Photo Flash: WILLY NILLY At FringeNYC

August, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Tate-Labianca Murders, committed by the psychedelic hippie cult commonly known as the Manson Family. In observance of that date (and of the 10th anniversary of their first FringeNYC production), Piper McKenzie is presenting the World Premiere of Trav S.D.'s Willy Nilly: A Musical Exploitation of the Most Far Out Cult Murders of the 1960s.

Charles Manson meets Mad Magazine in this tasteless rock'n'roll spoof about a filthy faux-Messiah, his cult of wanton women, and high Hollywood murder. With a raucous score, gratuitous nudity, acid freakouts, excessive gore, cruel stereotypes and slapstick misogyny, consider this fictionalized musical satire the anti-Hair.

The cast includes the production's playwright/songwriter Trav S.D. (No Applause, Just Throw Money; House of Trash), co-producer Hope Cartelli (Babylon Babylon; John Goldfarb, Please Come Home), Becky Byers, Maggie Cino, Michael Criscuolo, Betsy Head, Daryl Lathon (member AEA), Rich Lovejoy, Mateo Moreno, Esther Silberstein, Adam Swiderski, and Elizabeth Hope Williams, and introduces Avery Pearson as the Manson-inspired title character. Live music will be provided by The Four Hoarses, a new psychedelic band featuring Derek Davidson (The Electric Mess, ZZ Top cover band Cheap SunglasseZZ), Oweinama Biu (Madam Robot, The Lust Brigade and The Electric Mess), Darro "Sparkie" Sandler and Chris Talsness (formerly of The Electric Mess and Flaming Fire).

Other personnel already signed on include director and co-producer Jeff Lewonczyk (Babylon Babylon; John Goldfarb, Please Come Home); sound designer Ryan Holspopple (That's Not How Mahler Died: METRONOMA); prop and costume designer Julianne Kroboth (Babylon Babylon; No Applause, Just Throw Money); and stage manager Guinevere Pressley.

The show will perform at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie St. between Rivington and Delancey) as part of FringeNYC. The performance dates and times are as follows:

Fri 8/14 at 5pm
Sun 8/16 at 8:30pm
Fri 8/21 at 11pm
Sat 8/22 at 4:45pm
Sat 8/29 at 8pm

Tickets will be available beginning at 12:01am on Friday, July 24by visiting www.fringenyc.org or calling 866.468.7619.

Piper McKenzie made its New York debut in FringeNYC with 1999's The Walking in Space Show. In the intervening decade, founders and Artistic Directors Hope Cartelli and Jeff Lewonczyk have been creating theater that is "brazenly experimental, unapologetically populist, and surprisingly endearing" (indietheater.org). Their unique aesthetic of genre love, unsettling comedy, physical storytelling and cultural mythology (pop and otherwise) have yielded such recent works as The Granduncle Quadrilogy, Babylon Babylon and Macbeth Without Words, all of which appeared at The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They are both Associate Directors of The Brick and were collaborators on the award-winning 2007 FringeNYC musical hit John Goldfarb, Please Come Home, with a book by William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist), for which Jeff directed and Hope originated the role of Svetlana.

Trav S.D. is perhaps best known for his popular book No Applause, Just Throw Money: the Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, which Margo Jefferson of the New York Times called "a delicious cultural history...sharpens the mind and stirs the heart." His works for the stage have included Cold Fire (Joe's Pub), No Applause: the Show (Theatre for the New City), The Strange Case of Grippo the Apeman (LaMama) and his two previous NY Fringe Productions: House of Trash (2000) and Misshapen Jack the Nebraska Hunchback (1998). In addition to being a frequent contributor to publications such as The Village Voice and Time Out New York, he is the host of the podcast and television show Indie Theatre Now, produced by the New York Theatre Experience.

For more information on Piper McKenzie, visit www.pipermckenzie.com or www.pipermckenzie.blogspot.com. For more information on FringeNYC, visit www.fringenyc.org.

Photo credit: Ken Stein/Runs With Scissors

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