Previews Begin Saturday Night for Charles Mee's SOOT AND SPIT at New Ohio Theatre

The Archive Residency, a collaboration between New Ohio Theatre and IRT Theater (likeminded neighbors in the historic Archive Building in the West Village), is a vital incubator for New York City's most electrifying independent theater companies. Now in its fourth year, the two-year residency offers each company an artistic home -- space, support, and institutional continuity for the development and presentation of a new work. Each residency culminates with a world premiere production.

The two companies completing their residencies this spring are:

Piehole, presenting the world premiere of SKI END, created by Piehole and directed by Tara Ahmadinejad, running April 30 - May 19, 2017. Previews begin April 30 for a May 2 opening.

Our Voices Theater, presenting the world premiere of Obie Award winner Charles Mee's SOOT AND SPIT, directed by Kim Weild, running May 27 - June 17, 2017. Previews begin May 27 for a May 31 opening.

Later in the summer The Archive Residency's two first-year resident companies, Built for Collapse and anecdota, will be presenting first-look showings in the 2017 Ice Factory Festival, June 28 - August 12. The Archive Residency will invite two additional companies into residency in September 2017.

Shows take place at New Ohio Theatre, located at 154 Christopher Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in New York City. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at http://NewOhioTheatre.org or by calling 212-352-3101. $20 student tickets are available for SKI END. For info visit http://NewOhioTheatre.org, Like them on Facebook at https://www.Facebook.com/NewOhioTheatre and follow on Twitter (https://Twitter.com/NewOhioTheatre) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/newohiotheatre) at @NewOhioTheatre.

Piehole's SKI END runs April 30 - May 19. Performances are Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm with added shows on Sun 4/30 at 7:30pm and Wed 5/17 at 7:30pm.

In Piehole's Ski End, an abandoned ski shop becomes the center of the universe. A group of 30-whatever urbanites finds itself stuck in a flood-damaged building with a makeshift skate ramp, dead birds, and the tattered banner of a final blowout sale. From these clues they ritualistically reanimate a bygone world of Ski, until they incite a cosmic force. Rising from the ruins of economic and environmental dread, Piehole's Ski End examines chronic patterns of apocalyptic despair and what it takes to face The Sublime. Running time is 90 minutes.

The cast includes Toni Ann DeNoble (Amazon's "Sneaky Pete"), Allison LaPlatney (Piehole's Hand Foot Fizzle Face & Old Paper Houses), Alexandra Panzer (Piehole's Hand Foot Fizzle Face & Old Paper Houses), Emilie Soffe (Piehole's Old Paper Houses), Ben Vigus (Piehole's Old Paper Houses), Jeff Wood (Piehole's Hand Foot Fizzle Face & Old Paper Houses), and teen performers Kijani-Ali Gaulman, Maite Martin and Nicole Suazo (MCC Theater Youth Company member).

The production team includes Alexandra Panzer (Scenic Design), Oona Curley (Lighting Design), Joey Wolfslau (Sound Design), Olivia Gibian (Costume Design), Matt Romein (Projection Design), Deepali Gupta (Songwriter), Ann Barkin (Production Stage Manager), Skylar Fox (Technical Director/Production Manager), Elliot B. Quick (Producer/Dramaturg), Bailey Williams (Producer) and Lauren Whitehead (Dramaturg).

Piehole investigates the process of collaboration and collective authorship to create live events. They draw from a shared fascination with objects and media, and continually reimagine their process, driven by an ongoing pursuit of surprise, delight and beauty in unexpected places. They invite audiences into this pursuit to encourage agency in one's thinking, perceiving, and feeling, as well as an expanded sense of potential realities. Piehole's core members are Tara Ahmadinejad, Allison LaPlatney, Alexandra Panzer, Elliot B. Quick and Jeff Wood. For more info visit http://www.Pieholed.com.

Our Voices Theater's SOOT AND SPIT runs May 27 - June 17. Performances are Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm with an added show on Sun 5/28 at 5pm. ASL interpreted performances Thu 6/8 at 7:30pm and Sat 6/10 at 2pm. Autism-friendly performance Sat 6/17 at 2pm.

What drives a single person to create nearly 20,000 works of art? Celebrating the life of James Castle, one of America's great outsider artists, Our Voices presents the world premiere of acclaimed playwright Charles Mee's soot and spit. Born profoundly deaf, Castle never learned to read, write, sign or speak. His art was his language. Bringing his world to life through bluegrass, dance, and multi-media displays of his works, soot and spit encourages its audience to experience the "other" - and rejoice in the unquenchable creativity of the human spirit. Running time is 90 minutes.

Charles Mee said, "My plays don't take race and disability as their subject matter, but this one, SOOT AND SPIT about James Castle, does. It's my first and only. Castle made art because he needed to make art despite his disabilities and he made himself into an artist despite other people's expectations of him. In Kim I've found a perfect collaborator. She's kind of brilliant. A creative and visionary director whose work artfully exposes the human condition. There is great depth, sensitivity and scope to her work, and she completely understands that for Castle, his art is his language."

The cast includes Robert Ariza (Broadway's Spring Awakening revival, Spamilton), Karen Ashino Hara, Estelle Bajou (Once First National Tour, HBO's "Boardwalk Empire"), Alida Rose Delaney (The Fall at Soho Playhouse), John Ford Dunker (The Glory of the World at BAM), JW Guido (Artistic Director of New York Deaf Theatre), Peregrine Heard (Artistic Director of The Associates), Toussaint Jeanlouis (CasablancaBox at HERE, DUAT at Soho Rep), Geraldine Leer (Roundabout's The Country Girl & The Member of the Wedding), Christopher Lopes (Netflix's "Orange is the New Black"), Douglas Waterbury-Tieman (Roundabout's The Robber Bridegroom, collaborative member of The Lobbyists) and Arielle Yoder (Concrete Orange: An American Fable at the Guthrie).

The production team includes Boyd Branch (Media Design), Matthew Imhoff (Scenic Design), Paul Miller (Lighting Design), Haley Peterson (Costume Design), Dan Puccio (Original Compositions, Orchestrations and Arrangements), Dan Pardo (Music Director), Leontine Greenberg (Prop Design), Donnie Mather (Choreography), Michael Tosto (Production Stage Manager), Aaron Simms (Producer), Alexandria Wailes (ASL Consultant), Brad Ogden (Assistant Director), Stanley Bahorek (Associate Producer), Edward Pierce (Scenic Design Consultant) and Jennifer Anderson (Associate Costume Design).

OUR VOICES THEATER creates innovative theater that exalts diversity, engenders understanding, provokes empathy and offers an alternate way for society to organize itself. They actively investigate themes of otherness in society whether they are culture, language, gender, sexual orientation or ability while cultivating an inclusive experience that more accurately represents their shared humanity and the world in which we live. For more info visit http://NewOhioTheatre.org/sootandspit.htm.

About the Archive Residency: The first year includes a one-month stay in IRT's 3B Development Series, and a one-week presentation in New Ohio's OBIE Award-winning Ice Factory summer festival. The second year includes additional time at IRT, and culminates with a fully realized, four-week run in the New Ohio's main season. Each fall, two more independent companies are invited into the Archive Residency, bringing the program to full strength with four companies in residence, each cycling through the two-year development process. Archive Residency alumni include The Assembly, Blessed Unrest, Collaboration Town, The Mad Ones, Rady&Bloom and Vampire Cowboys. Membership into the Archive Residency is currently by invitation only.

New Ohio Theatre is a two-time OBIE Award-winning theatre under the leadership of Robert Lyons, Artistic Director, and Marc Stuart Weitz, Producing Director. The New Ohio serves New York's most adventurous theatre audiences by developing and presenting bold work from today's vast independent theatre community. They believe the best of this community, the small artist-driven ensembles and the daring producing companies who operate without a permanent theatrical home, are actively expanding the boundaries of where American theatre is right now and where it's going. From their home in the West Village's historic Archive Building, the New Ohio provides a high-profile platform for downtown's most mature, ridiculous, engaged, irreverent, gut-wrenching, frivolous, sophisticated, foolish and profound theatrical endeavors. The theatre is accessible from the #1 train to Christopher St. or A, B, C, D, E, F or M train to West 4th St. For info visit http://NewOhioTheatre.org.

IRT Theater is a grassroots laboratory for independent theater and performance in New York City, providing space and support to a new generation of artists. Tucked away in the old Archive Building in Greenwich Village, IRT's mission is to build a community of emerging and established artists by creating a home for the development and presentation of new work. Some of the artists they have supported include Young Jean Lee, Reggie Watts, Mike Daisey and many others. For info visit http://irttheater.org.

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