Soho Think Tank Presents 'Me' Starting Tomorrow, 5/3

Soho Think Tank will present Kirk Wood Bromley's latest play, Me, directed by Alec Duffy. Performances will be at the Ohio Theater, located at 66 Wooster Street, between Spring and Broome Streets in Soho.  Performances will begin on Saturday, May 3rd, continuing through Saturday, May 24th.

When Kirk Wood Bromley set out to write a play about himself, the result was something other than a simple autobiography. Similar to Charlie Kaufman's film "Adaptation," where the author set out to adapt a novel but ended up writing a film about a writer trying to adapt a novel, Me is a theatrical meditation on self-identity, where Bromley starts out looking to write a play about himself and takes detours through his personal relationship with his placenta, the recent extinction of the white river dolphin of the Yangtze in China, and just what exactly he means when he says, "I am the chosen fish, chosen by me / To save the planet from humanity."

The myth of the origin of the white dolphin (a girl thrown into the Yangtze river because she refused to marry), discourses on definitions of self, and personal parental histories of the author all find their place in this swirling, humorous and challenging work. The play culminates with a live fish being brought on stage and the audience being asked to decide one question: should the fish be pulled from its tank and sacrificed for the play?

Bromley's part verse, part prose, all poetic script is matched by John Gideon's mesmerizing and eclectic music, Karen Flood's imaginative and wild costumes, Jane Stein's stunning puppets and properties, and Jeff Stein's unconventional but magical lighting. A cast of 13 performs this play with 15 songs performed live by the cast and composer.

Author Kirk Wood Bromley is the Artistic Director and Playwright for Inverse Theater Company. He is the recipient of the 2001 Berrilla Kerr Foundation Playwrights Award, and his plays have won two Fringe Awards – Excellence in Playwriting (2002) and Excellence in Music and Lyrics (2003). Inverse Theater won Best Downtown Theater in the New York Press in 2001, and also the first ever Caffe Cino Award for Excellence in Off-Off-Broadway by the New York Innovative Theater Awards. Seventeen of his plays have been produced in NYC, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, and numerous US colleges. Recent productions include No More Pretending (Ice Factory Festival, 2007), The Death of Griffin Hunter (Brick Theater, 2007), Syndrome (Neurofest, 2007), Three Dollar Bill (Center Stage, 2006), The Banger's Flopera (fringeNYC and NYMF, 2005), On the Origin of Darwin (Connelly, 2004), and Lost – The Musical (New York Fringe Festival and Connelly, 2003). For more information go to www.inversetheater.org.

Soho Think Tank (STT) is the OBIE award-winning theatre company that has been producing, presenting, and programming new work at the Ohio Theatre in New York City for 15 years.  STT supports like-minded downtown theatre companies and artists through multiple programs, including The 6th Floor Series (reading series), Ice Factory (summer festival), STT Presents (presenting program), and the Ohio Theatre Project (curated programming of the Ohio Theatre).  Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Lyons, the Ohio Theatre is widely recognized as an indispensable pillar of the downtown theatre community.  For more information go to sohothinktank.org.

The cast includes Arthur Aulisi* ("Denis Leary's Merry F#%$in Christmas"), Lora Chio* ("Law & Order"), Drew Cortese* (Public Theatre, FringeNYC), Sarah Engelke* (four Inverse Theater shows, others), Josh Hartung (Banger's Flopera), Bob Laine (many Inverse productions), Meagan Prahl* (Closet Case at The Lion), Dan Renkin* (Culture Project, Inverse), Annie Scott, Erwin Thomas*, Paula Wilson* (Alvin Ailey dancer, recurring role on "All My Children"), Brenda Withers* (one of the creators of the off-Broadway hit Matt and Ben), and Marshall York. (* indicates the actor is a member of Actors' Equity Association.) Ruthie Turk will serve as Production Manager. 

Director Alec Duffy is the Artistic Director of the theater company Hoi Polloi.  This past summer, The Ontological Theater presented Hoi Polloi's Dysphoria as part of their Summer Residency.  Duffy's play The Top Ten People Of The Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder was produced at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago and the Bank Street Theatre in New York, and was recently published in the collection Plays and Playwrights 2006, edited by Martin Denton. Duffy was selected by The Drama League as one of four directors nationally to be awarded the Drama League Directing Fellowship. Duffy was also recently selected for the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.

Jill Guidera, whose work has been seen at Galapagos Art Space, PS122, and Soho Rep, will be the choreographer. John Gideon, a composer and musician who first collaborated with Inverse on The Banger's Flopera - A Musical Perversion, will contribute the original music for the 15 songs in Me.

Jane Stein (Set Design) is a sculptor who has created sets, masks, props, puppets and photographs for eight Inverse shows. Her work has appeared in productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, dance, opera and television.  She began her theatrical work as a mask maker for the New York Shakespeare Festival and has contributed work to many Broadway shows including Lenny, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Bette Midler's Clams On The Half Shell Review. Her dance credits include masks for Martha Graham, New York Baroque Dance Company, Buglisi Dance Theatre and My-Yi Co.

Jeff Nash (Lighting Design) has designed lights for Robert Wilson, John Jesurun, Natsu Nakajima, Ellen Stewart, Stuart Sherman, John Vaccaro, Gian Carlo Minetti, and Kirk Wood Bromley.

Karen Flood (Costume Design) has designed costumes for theater, film, television, and advertising for over 10 years. She recently created costumes for a multi faceted performance entitled Fascinating Gershwin, by violinist Janice Martin, in which the costumes change on stage, before the very eyes of the audience.

ME will begin performances on Saturday, May 3rd and will continue May 24th. All performances will be at 8pm.

Call 212-868-4444, or order online at www.smarttix.com

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