World Premiere of REDEMPTION STORY to be Presented at A.R.T./New York Theatres

The Associates Theater Ensemble will present the World Premiere of Peregrine Teng Heard’s Redemption Story directed by Sarah Blush (Eventswith The Hearth; I thought I would die but I didn’t at The Tank) at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at the A.R.T./New York Theatres, May 4-19. 

INT. DINER - LOS ANGELES, 1971. CONNIE LEE (50s, hardened glamor) drinks coffee, fingers her cigarettes. Her eyes glint with magnetism, even after years of playing clichés instead of characters. A MAN (20s, blond and eager) pushes through the door, and Connie does a double-take, then turns away. She's already made the worst mistake of her life, and a fresh face can't fix it. A new play about alienation, conditional love, and our distorted senses of self.

Redemption Story was a semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. 

“After nine years of digging into the complexities of American identity with The Associates, I’m thrilled to launch this new play into the world during AAPI Heritage Month,” said playwright Peregrine Teng Heard. “Redemption Story is the fantasy of a woman who has crafted herself from Hollywood tropes—she’s played the enigmatic Asian, the devious Asian, the doomed Asian—and she can’t give up that mask, even when her real relationships demand a dose of reality.”

Performances are scheduled for Saturday, May 4 at 7:30pm, Sunday, May 5 at 7:30pm, Monday, May 6 at 7:30pm, Wednesday, May 8 at 7:30pm, Thursday, May 9 at 7:30pm, Friday, May 10 at 7:30pm, Saturday, May 11 at 7:30pm, Sunday, May 12 at 7:30pm, Monday, May 13 at 7:30pm, Wednesday, May 15 at 7:30pm, Thursday, May 16 at 7:30pm, Friday, May 17 at 7:30pm, Saturday, May 18 at 7:30pm, and Sunday, May 19 at 2pm. Tickets ($15-$40) are available for advance purchase at www.universe.com/events/redemption-story-tickets-SDVTKH. The performance will run approximately 100 minutes, with no intermission. 

Peregrine Teng Heard

(Playwright) is an actor, playwright, and Artistic Director of The Associates Theater Ensemble. Her plays Redemption Story and On The Prowl with Ada Tsiaoare O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalists, and her short play Maggie and Winnie in The Thirteenth Time received its premiere at Actors Theatre of Louisville as a finalist in the National Ten-Minute Play Competition in 2018. Peregrine’s writing has been supported by Fresh Ground Pepper, 59E59, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. With The Associates she has devised, performed, and produced The Cousinhood (The Center at West Park), Sheila (A.R.T./New York Theatres), Black Protagonist (124 Bank St Theatre, NYIT nomination for Best Original Script), and Freesome (The Brick). Most recently, The Associates presented the New York premiere of Grownup by Emily Stout (MITU580). Performance credits include POTUS (Arena Stage), the world premiere of Chuck Mee’s soot & spit (The New Ohio), Ski End (Piehole), Power Couple (ANT Fest), Call Out Culture, or the unbearable whiteness of being (ANTFest), Dragus Maximus (Roulette), Sehnsucht (JACK), and Tom Jones (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Peregrine’s voice can be heard in national commercials for Cadillac, Roomba, Nivea, and Mastercard. She graduated from Yale with a handy BA in East Asian Studies.

Sarah Blush

(Director) directs, writes and develops original projects for theatre, TV and more. She has developed and presented new plays and devised work with The Public Theater, Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, The Playwrights’ Center, JACK, The Bushwick Starr, The Brick, The Hearth, Lightning Rod Special, Williamstown Theatre Festival, HERE, Dixon Place, 59E59 and more, associate/assistant directed extensively, and directed/taught at NYU Graduate Acting, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and NYU Meisner, Playwrights Horizons, and Atlantic studios. She is a recipient of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, New Georges Audrey Residency, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Colt Coeur Artist Residency, Barn Arts Residency, and New York Society Library’s Emerging Female Artist Grant. In addition to theatre, Sarah has directed virtual reality, interactive experiments in Google Sheets, experimental audio, and podcasts. Currently, Sarah has an original TV series (co-created with Sofya Levitsky-Weitz) in development with Lionsgate and Peacock.

The Associates create, develop, and produce new plays that expose and examine the paradox at the heart of American modes of identity. With a fierce appetite for contradiction and complexity, we give audiences the experience of sinking into another person’s existence: a deep, unnerving experience, and one that can enrich our perception of difference and of commonality. We make our theater through a process of long-term collaboration with generative artists—whether playwrights, devisers, or performers—by nurturing their curiosity and daring in a radically experimental environment.

Previous productions include Grownup at MITU580, Sheila at A.R.T./New York Theatres, The Cousinhood (workshop) at The Center at West Park’s Furnace Festival, Freesome in The Brick’s F*ckfest, and Black Protagonist at 124 Bank Street Theatre (NYIT nomination for Best Original Script).  www.theassociatestheater.com 

 

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