Off-Broadway-Bound GOD HATES THIS SHOW to Play Joe's Pub Concert on Halloween

GOD HATES THIS SHOW: Shirley Phelps-Roper In Concert, Live From Hell, written and directed by John J. Caswell, Jr. and starring Erin Markey, will play a one night only exclusive public and industry invited engagement at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater (425 Lafayette St,) in preparation for a lengthier Off-Broadway run in 2015. For advance tickets and reservations, please visit: http://goo.gl/NkwftT.

Listed as a Best of 2013 Production (Time Out NY), this musical play by Progressive Theatre Workshop Founder John J. Caswell, Jr. imagines Westboro Baptist Church matriarch Shirley Phelps-Roper as recently deceased and damned to Hell for all eternity where she is forced to perform songs from the Westboro catalog in an outrageously offensive fire and brimstone cabaret act for an audience of "fag-enablers."

The "tangled mash-up of humor, horror, brains and balls" (New York Press) known as Erin Markey (Our Hit Parade) stars as the infamous Westboro Baptist Church matriarch Shirley Phelps-Roper. Time Out NY calls her, "A match of performer and role that sounds like sulfuric genius." She is joined by a demonic back-up singers and dancers including Adam Enright (Hedwig and the Angry Inch - LA) and Anna Marquardt (Walmartopia!), and Carolyn Barry.

Accompanied by a full rock band, Shirley croons hellish hits like "Death in Your Window," "Stinky Freak" and "Satan's Lair".

GOD HATES THIS SHOW features choreography by Sean Roschman and musical arrangements by Kurt Gellersted and Brooke Fox (Williamsburg! The Musical). The design team for GOD HATES THIS SHOW includes Aaron Crosby (costumes), Wolfram Ott (lighting design) and Olivia Sebesky (projections). The 2013 HERE Arts run and 2014 concert are produced by Progressive Theatre Workshop.

GOD HATES THIS SHOW: Shirley Phelps-Roper in Concert, Live From Hell will be presented on October 31st, 2014 at 9:30PM at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater (425 Lafayette St, NYC). For more information visit www.godhatesthisshow.com or contact Progressive Theatre Workshop Artistic Director at john@progressivetheatreworkshop.org.

BIOGRAPHIES

JOHN CASWELL, JR.

John is the Founding Artistic Director of Progressive Theatre Workshop and the author of several original works for the stage including SHOTS: A Love Story, closet.drama: a homo/hetero collision, Britney Spears For President, Eat Your Peas/DIE DIE DIE, Banksy's Bodies, and My Friend the Serial Killer by Ronald Rogers Sixth Grade. His play Arrangements was named a top ten finalist for the 2013 Woodward Newman Drama Award. He is the recipient of awards from organizations such as P.A.V.E. (as funded by The Kauffman Foundation) and The Arizona Commision on the Arts. John has spent time learning from pioneers of American theatre including Anne Bogart and The SITI Company, Circle Repertory founder Marshall W. Mason, and Ontological Hysteric Theater Founder and MacArthur Genius Richard Foreman. John studied performance at Arizona State University and in 2011, his SHOTS: A Love Story was published as part of Johnny Saldana's text Ethnotheatre: Research From Page to Stage by Left Coast Press. The book went on to earn Saldana The American Education Research Association's 2012 Outstanding Book Award from the Qualitative Research Special Interest Group. www.progressivetheatreworkshop.org

ERIN MARKEY

Erin Markey creates conceptual musical performances for stage and video. Major works include Puppy Love: A Stripper's Tail (P.S. 122), The Dardy Family Home Movies by Stephen Sondheim by Erin Markey (San Francisco Film Society), and, in collaboration with Joseph Keckler, Looking for Limbo (Lincoln Center Director's Lab). She is a featured regular in the critically acclaimed performance series Our... Hit Parade at Joe's Pub. In collaboration with comedian Cole Escola, Markey has written and performed in "NIGHT MOTHER" (Dixon Place) and "Check It Out" (Afterglow Festival). She has shown other work at The New Museum, Leslie Lohman Museum, Michelle Tea's Sister Spit Tour, The Sex Workers' Art Show, and Deja Vu Showgirls and Love Boutique. As an actress, Markey is a company member of Half Straddle, has performed with Young Jean Lee's Theatre Company, and starred in the NYC premiere of Tennessee Williams' Green Eyes (Hudson Hotel, Ames Hotel), for which she received Boston's Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress. On television, she was a series regular on Jeffery and Cole Casserole (LOGO Network). She is currently adapting her live show The Dardy Family Home Movies by Stephen Sondheim by Erin Markey into a musical TV series. She is the recipient of NYFA's 2012 Cutting Edge Artist Fund Grant. New York Press described Erin Markey as "a tangled mash-up of humor, horror, brains and balls." www.erinmarkey.com

For advance tickets and reservations, please visit: http://goo.gl/NkwftT

Photo Credit: John Keon Photography

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