STABILIZED NOT CONTROLLED Plays Final Preview March 25, Performances Start April 29

Stabilized Not Controlled will play its last preview March 25, Sunday, 5:00 pm, at Stage Left Studio, 214 W. 30th Street. Studio owner and producer of the show, Cheryl King has now booked the show to begin weekly performances starting April 29, following the Fifth Annual Left Out Festival.  Two-for-one tickets are being offered for the final preview, and other discount tickets are available courtesy of TDF. 

From one of the quieter streets of New York City, homeless Jackie O guides the listener to a 5-floor walk-up where he/she once occupied the roof, but now squats in the basement only to be chased off by hungover landlord “Killer” Joe. The focus shifts to the second floor where septuagenarian sex addict in recovery, Lorna Breedlove, lectures the passers-by. Such is the opening few moments of character actor and playwright Frank Blocker’s newest play, 

Blocker plays the residents of the building and the surrounding characters in this battle of landlord versus tenants and ownership versus home. The play was developed with movement coach Kathy Kelly Christos, vocal coach Amy Jones, and developmental direction and dramaturgy work from Jeffrey Edward Peters, Helena Judd and producer King.

Blocker will be participating in Stage Left Studio’s Left Out Festival during his show’s hiatus, reprising his 2009 Drama Desk Award-nominated Solo Performance with a Wednesday matinee of Southern Gothic Novel, April 18. He will also perform a portion of Stabilized Not Controlled for the Selected Shorts performances of the festival, April 15 and 22, at 2:00 pm.

Blocker has been invited to conduct Master Classes at Florida State College in Jacksonville at the end of April, as well as perform solo play Southern Gothic Novel for students, with the performance open to the community.

King is also keeping busy with producing the Left Out Festival, as well as performing in it and directing a world premiere play, yet still manages to keep her solo show running: Grapefruit by Sally Lambert, directed by Theresa Gambacorta. Stage Left Studio has continued to gather a storm of critical acclaim this past year with shows like Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You, That Play: A Solo Macbeth, and A Mad Person’s Chronicle of a Miserable Marriage.

Set design is by Edward Morris, coaching by Amy Jones and Kathy Kelly Christos, development & dramaturgy by Helena Judd, Cheryl King and Jeffrey Edward Peters, technical direction by Murray Scott Changar, and sound design by Kenneth Allen and Kathy Kelly Christos, and is produced by Cheryl King Productions in association with E-Merging Writers.

Footage of Stabalized Not Controlled can be seen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCpNfkVBVDs

Evil (typical) New York landlord “KILLER” JOE is plotting against the tenants of his building. He’s already gotten rid of one, and another has passed under suspicious circumstances. Lorna Breedlove, a septuagenarian sex addict in recovery and den mother of the building, will not be moved. The rest of the tenants will follow her lead: Thomas the Log Cabin accountant, middle-aged stoner JP, and repentant retiring priest Father Benedict to name a few.

All is happening in a race with the new subway line, bringing more change and more people to the turbulent surroundings. Killer Joe enlists sadistic lawyer (redundant) Roveena, a praying mantis breaking the very laws she swore to uphold. So JOE takes matters into his own hands without noting the danger of one’s own petard.

The tenants battle through the red tape of City government and a slightly corrupt legal system, but as all true New Yorkers will explain: “Leave Manhattan? Not on your life!”

All 17 characters and most lines spoken have been witnessed or heard in New York City. Any correlation to any NYC landlord vs. tenant situation is purely coincidental, yet inevitable.

Frank Blocker (playwright, actor) is a playwright, actor, and coach. Plays include Southern Gothic Novel (Drama Desk Award nomination), Good Jew (with M.S. Changar), off-Broadway hit Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait & Tackle (Quintero Theatre), The Wisconsinners (Dubuque Fine Arts Center), Patient Number (Inner Voices Social Issues Play Winner), Suite Atlanta (Fn Productions/78th Street Studio Theatre), Kiss and Fade (Short Attention Span Play Festival, Boston), Air Marshals (in development with co-author Captain James Blocker, Oklahoma City Fire Dept), and Alice with composer William Wade (York Theatre Development Series, Emerging Artists). Frank edited the art catalog Tatyana Nazarenko: Family Portrait (A. Gertsman) exploring the Jewish experience from the Russian perspective, sci-fi novel The Slaves of Votarus (Changar), Stage THIS! Ten-Minute Plays (co-edited with Jan Herndon), Stage This, TOO! More Ten-Minute Plays (co-edited with Sydney Stone and Changar), and Stage THIS! Volume 3: Monologues, Short Solo Plays and 10-Minute Plays (with Stone and Dana Todd). He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and a member of Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and AFTRA. As an actor, he appeared on Law & Order:SVU and in the off-Broadway hit The Deep Throat Sex Scandal (“Blocker delivers.” – Backstage Magazine) most recently. Short films include Lester and Maryam, Red Moonflower Blooming, and The Anniversary. NY stage roles include Mortimer in Brecht's Edward II, Roderick Usher in Steven Berkoff's Fall of the House of Usher, the "last Don" in The Don Quixote Project, Mr. Peachum in The Beggar's Opera, and as a prisoner on the streets in the Obie-winning West Village/East Village Fragments. He frequently appears in experimental works and readings including Stage Left Studio’s Forbidden Kiss series (sometimes singing). He also appears throughout the U.S. as a guest artist, playwright and acting teacher. California-born, Arizona-raised, Okie-stamped transplant to the South via Atlanta, Mr. Blocker now resides in New York City with his giant dog and tiny cat.

Jeffrey Edward Peters (direction, development and dramaturgy) is an actor, director, writer and artist, not necessarily in that order.

Cheryl King Productions (producer and dramaturge) was formed in 2000 by Cheryl King. The company has produced several acting retreats, over 300 showcases, and three years of V-Day events. She is the creator of the Left Out Festival, an annual festival of gay performance art, which has been presented since 2008, and is a benefit for 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. In November 2008 she was chosen "Person of the Year" by nytheatre.com. She also created the Women At Work Festival, now in its fifth year, which contributes funds to The Girl Effect. Ms. King has curated solo shows for the Estrogenius Festival at ManhattanTheatreSource since 2005. In October 2010, she inaugurated the Mama Drama Festival, a festival of theater about mothers, at Stage Left. Cheryl King is currently starring in Sally Lambert’s Grapefruit at Stage Left Studio, directed by Teresa Gambacorta.

Kathy Kelly Christos (movement coach and development) began her professional theatrical career on-stage in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She took a turn as a professor in the Theatre Arts Department at Cameron University, teaching stage movement and dance to actors, choreographing and performing. The recurring dream of being on stage led Kathy to leave the world of academia and return professionally in numerous regional theatres as an actress, dancer, and choreographer in Anything Goes (Reno Sweeney), Sugar Babies, Of Thee I Sing (Mary Turner) , The Man Who Came to Dinner (Maggie Cutler) and many others. Since coming to New York, she has appeared in, co-produced and directed several Off-Broadway productions by The Infinite Space Theatre Company and others, and has worked in TV and film. Most recently, she co-directed and choreographed the Rock Garden production of Below the Belt with Larry Preston, appeared as Brona in Eugene Grygo’s Brona and Alberto at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and performed the role of Queen Isolde of Ireland in the world premier of Tristan & Isolde in the 2010 International Fringe Festival. Kathy is a movement and acting teacher specializing in whole-body characterization. She is co-founder of the Not-Ready-For-Downtown Players Theater Company in Upper Manhattan.

Amy Jones (acting/vocal coach) is an accomplished director, choreographer and musical director. Most recently, she provided musical direction and choreography for Flat Rock Playhouse’s production of Hairspray, where she has been the resident vocal director since 1999, and has served as a choreographer since 2001. She is also an adjunct professor at Western Connecticut State University, where she most recently directed and choreographed I Love A Piano. Amy lives in New York, where she most recently served as the musical director/choreographer for Girl Talk at Ha! and is the musical director for the tour of Girls Night The Musical (Entertainment Events, Inc). Amy has provided dramaturgy for the musicals Alice and Warsaw—the latter is where she first met Blocker, singing themselves to death. Her favorite role to date came this past September 23, where she played the bride in her real-life wedding to Guy Barudin. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

E-Merging Writers (producer) began in 2000, after five years of providing playwriting assistance and services, and group projects on small-scale productions and promoting of independent and new works. The New York-based group made its debut at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2003 with the premiere of Southern Gothic Novel. E-Merging Writers followed up by producing The Gates of Helen by Murray Scott Changar in early 2004, produced a promo CD for the musical Alice (William Wade composer) as well as several readings of that same show. The last production of E-Merging Writers as a sole entity (not in partnership) was Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle at The Duplex, NYC, 2006. The group next launched the playwriting competition “Stage This! The Best Ten-Minute Plays We Could Find,” teaming with new Production Company Fn Productions in 2007 to continue the biennial competition for 10-minute plays. The Stage THIS! series now has three volumes in print. E-Merging Writers has published a total of six books (2 novels, 1 play, and 3 play collections) and continues to hold readings—formal and informal—for new works.

 

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