Theater for the New City to Present SUDDENLY, A KNOCK AT THE DOOR, Featuring Adapted Works by Israeli Writer Etgar Keret

Theater for the New City presents Suddenly, A Knock at the Door, a new play based on stories by award winning Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret written by Robin Goldfin with live music composed by Oren Neiman and performed by Oren Neiman & Gilad Ben-Zvi. David L. Carson* directs a cast of 6, including Jeffrey Swan Jones*,Antonio Minino, Alyssa Simon*, Kenneth Talberth*, Stephen Thornton, and Elanna White. Fourteen performances will be staged from June 2-19, 2016 at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Streets) in New York City's East Village.

"I can't do it like this!" protests the writer EITAN KATZEN to the BEARDED MAN, the SURVEY TAKER and the PIZZA DELIVERY woman who have come knocking at his door. Brandishing weapons, they make the stakes clear: a story or your life! So the writer held hostage to these three strange muses begins to weave his tales, played out on the stage by the same characters that are holding him captive. Based on eight stories from the latest anthology by award-winning Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret, Suddenly, A Knock at the Door is a celebration of storytelling and the magic of art-an ensemble piece written for six actors and two musicians playing over thirty different roles. It is a comic drama of a modern writer weaving extra-ordinary tales in the middle of Tel Aviv. Here stories are the currency, a matter of life and death. Here, stories make us real and teach us (with a nod to Scheherazade) how to face the difficulties of life-from the absurd to the unbearable-without resorting to violence or abusing your power.

Playwright Robin Goldfin writes: "Etgar Keret is one of Israel's most celebrated writers. He is the author of six collections of stories that have been translated into more than thirty languages, and most recently the memoir THE SEVEN GOOD YEARS, published first in English. In the U.S., his work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine and The Paris Review. He has also been a frequent contributor on NPR's This American Life. What a pleasure it has been to adapt the stories of this master storyteller to make a new play!" Visit Etgar Keret's official website here.

Performances for Suddenly, A Knock at the Door are Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm & Sundays at 3pm. Plus, Sunday, June 5th at 7:30pm and Saturday, June 18th at 2pm.

Tickets are $18, $15 for students, seniors, & groups (10 or more). They can be purchased by visiting TheaterfortheNewCity.net or by calling SmartTix at 212-868-4444.

The runtime is approximately 100 minutes with no intermission.

Robin Goldfin (playwright) is a playwright, performer and teacher. His most recent project is Suddenly, A Knock at the Door, a play based on stories by award-winning Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret with original live music by Oren Neiman. Robin's own 10-minute play The Acoustics, directed by Ken Talberth was part of Artistic New Directions' Eclectic Evening of Shorts in March 2010. His solo play, The Ethics of Rav Hymie Goldfarb, directed by David Carson premiered in The Midtown International Theatre Festival in summer 2005. ("Splendidly crafted" wrote nytheatre.com.) Robin's other writing has been published in Tikkun Magazine, Zeek, and The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide; and in the anthologies Queer Stories for Boys: True Stories from the Gay Men's Storytelling Workshop and One on One: The Best Men's Monologues for the 21st Century. As a performer, Robin danced for five years with Laurie DeVito's She-Bops and Scats, a concert jazz dance company and taught Simonson Jazz Dance Technique in New York and abroad. Robin has held artist's residencies at Makor, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and The Mishkan Omanim (Artists Residence) in Herzylia, Israel. A member of PEN American Center and The Dramatists Guild, he holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dramatic Writing from New York University and is Clinical Professor of Writing in NYU's Liberal Studies Program.

David L. Carson* (director) has been working in the NYC theatre community since the 1970s. He is a founding company member of Metropolitan Playhouse, where he has been associated with over 30 productions as actor or director. In 1995 he went to Vilnius, Lithuania, with Metropolitan for the inaugural collaboration, Theatre Without Borders. He has served on the boards of Reverie Productions, Metropolitan Playhouse, and is currently a member of the acting company of MTWorks. David directed the original productions of Jeffrey Solomon's Mother/Son and Robin Goldfin's The Ethics of Rav Hymie Goldfarb. He has guided script development workshop showcases for both Metropolitan and Reverie. In 2014 he received an Innovative Theatre nomination for Best Actor for the American Bard production of King Lear. David has worked with Robin Goldfin and Oren Neiman on the development of Suddenly, A Knock at the Door since its inception, staging selections from the script as part of Artistic New Directions' Eclectic Shorts Series and at Stage Left Studio's Left Out Festival.

Oren Neiman (composer) - his music is innovative and in the forefront of today's jazz styles, as well as being celebrated for his technical precision. His compositions explore a combination of Jazz sensibility with Middle Eastern rhythms and melody. Born in Ramat-Gan, Israel, and raised in Israel as well as Toronto Canada, Oren moved to New York in 2001, where he received his BFA from SUNY Purchase. He has been based in NY ever since. Oren's current projects perform and tour both nationally and internationally-- most recently Brazil, Canada and Israel. These include: The band "Sha'ar" an international NY-based group of Jewish musicians whose current project is a new exploration of the work of Israeli composer Yedidia Admon; the energetic acoustic duo "IsraAlien" co-led by fellow Israeli guitar player Gilad Ben-Zvi, featuring original compositions inspired by the various roots of Israeli music and currently touring in support of their second album "Somewhere is Here!" (November 2012); and recording and performing with The Oren Neiman Quartet: the band is currently performing in support of their album second album "Frolic and Detour." Oren has been an Artist in Residence at the 92nd St. Y (2006-2007); a participant in the Banff Centre's international Jazz workshop (2008); a fellow at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2012); and a participant in Asylum international Jewish artist network (2015). His projects have received grants from The Schusterman Foundation (2015), an Asylum Arts Small Grant (2015), and Arts Alive project grants from Westchester Arts Council (2009, 2011). Visit Oren Neiman's official website, here.

Gilad Ben-Zvi (guitar) is an Israeli composer/guitarist currently based in New York. While attending the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music he was a member of the rock band Kasparov. He has performed in pit orchestras for productions of Hair, Man of LaMancha, Pippin and others. Gilad was an Artist-In-Residence with the "Makor" program at 92nd St. Y and is currently half of the acoustic guitar duo Isra-Alien with Oren Neiman.

Suddenly, A Knock at the Door is presented by Theater for the New City. Playwright: Robin Goldfin; Director: David L. Carson*; Original Music: Oren Neiman; Lighting Designer: Alex Bartenieff; Costumer Designer: Glenna Ryer;Set Designer: Mark Marcante; Production Stage Manager: Michael J. Toto*; Assistant Stage Manager: Jessica McIlquham; Public Relations: Paul Siebold/Off Off PR.

Theater for the New City is a Pulitzer Prize winning cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Vin Diesel, Oscar Nuñez, Laurence Holder,Romulus Linney and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and COBU, the Japanese women's drumming and dance group. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 42 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

Meet the Cast

Jeffrey Swan Jones* has been a professional actor for 36 years and has performed on stages throughout this country and Germany. He played Will in the Webbie winning web series, Poker Night. Favorite roles include Enobarbus in Antony & Cleopatra at the Workshop, Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at Princeton Rep, and Beethoven in Beethoven At the Bat at Avery Fisher Hall. A native Texan; Jeffrey is a member of AOG Dallas. jeffreyswanjones@gmail.com

Antonio Minino - Macbeth in Macbeth (Fab Marquee); Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Original Binding Productions); All About S*x, Adrift, Andy@62, Confessions of a Cuban S*x Addict, Triptych and All About Meat with DMAC; Dark Water, Parts of Parts & Stitches and Arpeggio with MTWorks; The Other Day, The Stranger to Kindness (Best Actor Nominee), The Empress of S*x, Ilka's Dream. Film: Snuff, Open Mike, Destiny. www.antoniominino.com

Alyssa Simon* is an award winning theatre and film actor, having performed modern works, classics, cabarets and musicals in the U.S., Argentina and the Caribbean. She was selected as A Person Of The Year by Martin Denton of nytheatre.com for her acting work and she is also a Master Mason at the Caffe Cino award winning Brick Theatre. www.alyssasimon.com

Kenneth Talberth* was a member of Karin Coonrod's downtown theatre troupe Arden Partywhere he appeared in King Lear (Lear), Dr. Faustus (Mephistopheles), The Beggar's Opera (Macheath), and The Importance of Being Earnest (Lady Bracknell).Early in his career, Ken performed in the landmark gay theater premieres of Robert Chesley's Stray Dog Story and Cal Yeoman's Sunsets: Three Acts on a Beach (creating the role of Henry Wayne). He was also the first Equity actor to appear at Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, playing Herald in Jiri Zizka's production of Marat/Sade. Originally from Boston, Ken holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from NYU's School of the Arts where he had the privilege of studying with the legendary Stella Adler. Ken returns to the stage after a hiatus from acting to work as a director, stage manager and event manger both in New York and in Europe.

Stephen Thornton is an actor, improviser, and storyteller from Honolulu, Hawaii. He graduated in 2007 from NYFA and is currently a member for Artistic New Directions. When he's not booked in a show, he continues to study improvisation and performs/hams it up with a number of Indie teams around the city including: 3.14 and No Offense.

Elanna White is a native New Yorker and recent graduate of NYU Tisch. Favorite credits include: "Law and Order: SVU," Kerrigan-Lowdermilk's "The Bad Years," "The April Hour" for LAByrinth Theatre Co and the web series, "Party at Micah's" written and directed by Chris Modoono. You can also catch her talking about music on iHeartRadio's First Taste Fridays.

*Member, AEA.

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