13th Street Rep's BEFORE WE'RE GONE Continues Through August 5th

Before We're Gone, a new play about love and second chances by the award-winning playwright Jerry Small, continues performances at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre (50 East 13th Street) for a limited run (21 Performances) through August 5th.

The production, with original music by Joseph LoDuca, began performances July 5th and is directed by Joe John Battista. The cast includes Broadway performers Leenya Rideout (War Horse/Cyrano de Bergerac/Company/Cabaret) and Jay Russell (End of the Rainbow, The Play What I Wrote, Summer and Smoke); with John Zdrojeski (Monster, How I Learned To Drive) and Emily Juliette Murphy (Comedy of Errors). Before We're Gone is produced by BAHR productions, the Hollywood-based film, television and digital Production Company.

Tickets are $25 Adults / $20 Seniors and can be purchased from www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3365708 or by calling 800-838-3006.

Before We're Gone is about second chances and the consequences of the choices we make in life.

"I wanted this play to be a different kind of love story, an unlikely romance, one that does not reach a successful flowering in its first act," says the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Jerry Small. "Fundamental to the genesis of the play was the notion of throwing together by chance two very different personalities, mismatched by experience and outlook on life and separated by a significant age difference."

An earlier version of Before We're Gone, under the title Near Occasion of Sin, was a semifinalist in the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and a finalist in the NAAA Play Reading Fest at the Central School of Speech & Drama in London.

Before We're Gone is the story of a Pulitzer-winning playwright, screenwriter and outspoken political activist (played by Leenya Rideout), who has disappeared from her high-profile life in New York, Hollywood, and the tabloids, to hide under an assumed name in a secluded seaside motel in Santa Barbara, California. She is surprised by an unexpected visit from a man (played by John Zdrojeski) with whom she had a brief relationship 25 years earlier, when she was 36 and at the height of her Broadway fame. He was naïve, 20, and studying to be a Catholic priest. They met during the 1950's in Reno's famous art-deco Mapes Hotel, where she was staying for her six-weeks divorce, and he was working in the hotel while on sabbatical from the Franciscan Order, struggling to resolve doubts about the priesthood and himself. Over the last 25 years, they have not seen each other nor spoken.

The playing schedule for Before We've Gone is Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30pm with matinees on Sunday at 3:00pm through August 5th. There is an additional matinee on Saturday, August 4th at 2pm.

Jerry Small is a member of The Dramatist Guild and The Writer's Guild. His earlier work has been seen on film, television, and the stage. Theater credits include the plays Nothing for Thanks for Nothing, produced Off-Off-Broadway and published by Samuel French; A Day in the Park, produced at Willamette University Festival of Contemporary Arts, Salem, Oregon, where it won First Prize for Drama, and was also produced at the North Central Theater Association Conference, St. Cloud, Minnesota; Dies Irae won Second Prize in The Samuel Goldwyn Awards and First Prize in The Donald Davis Awards. The Day of the Plywood Parthenon and Nothing for Thanks for Nothing won prizes from Samuel French. Small is the recipient of The Shubert Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting and The John Golden Fellowship in Playwriting.

Joe John Battista is the Artistic Director of the 13th Street Repertory Theater and the founder and Artistic Director of Screaming Mimes Theater Company. Joe is a member of Actor's Equity, and the Dramatist Guild. A Graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he studied with William Hickey, Stephen Strimpbell, Uta Hagen, Eve Collier, Hugh Whitfield, Jack Melanos, Paul J. Curtis and Gates McFadden. At the age of 21 he was hired as a director at the Bucks County Playhouse, but soon realized that New York Theater was his first love and began to direct experimental theater Off-Broadway. Directing credits include: Grey Street, (Marlain Angelides), If You Don't Like It You Can't Leave (William Forsythe), Milkman's Sister (Robert Funaro), Inertia In Motion (Everett Quinton), Beauty Knows No Pain ( Daniel Yaiullo), Uno Momento ( Zoe Anastassiou), Legacy for Emmy award winning Seth Freeman and production consultant for Dress of Fire with Austin Pendleton. Joe also is a professional photographer and has worked for Ford, Elite, Zoli, Wilhelmina and Legends. He was lead guitarist for the bands, Razor Engine and Electric Landlady, also appeared and played blues recently in "Lone Star" starring Matt de Rogatis. Joe has also collaborated with Jana Hunterova, Mark Blickley and Frie J. Jeacobs on the award-winning film "Stages In Motion" in Prague."

Photo Credit: John Phelps

Pictured: John Zdrojeski (left) and Leenya Rideout (right) in a scene from "Before We're Gone"

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