Soho Rep to Present the World Premiere of WHILE YOU WERE PARTYING

Soho Rep will present while you were partying (November 3-28), created by Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey with Brian Fiddyment, the acclaimed company's first full production since before the COVID-19 shutdown. In while you were partying, Julia, Peter, and Brian hijack the forms of confessional monologue, standup, and sketch comedy to create a bombastic, frightening, and funny exploration of impotence, anger and aggression. The piece takes its name from a popular internet meme depicting a young, pale, and thin white teen holding a large sword.

while you were partying makes its anticipated world premiere following the pandemic's postponement of a planned Summer 2020 production, and kicks off Soho Rep's 2021-2022 season. Its cast includes Weiss, Mounsey, and Fiddyment. The creative team includes Aaron Profumo (Producer), Kate McGee (Lighting Designer), Kimie Nishikawa (Scenic Designer), Matt Romein (Video Designer), Kimberly O'Loughlin (Sound Designer), Steven Brenman (Technical Director), Keenan Hurley (Stage Manager), and Ann Marie Dorr (Consulting Creative Producer). In conjunction with the performance, Brian Fiddyment and Edy Modica will co-host a comedy night (curated by Fiddyment) on November 15, featuring Francesca D'Uva, Benny Feldman, Ruby McCollister, Bardia Salimi, and Ike Ufomadu.

Mounsey and Weiss create work with their collaborators, who are asked to play versions of themselves that blur the themes of the piece with their own personal stories. They begin with improvisation, write in rehearsals, and work closely with designers across the entirety of their process. Mounsey and Weiss devised the work in Soho Rep's 2017-2019 Writer Director Lab with Brian Fiddyment, a comedian whose work, they describe, "touches on aggression, masculine insecurity, suburban despair, and the disorienting world of new media." The Writer Director Lab, currently co-chaired by Jackie Sibblies Drury and William Burke, is one of the signature programs of the theater in which four pairs of early career artists generate new plays over an 15-month period. The theater has a strong history of producing the work of many artists that they first get to know in the Lab including Annie Baker, Will Davis, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Anne Washburn and David Adjmi, whose Marie Antoinette was also written in the Lab.

Mounsey and Weiss' recent work, [50/50] Old School Animation (written with Mo Fry Pasic and Sophie Weisskoff and performed at Under the Radar at The Public Theater in 2019), was an introduction, for audiences, to their work that "flirts with the outer limits of autofiction" (The New York Times). The New Yorker wrote, "If it's invigoration you crave, if you want your distracted mind to snap to attention, if you want to freak out a little, keep your eyes peeled for a remount of [50/50] Old School Animation." In New York Magazine, Helen Shaw listed it among the Best Theater of 2019, and wrote in American Theatre, "I've seen this show in various venues, and each time it has slowed my blood...caus[ing] a kind of paralyzed, primal dread in me."

On November 15, at 7:30pm, Edy Modica will join Brian Fiddyment to co-host a comedy night (curated by Fiddyment), featuring Francesca D'Uva, Benny Feldman, Ruby McCollister, Bardia Salimi, and Ike Ufomadu, and presented live at 46 Walker Street and streaming on Twitch @lesslesslessless. All tickets are $5 and can be purchased here.

while you were partying kicks off Soho Rep's 2021-2022 programming, which will also feature Hansol Jung's Wolf Play, directed by Dustin Wills and presented in association with Ma-Yi Theater Company, February 2 - March 6, 2022; and Mara Vélez Meléndez's Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, directed by David Mendizábal, and produced in partnership with The Sol Project, May 17 - June 19, 2022. Soho Rep's Project Number One, bringing artists on as salaried staff members, continues with Abigail Jean-Baptiste and Kimie Nishikawa working with the company throughout the 2021-22 season.

Performance Schedule and Ticketing

while you were partying will be performed November 3-28 at Soho Rep, located at 46 Walker Street in Manhattan.

Tickets-$35 general-can be purchased by visiting sohorep.org or calling 646-586-8982. $25 tickets for performances November 3 through November 14 are also available until October 28. $30 general rush and $20 student rush (with a valid school ID) tickets are available at the box office 30 minutes prior to curtain for each performance. $0.99 Sunday tickets will be offered November 14 and November 21 at 7:30 pm. They are available first come, first served at the box office only. (These performances will also be live streamed on Twitch @lesslesslessless).There are no advance sales or Rush for $0.99 Sunday tickets.

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