Aliens With Extraordinary Skills Plays Theatre 54

Following their successful production of Play Nice! at 59E59 Theaters, Ego Actus will present Aliens With Extraordinary Skills, the critically acclaimed play by Saviana Stanescu. Immigration is a huge topic in today's headlines and this story of a female European circus clown's struggle to find happiness and a green card in New York City is right on point. This production will include an additional scene from the author that was included in the Mexico City production which ran for eight months in rep at Teatro La Capilla. Aliens With Extraordinary Skills will be directed by Joan Kane (Play Nice! at 59E59 Theaters) and will open on November 2, 2011. The set design is by Starlet Jacobs (Best Scenic Design, 2011 Planet Connections Theatre Festivity).

All performances held at Theatre 54, 244 West 54th Street in New York City from November 2, 2011-November 20, 2011 (Wed.-Sat. @ 8pm, Sun @ 3pm).

Tickets are $20.00 and are available at www.smarttix.com, or by phone 212-868-4444. For more information, please go to http://www.EgoActus.com

"I love this play because it presents the goals of some of the most marginal members of our post 9-11 society, the pursuit of happiness by illegal aliens. Many social and economic problems that we face today are being blamed on illegal immigrants in the United States. Who are these people? Where do they come from? In this newly expanded version of Aliens with Extraordinary Skills we feel the pain of a young woman who is exploited and abused by some of the elite of society with no protection from police because she lives in fear of deportation. Will she persevere and be defeated, or find the inner resources to triumph over adversity? It is a story about clowns and cab drivers, dancers and bureaucrats, and love and laughter." - Joan Kane, director of Aliens With Extraordinary Skills

Cast: Debby Brand, Doug Rossi, Abby Savage, Viet Vo, Gabrielle Young, and Richard Zekaria.

Crew: Starlet Jacobs (Set Design), Erica Evans (Costume Design), Bruce A! Kraemer (Lighting Design), Ian Wehrli (Sound Design), and Shawn Banerjee (Stage Manager).

Joan Kane (Director) recently directd Play Nice! off Broadway at 59E59 Theaters and The God Particle which was presented in the Lower East Side Festival and the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. She has directd plays and readings at Theater for the New City, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Abingdon Theatre, Theatre of the Open Eye, Henry Street Settlement, Samuel French Short Play Festival, Strawberry Festival and for the Scandinavian American Theater Company. She has an MFA in Directing from The New School, an MS in Museum Education from Bank Street and is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Saviana Stanescu is a Romanian-born multi-award-winning playwright. Her work has been widely presented internationally and in the US. Recent New York productions include Aliens With Extraordinary Skills off-Broadway at Women's Project (published by Samuel French), Waxing West (2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-length Script) and YokastaS Redux at La MaMa Theatre, Suspendida and Vicious Dogs on Premises (with Witness Relocation) at the Ontological Theatre, Polanski Polansk and Aurolac Blues at HERE Arts Center, The E-Dating Project at Strasberg Institute for Theatre&Film, and the site-specific "I want what you have" at the World Financial Center. Aliens With Extraordinary Skills (Inmigrantes con Habilidades Extraordinarias) and Final Countdown (Cuenta Regresiva) ran for 8 months in Mexico City at Teatro La Capilla and Teatro El Milagro. Bucharest Underground won the 2007 Marulic Prize for Best European Radio-Drama. In Stockholm, Sweden, Saviana's play White Embers produced by Dramalabbet made it in the TOP 3 of Best Plays in 2008, and in NYC is published by Samuel French as one of their 2010 OOB festival winners.
Saviana is a member of EST (Ensemble Studio Theatre) and a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop. She was a 2005-2007 TCG fellow with the Lark Play Development Center, where her plays Waxing West and Lenin's Shoe had barebones productions. She also was a 2007-2008 NYSCA playwright-in-residence with Women's Project and writer-in-residence for Richard Schechner's East Coast Artists. Ms Stanescu is the Director of Eastern European Exchange for The Lark Play Development Center, the curator of playgroundzero for undergroundzero festival, and the founder/president of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York. Her website: www.saviana.com

Ego Actus: Founded by Joan Kane and Bruce Kraemer, Ego Actus (Latin for "My Way") is dedicated to doing art for art's sake. We produce, direct and design plays that are presented as a complete audience experience using all the elements of theatre: developed scripts, accomplished acting, designs for set, costumes, lighting, sound and props by people who have made those disciplines a focus of their lives. They each bring their own way of doing things to our shows and we unify them into a collective "My Way." We are affiliated with A.R.T. NY and Fractured Atlas.

WHERE:Theatre 54
244 West 54th Street
between Broadway & 8th Avenue
12th Floor
New York, NY 10019

Subway: 1, 9, C, E to 50th Street
N, R to 57th Street

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