TINY BUBBLES Opens Off-Broadway 7/16

TINY BUBBLES is a new comedy by Richard Willett (TRIPTYCH, THE FLID SHOW, RANDOM HARVEST), being given its New York premiere this summer, opening on Monday, July 16 at the Medicine Show Theatre (549 W. 52 St.) in Manhattan.

Directed by Eliza Beckwith, the cast of TINY BUBBLES features Jay Alvarez, Amy Staats, Maureen Kenny, Matthew Jellison and Timothy Elliott.

TINY BUBBLES concerns what happens when a longstanding drinking friendship between two men, both gay -- the high-flying Danny and the more grounded Kirk -- gets complicated after Kirk decides to join AA. All manner of unpredictable things occur when one man's sobriety plunges his disconcerted drinking buddy into a dream world in which he alternately lives as a cloistered nun -- and as a 'Mad Men'-like exec partial to three martini lunches.

TINY BUBBLES is produced by New Directions Theater, a company in NYC dedicated to new plays, with past productions having included the NY premiere of Michael Weller's GHOST ON FIRE along with the world-premieres of John Attanas's HERMIONE: TALES OF SEXUAL FRUSTRATION, Olga Humphrey's F-STOP and Richard Willett's TRIPTYCH, THE FLID SHOW and RANDOM HARVEST.

Winner of the Best New American Play Award at the Firehouse Theatre Project's Festival of New Plays in Richmond, Virginia where one critic wrote, "TINY BUBBLES is a snap crackle pop piece that examines the delusions and illusions we keep in order to function, and the challenge confronted by actual change. It will make you either want a martini as soon as possible, or not ever again."

Jay Alvarez starred in RANDOM HARVEST and has performed at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC, as well as having appeared on Fox TV's 'TIL DEATH. He wrote and performs the solo show BE CAREFUL! THE SHARKS WILL EAT YOU! about his family's voyage from Cuba to the U.S.

Amy Staats starred in THE FLID SHOW and has also appeared in Clubbed Thumb's ONE THING I LIKE TO SAY IS… and with Les Freres Corbusier's HELL HOUSE directed by Alex Timbers. Maureen Kenny appeared in New Directions' CHAIR STORY and on Theater Row in A SCRAP OF PAPER. Matthew Jellison appeared in TRESTLE AT POPE LICK CREEK at 52nd Street Project and AS YOU LIKE IT at St. Clement's. Timothy Elliott is an accomplished Baltimore actor making his New York debut.

Scenic and lighting design for TINY BUBBLES is by Markéta Fantová and costume design is by Kim Walker.

Richard Willett is the author of the play THE FLID SHOW -- about a man living with the effects of thalidomide, which starred the real-life actor Mat Fraser, an actual thalidomide survivor. Mr. Willett's play RANDOM HARVEST brought the ghost of that 1942 classic film's star Greer Garson comically and mysteriously into the lives and living room of a NY gay couple. And his acclaimed TRIPTYCH -- which New Directions debuted in 1999 and brought back by popular demand in 2000 -- was inspired by the real-life incidents in which students from elite colleges were made to be photographed nude as part of a supposed research project. Mr. Willett has received an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship, a Tennessee Williams scholarship, an OOBR Award and grants from such distinguished organizations as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation.

When THE FLID SHOW opened in 2005, Charles Isherwood of the New York Times called the play,"absorbing and often poignant."

When RANDOM HARVEST opened in 2001, David Cote of Time Out New York called it "a clever and affecting look at the fear of success."

And Anita Gates of the New York Times called TRIPTYCH "a funny and insightful new play."

Eliza Beckwith is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and has directed numerous Marathon productions there including LITTLE AIRPLANES OF THE HEART and THE MOON BATH GIRL. She recently directed ANCHORS on Theater Row, and for New Directions has directed CUTE LONELY GUYS LOOKING FOR YOU, ANAPEST, F-STOP, HOT AIR, TRIPTYCH, RANDOM HARVEST and THE FLID SHOW.