WAR LESBIAN to Begin December 5 at Dixon Place

Dixon Place's new musical commission, WAR LESBIAN, will have its world premiere beginning December 5th. Featuring Erin Markey this original musical, with book by Kristine Haruna Lee, music by Kathryn Hathaway and a cast of ten is directed by Jordan Fein in collaboration with harunalee. WAR LESBIAN will play seven performances only - December 5th, 6th, 12th,13th, 19th, and 20th at 7:30PM, and December 20th at 10:00PM at Dixon Place (161 Christie Street). Tickets are $16 in advance, $18 at the door, and $12 for seniors and students. Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.dixonplace.org.

WAR LESBIAN, is a new musical based on an Inuit myth about a woman who is rejected from her family for being different and embarks upon a journey creating wars with others and within herself. The musical deals with impossible probabilities, ridiculous heartbreak, and absurdity in which anything, and that means anything, goes. WAR LESBIAN is set in a universe where Ellen DeGeneres is a demonic demi-god and digging for truths and covering up holes can cause wars.

In addition to Erin Markey, the cast includes Jessica Almasy, Kristine Haruna Lee, Preston Martin, Stephanie A. Hsu, Chris Tyler, Derek Smith, Andrew R. Butler, Cyndi Perzcek, and Amir Wachterman. Sets are by Amy Rubin with lighting by: Sarah Lurie, costumes by Karen Boyer and sound by Steve Arnoczy. Musical direction is by Solomon Hoffman. WAR LESBIAN is produced in association with Joel Glassman.

Erin Markey is a comedic performer, actress and singer. Her comical style has been described as "perverse, non-sequitur humor that keeps her audience laughing" (New Yorker) and "fantastically weird, fiercely committed, occasionally terrifying" (Time Out NY). She performs with a "magnetic diva aggression" (New York Times) and "defies expectations you don't even know you have" (New York Post). She has shown work at BAM, Under The Radar Festival, New Museum, PS 122, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, San Francisco Film Society, and frequently at Joe's Pub (The Public Theater). As an actress, Markey is a company member of Obie Award winning Half Straddle, has performed with the Young Jean Lee Theater Company (Untitled Feminist Show) and won Boston's Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance for her role in Tennessee William's Green Eyes. She is currently a 2013-2015 artist-in-residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange developing a new music driven show, A Ride On The Irish Cream. She is a recipient of the 2012 NYFA Cutting Edge Artist Award and a 2014 Franklin Furnace Grant. She was recently recognized as a top ten artist in Time Out New York's "Best of Cabaret 2013" and in their 2013 "Best of New York" issue as "Best Offbeat Diva Who's About to Blow Up." www.erinmarkey.com

Kristine Haruna Lee is a playwright, director, and performer. She was born in Hong Kong, raised between Tokyo and Seattle, and now lives in Brooklyn. She is one of the founding members of harunalee theater company. She has performed nationally and internationally with artists such as Taylor Mac, NAATCO, The Talking Band, Yubiwa Hotel and Trista Baldwin, Andrea Geyer's Comrades of Time at the Whitney Biennial, The Metawee River Theater Company, Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hardknocks, Jim Neu, William Burke, Kate Benson and Antony and the Johnsons. She holds a BFA from NYU Tisch, and an M.F.A from Brooklyn College with Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney.

Kathryn Hathaway is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her plays and musicals have been performed and developed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Flea Theater, New Dramatists, The Yale Institute of Music Theatre, The Bushwick Starr, Dixon Place, The Prelude Festival, New York Musical Theatre Festival, Joe's Pub, and the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. She is a MacDowell Colony fellow, an alumna of Barnard College, and received her MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College.

harunalee is an ensemble of performers and designers who collaborate across artistic disciplines to create experimental performance and plays written by Kristine Haruna Lee. New York Theatre Review calls it, "a feast for the eyes as well as the mind and heart." Since 2010, they have been developing and producing work throughout New York (Plum de Force at Bushwick Starr; Drunkfish Oceanrant at Jack; She's Sleep at Ars Nova) and have received a 2013 LMCC grant for their upcoming collaboration with Built for Collapse, and a Dixon Place Artist Residency and Commission for War Lesbian. harunalee is Stevo Arnoczy, Sasha Arutyunova, Andrew R. Butler, Sarah Lurie, Lauren Swan-Potras, Marisa Lark Wallin, and Kristine Haruna Lee.

WAR LESBIAN will run from Friday, December 5 through Saturday, December 20. The playing schedule is as follows: December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20 at 7:30PM, and December 20 at 10:00PM. Tickets are $16 in advance, $20 at the door, and $12 for seniors and students. Tickets For tickets and information for all shows, call 212.219.0736 or go to www.dixonplace.org.

The Dixon Place Lounge is open before and after the show. Proceeds directly support Dixon Place's artists and mission.

Dixon Place is located at 161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), in Manhattan's Lower East Side (By subway: F to 2nd Ave, J/Z to Bowery, 6 to Spring St, M to Essex St).

Dixon Place, an incubator for performing and literary artists since 1986, is a non-profit organization committed to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of dance, theater, music, puppetry, literature, performance and visual art at all stages of development. Presenting over 700 artists each year, this local haven inspires and encourages diverse artists of all stripes and callings to take risks and push personal and professional limits. Dixon Place's foremost priorities are to serve as a safety net for artists, and to provide vivid experiences for audiences. Many artists, such as Deb Margolin, Blue Man Group, John Leguizamo, Lisa Kron, David Cale, Penny Arcade, and Reno began their careers at Dixon Place. In addition to emerging artists, Dixon Place has also been privileged to present evenings of new and experimental work by more established artists, such as -- Theater/Performance: Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn, Craig Lucas, BD Wong, John Fleck, Kate Bornstein, Ethyl Eichelberger, Holly Hughes, Karen Finley, Kate Clinton, Peggy Shaw, Alan Cumming, Big Art Group; Literary: A.M. Homes, Rick Moody, and Oscar Huelos; Dance: Mark Dendy, Jane Comfort, Douglas Dunn, and Yoshiko Chuma; Music: Vernon Reid, Rodney Crowell, Diamanda Galas, Martha Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Suzzy Roche, Maggie Roche, Rodney Crowell, Cyndi Lauper, and They Might Be Giants.

In 1989, Ellie Covan, founding director, was a recipient of a Bessie, a New York Dance and Performance Award, for her service to the community; and Dixon Place received a Village Voice Obie Grant Award in 1990 and 1999. Additionally, in 1999, Dixon Place was awarded an Edwin Booth Award for Excellence in Theater. For more, visit www.dixonplace.org, follow on Twitter: @dixonplace and Facebook: facebook.com/dixonplace.

This production is commissioned by and is first being presented at Dixon Place in New York City with public funds, in part, from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and private funds by the Jerome and Peg Santvoord Foundations.

Pictured: Jessica Almasy, Kristine Haruna Lee, Erin Markey. Photo by Sasha Aleksandra Arutyunova, 2014.

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