Transport Group and terraNOVA Collective Present DARK NIGHTS: HIGHS & FAMILY TIES, 11/12

Transport Group, the Drama Desk and OBIE award-winning theatre company, and terraNOVA Collective, creator of the longest-running solo performance festival in NYC, the soloNOVA Arts Festival, will collaborate to produce Dark Nights: Highs & Family Ties during the second dark night of Transport Group's run of House For Sale tonight, November 12th at 7:00pm at The Duke on 42nd Street. Dark Nights: Highs & Family Ties will feature two of soloNOVA's highest acclaimed shows: Empanada for a Dream, written & performed by Juan Francisco Villa, directed by Alex Levy, and When Thoughts Attack, written & performed by Kelly Kinsella, directed by Padraic Lillis.

Empanada For A Dream is a haunting love song to the Lower East Side. Juan Francisco Villa's return to the neighborhood of his childhood is a dangerous and hilarious tale about growing up by getting out. Empanada For A Dream was originally produced by Ballybeg Inc. at the Barrow Group Theatre before being presented by terraNOVA Collective in their 9th annual soloNOVA Arts Festival. It was presented at Yo Solo Festival in Chicago by Teatro Vista and Collaboraction. The show will play through November 18 at LATC in Los Angeles.

When Thoughts Attack is about a woman who walks into a restaurant to order lunch and immediately gets caught up in a whirlpool of anxiety. Salmon or chicken? Genetics or environment? Armed with a bottle of sedatives and a good sense of humor, she goes to battle with her mind.

terraNOVA presented Empanada For A Dream and When Thoughts Attack as part of the 9th
Annual soloNOVA Arts Festival in 2012, and says: "We're delighted to collaborate with Transport Group in presenting two of our best soloNOVA alumni at The Duke."

Founded in 2001, Transport Group, under the leadership of Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director, and Lori Fineman, Executive Director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that stages new works and re-imagined revivals by American writers. Their visually progressive productions of emotionally classic stories explore the challenges of relationships and identity in America. Transport Group is the winner of a special Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions." Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002: Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including Outstanding Revival of a Musical. Other productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including Outstanding Musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee John Cariani; the first New York revival of Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, OBIEwinning production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn, Marcy in the Galaxy, and Being Audrey, and the first New York revival of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. Both First Lady Suite and Bury the Dead were filmed for the New York Performing Arts Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at Lincoln Center. In 2010 Transport Group presented a sold-out, extended engagement of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which received an OBIE Award and was nominated for five 2010 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Play-the most for an off-Broadway play. Transport Group's productions of See Rock City and Other Destinations by Brad Alexander and Adam Mathias, and Hello Again by Michael John LaChiusa combined for eleven 2011 Drama Desk Award nominations and one win. Transport Group's production of Lysistrata Jones, by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn, opened to rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and transferred to Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre. The company's most recent productions include a critically acclaimed run of The Patsy and Jonas at The Duke on 42nd Street, starring OBIE winner David
Greenspan, Michael John LaChiusa's world premiere musical, Queen of the Mist starring Mary Testa, and Jonathan Franzen's House For Sale, adapted for the stage and directed by Daniel Fish, which opens on October 24th at The Duke on 42nd Street. For more information about Transport Group, visit www.transportgroup.org.

terraNOVA Collective is an ever-expanding collective of artists devoted to nurturing distinct and innovative theatrical voices. They are dedicated to cultivating environments where the art of storytelling thrives, actively seeking new stages and reaching new audiences for the theatre they develop. terraNOVA Collective's soloNOVA Arts Festival is the longest-running solo performance festival in New York City. Since 2004, soloNOVA has been specifically curated to showcase the best in puppetry, dance, magic, physical theatre, multi-character monologues, multi-media, and other forms of solo storytelling, and aims to bring forth ideas and experiences from varying cultures. For more information about terraNOVA Collective and the soloNOVA Arts Festival, visit www.terranovacollective.org.

Transport Group & terraNOVA Collective's collaboration on Dark Nights: Highs & Family Ties
will take place tonight, November 12th at 7:00pm at The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street (www.Dukeon42.org). Tickets are $20 and may be purchased by calling
646-223-3010 or by going to www.Dukeon42.org.

Founded in 1990, The New 42nd Street is an independent, nonprofit organization charged with long-term responsibility for seven historic theaters on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. In addition to running The New Victory Theater, The New 42nd Street built and operates the NEW 42ND STREET Studios - a ten-story building of rehearsal studios, offices and a 200-seat theater named The Duke on 42nd Street - for national and international performing arts companies. Since its opening on June 21, 2000, the NEW 42ND STREET Studios has been fully occupied by both nonprofit and commercial theater, dance and opera companies. With these institutions and the other properties under its guardianship, The New 42nd Street plays a pivotal role in fostering the continued revival of this famous street at the Crossroads of the World.

The Duke on 42nd Street is an intimate 200-seat black box theater built and operated by The New 42nd Street. Since opening in 2000, the theater has been available on a rental basis to international and domestic nonprofit organizations to present their work. Companies that have presented at The Duke on 42nd Street theater include: Theatre for a New Audience; Playwrights Horizons; Lincoln Center Great Performers; Transport Group Theatre Company; The NYC Tap Festival; and 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Project. In October 2008, Lincoln Center Theater launched "LCT3" at The Duke on 42nd Street. NEW 42ND STREET presentations at The Duke on 42nd Street have included: Karole Amitage's Armitage Gone! Dance; Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Rose Rage; Naked Angels and Dan Klores's Armed and Naked in America; and Classical Theater of Harlem's production of Langston Hughes's Black Nativity. Notable NEW VICTORY presentations at The Duke on 42nd Street include Joan McLeod's The Shape of a Girl, Steppenwolf Theater Company's The Bluest Eye and the smash hit, Once and For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen, presented by The New Victory Theater in cooperation with The Under the Radar Festival.

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