the company's activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming. MCC founding Co-Artistic Director Bob LuPone sadly passed away on August 27, 2022. MCC continues to honor his fierce need for engagement with the art, the artists, and the audience and remember the profound impact he had on everyone who entered its spaces.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

MCCTheater.org

ABOUT THE MOVEMENT THEATRE COMPANY

The Movement Theatre Company creates an artistic social movement by developing and producing bold new work by artists of color. Under the leadership of Deadria Harrington, Eric Lockley, Ryan Dobrin, and David Mendizábal, their work engages multicultural audiences in a rich theatrical dialogue, enlightens communities to the important issues affecting our world, and empowers artists to celebrate the many sides of their unique voice. Founded in 2007, The Movement has established itself as an artistic staple in New York theatre, championed by community and acclaimed by the industry (OBIE-Award Winner, Drama Desk and Drama League Award Nominee). As an organization run by producers of color, The Movement is passionate about shifting the status quo of American Theatre both on-stage and behind the scenes. Past productions include: What to Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White (NY Premiere and Northeast Tour, 2018 - 2021), 1MOVE: DES19NED BY... (2020), Harrison David Rivers' And She Would Stand Like This (2016) choreographed by Kia LaBeija, and Look Upon Our Lowliness (2014), both directed by David Mendizábal, Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé, translated by Chantal Bilodeau, directed by David Mendizábal (2010) and Hope Speaks devised and directed by Jonathan McCrory (2008). Over their 15 year history they've featured work by Dominique Morriseau, Christina Anderson, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, Xosha Roquemore, Joél Pérez, Jesca Prudencio, Jonathan McCrory, Ebony Golden, Taylor Reynolds, Rebecca Martinez and many more! For additional info on The Movement visit www.themovementtheatrecompany.org or follow The Movement on Facebook at "The Movement Theatre Company" and on Twitter and Instagram @TMTCHarlem.

MAY TREUHAFT-ALI

(PLAYWRIGHT) is a playwright, director, and dramaturg. Her play ABCD had its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company in July, and her play Escapegoat had a workshop production at Boston Court Pasadena in November. She is the 22-23 Van Lier New Voices Fellow at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a member of Ars Nova's Play Group, and an alumna of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group and The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship. She is under commission at Barrington Stage Company and South Coast Repertory. She also served as Associate Director on the world premiere of SHHHH by Clare Barron at Atlantic Theater Company. May is the Literary and Community Engagement Assistant at Playwrights Horizons, and a former server at an empanada restaurant.

Cristina Angeles

(DIRECTOR) is an Afrolatina director, writer, and theater maker who develops new plays, musicals, and socially conscious adaptations of classics that place women of color at the forefront. She has been awarded the 20-21 Drama League Directing Fellowship, the 19-20 Roundabout Directing Fellowship, and has associate directed on and off Broadway.

Today, Cristina is an Associate Artist at Roundabout Theatre Company and the Founding Artistic Director of Checkmark Productions, an NYC based company dedicated to artists of color and their stories. Recent credits include Queen Of Basel (Theaterworks Hartford), and Into The Woods (Pace University).

Up next, Cristina will be directing Sophocles's Antigone, translated by Anne Carson, at Pace University and overseeing the national tour of Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play directed by Kenny Leon. More at www.cristinaangeles.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.