'SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL' Opens 1/21 At Stage Left Studio

"SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL: The Aberdeen Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident" Opens Off-Broadway on January 21st at Stage Left Studio Theater.

Conceived by, written by and starring Frank Blocker.
Directed and staged by Cheryl King

There are 5,218 people living in Aberdeen, Mississippi- this is the story of 17 of them and the men that caused all the trouble.

"SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL: The Aberdeen, Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident" will open Off-Broadway
on Wednesday at the Stage Left Studio Theatre (438 West 37th Street - between 9th & 10th Avenues) where it will play through Wednesday, February 25th with the option to extend through May.

Preview performances begin Wednesday, January 7th .

Directed and staged by Cheryl King, "SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL: The Aberdeen, Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident" has been conceived and written by Frank Blocker who valiantly plays all of the eccentric citizenry caught up in the now infamous incident that tore through Aberdeen like a tornado on its way to Biloxi.

The tour-de-force comedy has previously received wild acclaim in its pre-Off-Broadway-try-out incarnations at several Theatre Festivals nationally.

"SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL: The Aberdeen, Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident"
The whole thing started when Viola Haygood, the Assistant Librarian of the Charles B. Evans Memorial Library,
fell in love for the umpteenth time. This one was new in town. He was tall. He was dark. He was handsome. And he smelled really good. It was the dark coincidence of his arrival that caused the locals to comment. Someone was kidnapping Aberdeen's young women. They were eating cheese nachos at Big Otis's Saloon one night and gone the next. Not so much as a by-your-leave.

The town was getting nervous.

They were locking the stately front doors of their antebellum homes and the aluminum screen doors of their double-wide trailers. For the first time. Ever.
They would have called in the FBI but they didn't have to,
as that particular organization was proud to boast a national office on Aberdeen's Main Street that runs along the scenic banks of the Tombigbee River.

This was a town in an uproar. Dirty deeds being done dirt cheap. Women being snapped up and carted off to who knows where. FBI running up and down the streets like they knew which way was up. Reporters descending like locusts.
Lawyers locking and loading. AND FRANK BLOCKER PLAYS THEM ALL.

THE PLAYING SCHEDULE

Wednesday, January 7th 8:00pm (Preview Performance)
Wednesday, January 14th 8:00pm (Preview Performance)
Wednesday, January 21st 8:00pm (Opening Night)
Wednesday, January 28th 8:00pm
Wednesday, February 4th 8:00pm
Wednesday, February 11th 8:00pm
Wednesday, February 18th 8:00pm
Wednesday, February 25th 8:00pm

TICKETS
www.SmartTix.com 212-868-4444 $25

Aberdeen, Mississippi (the county seat of Monroe County) is a 20-minute drive north west from Caledonia on Highway 45. Located on the banks of the Tombigbee River, it was one of the busiest Mississippi ports of the nineteenth century. Cotton was heavily traded in town, and for a time Aberdeen was Mississippi's second largest city. Not today. Today the population stands at 5,218, a small group that each spring still hosts pilgrimages to its historic antebellum homes, the most prominent of these being The Magnolias, which was built in 1850. Located just outside the city, Aberdeen Lock and Dam forms Aberdeen Lake, a popular recreational area that is part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway system.

ABOUT
FRANK BLOCKER
Mr. Blocker's plays include Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait & Tackle, (co-authored with Chuck Richards/off-Broadway, 2001, 7-week run @ The José Quintero), award-winning solo play Southern Gothic Novel (NY Fringe Festival, Left Out Festival, Midtown Theatre Festival, Columbus, Baltimore, Atlanta), Suite Atlanta (Fn Productions/78th Street Studio Theatre), Patient Number (2007 Inner Voices Social Issues Award, University of Illinois), The Wisconsinners (Dubuque Fine Arts Center) Air Marshals, Jesus Takes Manhattan, Clarabee in Wichita Falls and the book to the musical Alice with composer William Wade. He also co-authored Macbeth: The Murder Mystery with Lydia Bolen-Gordon and Chameleüns with Rochelle Burdine. His one-minute play 2=1 was recently presented by Brooklyn College for their GI60 project and his 10-minute play Kiss and Fade was presented in Boston by Atlantis Playmakers. He is an honors graduate of Cameron University and studied theatre and playwriting at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and a member of Actors' Equity Association. Frank edited sci-fi novel The Slaves of Votarus by Murray Scott Changar. He is also editor and curator of the Stage THIS! short play series of books (volume 3 about to go to press) and he manages PlaywritingOpportunities.com which is visited by more than 5,000 playwrights every month.

ABOUT
CHERYL KING
Cheryl King is the owner, and artistic and managing director of Stage Left Studio, the only solo show repertory theatre in NYC. She is the resident acting coach at "All My Children", the Emmy-winning daytime drama at ABC. Her performance background includes multiple careers, in vaudeville/burlesque, mime, 13 years in standup comedy and 12 years in theatre in NYC. Her internationally acclaimed solo show, "not a nice girl", has had runs Off-Broadway in NYC, in Los Angeles and Ft. Collins, CO. Her television credits include ABC's 20/20, and Faking It on TLC, in an episode that was also featured on Oprah!. She formed her own production company, Cheryl King Productions, in 2000, and has produced several acting retreats, over 300 showcases, and three years of V-Day events. She is the creator of the Left Out Festival, a festival of gay performance art, which sold out 12 of 16 shows in April 2008 at Stage Left Studio, and resulted in large donations to Bailey House and GMHC. For her work in promoting gay performance, she was chosen as one of the 100 Women We Love in GO Magazine's June 2008 Annual Pride Issue. She was recently named a "Person of the Year" by NYTheatre.com. She also created the Women At Work Festival, which had its second run at Stage Left in October 2008, and which contributed funds to Friends of Niger, the Young Girls Scholarship Fund. Ms. King has curated solo shows for the Estrogenius Festival at ManhattanTheatreSource since 2005. She is an advisory board member of ARIA and a member of the Dramatists Guild In addition to private coaching in acting and writing, she directs the solo shows of Cyndi Freeman, Beth Bongar, Karen Thibodeau, Cheryl Smallman, Susan Rankus and River Huston.

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