Scott Parkinson and Robert Stanton to Star in THE GOLD ROOM by Jacob Perkins at HERE

i am a slow tide, a performance and media collective founded by director Gus Heagerty, is presenting the world premiere of The Gold Room by Jacob Perkins, which marks the playwright's professional debut. Starring Scott Parkinson (The Coast of Utopia) and Robert Stanton (Ink, Saint Joan), The Gold Room is an acerbic, mind-bending fall into the genesis of queer identity. Performances begin October 14 at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan), with an opening set for Sunday, October 16, for a limited run through November 5. Tickets are now on sale at https://slowtide.info/.

In The Gold Room, two middle-aged men meet for a chance sexual encounter, only to find themselves entangled in a haunting role-play. Perkins's play drives its audience through a wondrously dark and surprisingly explosive minefield of scenes. Heagerty, whose production of Agnes Borinsky's Brief Chronicle Books 6-8 earned a Critic's Pick from Helen Shaw in Time Out New York, leads a queer creative team in this unapologetic and timely play about fragile connections on the brink of collapse.

"The Gold Room is an interrogation of the violence I've done to myself in response to the violence others have done to me," says playwright Jacob Perkins. "It's about creating a room where I feel safe and secure to love someone who looks and sounds like me. It's about the looming threat that someone may walk in and disturb that sanctuary. That amidst all of the vulnerability established with another person, we could be invaded or denied or punished...or perhaps simply be seen. The audience watching this process of intimacy unfolding amidst dread and fear is, for me, what it's like to be a gay person: that notion of being viewed and commented on and either approved of or dismissed. For me, that is the queer canon."

"The Gold Room wrenches the needle forward on our understanding of queer experience," says director Gus Heagerty. "It's a mind-bending inquiry into how a self is formed. How we've taken the shame and trauma that was dumped on us and wedged it between our own romantic interludes. Jacob's pungent text locates the baffling feeling of isolation inside a romantic dynamic."

The creative team for The Gold Room includes Emona Stoykova (set design), greer x (lighting design), Elizabeth Caitlin Ward (costume design), Andie Lerner (production stage manager), Sam Max (producer), and Anne Troup (producer).

Sixteen performances of The Gold Room will take place October 14-November 5, 2022, at HERE, located at 145 Sixth Avenue, just below Spring Street, in Manhattan. The performance schedule is Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm. Critics are welcome as of October 14 for an opening on Sunday, October 16. Tickets, which start at $30, are available at https://slowtide.info/. Standard ticketing fees apply.

HERE will require proof of full vaccination for all artists, staff, and audience members for all in-person performances. Masks and/or CDC-recommended face coverings will be required for audiences and employees inside the theater at all times.

The production is a part of SubletSeries@HERE: a curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as a technical liaison.

About the Artists

Jacob Perkins is a writer and performer from South Carolina. His plays include a triptych of texts titled Home Church Play (comprised of Home Church Play, Where Have You Gone, and Dad), The Dinosaurs, The Interview, The Gold Room, Restaurant in D Major, and The Third Rail. He's presented and developed his work through Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Page 73 @ Yale, Soho Rep., Two Headed Rep, Studio Tisch @ NYU, Gibney Dance Center, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, and the NEWvember Festival, among others. Perkins is the winner of Clubbed Thumb's 2020 Biennial Commission, recipient of the inaugural DVRF/O'Henry Productions Emerging Playwright Award, was shortlisted for multiple O'Neill Theater Center NPCs, received an Honorable Mention for the 2017 Relentless Award, and named a semifinalist for the 2018 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Alumnus of Ars Nova Play Group, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and Project Y Playwrights Group. www.jacobdperkins.com

Gus Heagerty is a director, writer, and performer. Directing credits include Agnes Borinsky's Brief Chronicle: Books 6-8 (i am a slow tide), Paul David Young's Faust 3 (Judson Memorial Church), Alexander Paris' Cancer, Cancer, Cancer (New Ohio), Franco Giacomarra's Fade to White (Fordham University), Clare Bayley's Blue Sky (Burning Coal Theater, NC), Macbeth (Shakespeare Theater Co.). Heagerty is the founder of i am a slow tide, and was a directing fellow at The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. BFA North Carolina School of the Arts. @gus.heagerty

Scott Parkinson is an award-winning actor who has appeared in many of literature's most celebrated works, both on- and off-Broadway and around the country. Some of his roles include Hamlet, Aguecheek, Cassius, Richard II & Richard III, Iago, Mercutio, Angelo, Puck, Prior Walter, Tom Wingfield, Judge Brack, Treplev, Reverend Hale, and the Stage Manager in David Cromer's landmark off-Broadway production of Our Town. Theatre credits include Lincoln Center, Chicago Shakespeare, Writers Theatre, the Goodman, Studio Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre, The Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse, and the Mark Taper Forum. He is also a writer, director, audition coach, and has taught Shakespearean acting.

Robert Stanton has appeared on Broadway in James Graham's Ink directed by Rupert Goold, Saint Joan directed by Daniel Sullivan, John Guare's A Free Man of Color directed by George C. Wolfe, Mary Stuart directed by Phyllida Lloyd, and Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia directed by Jack O'Brien. Two-dozen Off-Broadway credits include an Obie for David Ives's All in the Timing, Love Child, co-written with Daniel Jenkins (Primary Stages); Michael Feingold's translation of Ionesco's The Killer, directed by Darko Tresnjak (TFANA); David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers (MTC); Caryl Churchill's Owners and Traps (NYTW); Boyet and Dull in Love's Labor's Lost, Keith Reddin's Rum and Coke directed by Les Waters, and Measure for Measure directed by Joseph Papp (The Public). Many regional credits include Puff in The Critic & Moon in The Real Inspector Hound (Emery Battis Award), Charles Marsden in Strange Interlude, all directed by Michael Kahn (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Arnolphe in The School for Wives directed by Mark Wing-Davey (Two River); and seasons at ART. Over 20 films range from A League of Their Own to Jason Bourne. Currently filming "Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin" for HBO Max, he recently appeared in "Mr. Mercedes," now on Peacock.

About i am a slow tide

i am a slow tide is a performance and media collective that expands our conception of being alive. Using performance and video, i am a slow tide activates alternative pathways for consideration. In name and in action, i am a slow tide is a wry reflection of identity in the modern world. i am a slow tide is based in brooklyn and lead by director Gus Heagerty. https://slowtide.info/

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