Brave New World Rep to Present Contemporary Take on Strindberg in MS. JULIE, ASIAN EQUITIES

Brave New World Rep, the Brooklyn-based theatre company that first won acclaim with To Kill a Mockingbird staged on the front porches of Victorian Flatbush in 2005, has announced its next site-specific production - the world premiere of Ms. Julie, Asian Equities, Leegrid Stevens' contemporary adaptation of Strindberg's classic Miss Julie, transported to the time of The Great Recession and set on a state-of-the-art trading floor at Bed-Stuy's Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance.

Exploring the themes of class warfare and sexual politics, Ms. Julie, Asian Equities replaces the aristocrat-servant interplay of the original play with high-rolling corporate bankers and undocumented Latino janitorial staffers. Brave New World (BNW) has scheduled the play for 10 performances over three weeks (May 18 through June 3), with tickets free to the public (details below). The company has a history of providing audiences with exceptional low-cost, even free, immersive theater.

In this immersive "Wall Street" environment - with a real-time stock ticker and touchscreen LCD monitors - the main character Julie Harper, director of Equity Sales, decides to cut loose from the holiday parties at her investment bank, opting to stay late at the trading floor sharing chips and beer with the bank's maintenance staff. Some innocent flirting with a janitor sets the stage for a high stakes drama about the 99%, where class and seduction demonstrate how quickly power positions topple and reverse.

"It's amazing to find a fully functional trading floor in the heart of Bed-Stuy," says BNW producing artistic director Claire Beckman, "and we are indebted to Principal Darbee and her mission to bring Global Finance education to her Bed-Stuy public high school."

Beckman also sees thematic continuity for the BNW season. "When I first attended a workshop production of Ms. Julie, Asian Equities, I felt a kinship with Leegrid Stevens' exploration of class, power, oppression and privilege in America, having recently adapted Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, through the lens of Reconstruction in Virginia. Stevens re-imagines Strindberg's Miss Julie at the height of The Great Recession, on panicky Wall Street, and both plays, which are paired this season, feature rudderless upper-class women in male dominated societies navigating complex power struggles with ambitious working class men of color."

IF YOU GO:

Brave New World Presents the World Premiere of

Ms. Julie, Asian Equities

Author: Leegrid Stevens

Director: RebeccA Martinez

May 18 - June 3

Performances: Thursday, May 18 7:30 pm (opening night), Friday, May 19 7:30 pm, Saturday, May 20 7:30 pm, Sunday, May 21 7:30 pm, Thursday, May 25 7:30 pm, Friday, May 26 7:30 pm, Saturday May 27 7:30 pm, Thursday, June 1 7:30 pm, Friday, June 2 7:30 pm, Saturday, June 3 7:30 pm

At The Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance, 125 Stuyvesant Avenue, Brooklyn 11221
Transportation: M, J, Z (Myrtle Avenue)

Tickets: *All performances FREE to the general public (registration at bravenewworldrep.org/current-season. Reserved premium seating is available to Supporting Members of Brave New World Repertory Theatre

Cast: Erin Treadway as Julie, Michael Castillejos* as Juan, Jacqueline Guillén as Christina

Production: Janine Cunningham, Associate Director; Violet Tafari, Production Manager; Emely Zepeda*, Stage Manager; Deeksha Ketkar, Assistant Stage Manager; John Morgan, Scenic Consultant; Martina Nevermann, Costume Design; Faith Montrichard, Wardrobe Supervisor; Maria-Cristina Fusté

Ms. Julie, Asian Equities' director is BNW Company Member RebeccA Martinez, just named a Drama League 2017 directing fellow. For BNW, she directed Van Gogh's Sunflowers in Chuck Mee's The Immortals last season and played a leading role in Street Scene in 2013.

BNW Company Member Erin Treadway (Julie) is a frequent collaborator with playwright-director Leegrid Stevens and their company Loading Dock. Recent roles: Mayo Methot in Drama Desk Award nominee CasablancaBox (HERE), Clara in The Dudleys! (HERE), Julie in Ms. Julie, Asian Equities (The Dock at Loading Dock), Cleo in The Twelfth Labor (Gene Frankel Theatre) and Molly Jennis in Spaceman (Incubator Arts, NY Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance).

***Note: Mature Themes, not recommended for children under 15

* Appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association

For the past 12 years, Brooklyn's Brave New World Rep has carved out a site-specific niche presenting re-envisioned classics and works by Brooklyn playwrights. Recent work includes free performances of Elmer Rice's Street Scene, in which the company closed off a street in Park Slope and used a tenement building and adjacent street as the stage, and Orson Welles' Moby Dick-Rehearsed, presented on a barge in Red Hook.

Next on the calendar is The Plantation, a bold new adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, a post-Civil War story set after emancipation but before the onset of Jim Crow. Chekhov's Russian serfs become American freed men and women in this immersive production performed in The Commanding Officer's House on Governors Island (August 31-September 24, 2017).

The company earned its reputation of delivering unexpectedly immersive works to communities all around Brooklyn, beginning with its 2005 production of To Kill a Mockingbird, presented on the front porches and sidewalks of a tree-lined Ditmas Park street. Other work includes On The Waterfront on a Brooklyn barge that toured the waterfronts of New York Bay, The Tempest on the beach and boardwalk in Coney Island, and The Crucible by lantern light for two weeks at The Old Stone House in Park Slope. Based in Brooklyn, Brave New World Repertory has been a featured favorite of Celebrate Brooklyn at the Prospect Park band shell, presenting acclaimed productions of Fahrenheit 451, The Great White Hope and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, based on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

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