Voyage Theater Compay Presents SPHINX By Neil Fleming

Voyage Theater Company/PARTS UNKNOWN Play Reading Series will present a staged reading of Sphinx by British playwright Neil Fleming, directed by Wayne Maugans, at the 53rd Street New York Public Library (18 W 53 Street, across the street from MOMA), Thur February 21 at 7pm. Admission is FREE and open to the public, but reservations are highly encouraged. Please RSVP here. The performance will run approximately 95 minutes with no intermission.

Desperate to escape the infamous prophecy that he will murder his father and marry his mother, Oedipus flees his home in Corinth for the city of Thebes. But out there in the badlands lurks the terrifying Sphinx, with her questions - part monster, part seductress, part game-show host. Is there really a way out from what Fate has decreed? Can Oedipus and Jocasta really re-write the story after all this time? Neil Fleming reinvents the classic Greek myth in this gripping retelling for modern audiences.

The cast includes Gamze Ceylan, Patrick Chang, JJ Condon, James Lorenzo, Shomari Pinnock, Joe Primavera, Katie Proulx, and Edmund Wilkinson.

Neil Fleming (Playwright) Neil is a playwright, screenwriter, poet, and theatre translator. Alongside his writing career he also works as strategy consultant, as an editorial consultant to business media; as an energy markets consultant; as a software designer, database architect, coder, and web-designer; and as an occasional presenter and voice-over artist.

He is the co-writer of Unspeakably Wonderful, a film about the discovery of insulin, in development in 2019 with UK film company AngryMan Pictures. He is currently working as story consultant for Sweden's Mopar Media on a forthcoming TV thriller series, and writing a further series with the UK's Atlas Films.

He is the co-founder of UK theatre company Hydrocracker, where he is both the principal writer and general manager of the business. The company has an outstanding reputation for innovation and the creation of first-rate theatre in unusual ways and spaces. Most recently, it has been receiving all-star reviews for its immersive theatre piece Operation Black Antler, a co-production with Blast Theory, about the ethics of undercover policing. The show debuted in 2016 at Brighton Festival, in Chatham in Kent, in 2017 Hydrocracker brought it to Manchester HOME, and it will make a third appearance hosted by London's Southbank Centre in April 2019.

In 2014 Neil won a Brighton Argus Angel award for Hydrocracker's Brighton Festival show Wild Justice - part of a project on revenge to include a full-length play, in development this year. The May 2014 event was a hybrid of theatre and public debate. Hydrocracker was The Guardian newspaper's "Pick of the Year" in 2007.

Wayne Maugans (Director) has been working in theater, film and television for over thirty years. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Voyage Theater Company. Directing credits for VTC include UNVEILED by Rohina Malik (NYC & South African tour), THE PELICAN by August Strindberg (co-director with Charles Bales), SUN by Adrienne Kennedy, INTERMISSION by Daniel Libman, MY POOR MARAT by Aleksei Arbuzov, and OBAMA 44 by Mario Fratti. Other directing includes POLAROID STORIES by Naomi Iizuka (Brooklyn College), THE TROJAN WOMEN (Atlantic Theater/NYU), UNCLE by Dean Gray and TRAILERVILLE by John Dufresne (both at Blue Heron Theatre). As an actor, Wayne has appeared on Broadway in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, and at numerous off-Broadway and regional theaters, including 59E59, Manhattan Theater Club, Signature Theater, Actors' Theater of Louisville, The Cleveland Playhouse, Primary Stages, Yale Rep, Seven Stages, Two River Theater, and La MaMa ETC. Wayne holds a BFA in Acting from New York University and an MFA in Directing from CUNY/Brooklyn College. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and The Fence.

VOYAGE THEATER COMPANY presents new and unheralded plays and playwrights from around the world, creating opportunities for collaboration between theater-makers of diverse cultures and disciplines. We serve our local community in New York City through professional productions, educational programming, internships, and discounted tickets for students and seniors. We present plays in multiple languages, and work in partnership with other non-profit organizations to broaden perspectives and build greater cultural equity across communities.

PARTS UNKNOWN Play Reading Series is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.