Second Annual United Solo Kicks Off At Theatre ROW 10/20

The Second Annual United Solo, the world's largest solo theatre festival, opens on October 20, 2011 at Theatre ROW on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Through the following five-week period, the festival will offer seventy-seven theatre productions ranging from two up to five different shows per day. Both local and International Artists will bring a vast range of theatrical esthetics and reach out to their audiences with a wide variety of cultural themes. This broad assortment of shows targets the multicultural nature of the New York City population. Three solo productions have been sold out before the opening night of the festival, and other popular shows will run out of tickets fast.

An acclaimed writer, author of numerous articles in The New York Times and Boston Globe, and a solo performer, Cindy Wolfe Boynton, inaugurates this year's United Solo Festival with her storytelling drama debut, entitled Right Time to Say I Love You. Other accomplished solo artists will follow: Marilyn Pittman (narrator in Academy Award winning documentary, Deadly Deception, and NPR host); Jonah Bokaer (performer and choreographer of Robert Wilson's productions); Kathleen Buckstaff (solo creator and former Los Angeles Times columnist); Ewa Kasprzyk in show based on Pedro Almodovar's writings; Patrick Combs (a comic known from HBO); Hal Ackerman (solo performer and professor at UCLA); Mark Gindick (a comedian featured by PBS); Carol Lempert (Best of FringeNYC 2011), Antonio Sacre (two-time Best of FringeNYC); Strahinja Bojovic (from Serbian National Theatre); Judy Rosenblatt directed by Austin Pendleton, and many other solo performers. The full lineup of productions can be found at www.unitedsolo.org.

All artists compete for various awards, such as: best in acting award, best show, best script, and the audience award. The recipients will be announced at the Closing Ceremony on November 20, 2011 at Theatre ROW. Awarded artists will be extended an invitation to join the United Solo Academy, a group of theatre creators dedicated to the genre of solo performance, including, among other members: Anna Deavere Smith, Bill Bowers and John Paul Karliak. During the Ceremony, the festival board will be also honoring an outstanding solo performer with a special uAward. This year nominees are: Daniel Beaty, John Lithgow, Patti LuPone, and Robin Williams.

Tickets, with a price of $18, are available via Telecharge (www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200) and at the Theater ROW Box Office (410 West 42nd Street, NYC).