Cocktail Guru Wil Petre Presents SOCIAL ALCHEMIX (LIVE!) A Weekly Online Interactive Performance

Wil Petre, a NYC-based cocktail guru and a performer best known for his off-Broadway work (including Third Rail Projects' The Grand Paradise) invites the audience to join SOCIAL ALCHEMIX (LIVE!) - an intoxicating hybrid of intimate online game night, storytelling, and aligned serendipity held on Zoom.

Tickets start at $15.15, with subsidized and generous pricing options. Reservations can be made via www.socialalchemix.com/live; individual Zoom invitations are distributed by email before the show.

Is it possible to have a meaningful conversation with a perfect stranger in our socially distanced and lonely world? This question has inspired the theatre artist and storyteller Wil Petre to create SOCIAL ALCHEMIX (LIVE!) - a unique, Zoom-based project designed to conquer the Covid-era isolation. This virtual gathering extends on Petre's participatory live performance series A Cocktail Party Social Experiment, which debuted in 2019.

In SOCIAL ALCHEMIX (LIVE!,) everybody is asked to turn off their cell phones for the duration of the event; the idea is to enter the shared space, skip the small talk and get into the good stuff while sipping favorite drinks at the comfort of one's home. The host invites the participants to draw from an alchemical deck of tarot-like cards which in turn generate conversation prompts - questions such as: "What rules are meant to be broken?" or "How would you like to be remembered?"

The night is designed for players and voyeurs alike and concludes with a digital after-party in which the guests can interact freely using avatars and take the conversation private if they feel so inclined.

*Internet connection and a basic (free) Zoom account are required. The second part of the show uses a free platform Gather that does not require any additional software to be installed but the latest version of Chrome or Firefox is needed to participate.

"I created the Social Alchemix card deck and SOCIAL ALCHEMIX (LIVE!) to give people the tools to overcome the anxiety of striking up a real conversation, all the while retraining their ears to listen," says Petre, whose first-hand knowledge of how meaningful and healing a conversation comes from years of experience as an NYC bartender. "In a society where social media-dominated communication induces feelings of alienation and detachment, I am interested in creating intimate experiences that blur the line between performance and an intimate connection. With a pandemic thrown into an already toxically divisive culture, it is deeply important to speak with strangers with a remembered sense of curiosity, and not with suspicion or skepticism," he explains.

Wil Petre (Concept, Host) is a performer, director, and experience designer specializing in intimate performance in public spaces. He has been praised by The New York Times as "a supremely charming actor who finds every laugh in the script and many that aren't." Notable recent appearances include Third Rail Projects' 2016 show The Grand Paradise, of which he was an original cast member; Wil was also an original creative cast member of Queen of the Night, the 2015 Drama Desk recipient for Unique Theatrical Experience. Petre has also worked with The Civilians, Witness Relocation, Minute Zero, Collective Museum, Theater Mitu, and Les Freres Corbusier/Alex Timbers, among others, and appeared on stage at such important NYC venues as Playwright's Horizons, Cherry Lane Theater, La MaMa ETC, St. Ann's Warehouse, and Ars Nova. Outside the city, he performed nationwide and internationally, including appearances at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and in Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He also works in film and TV.

As a storyteller, Wil has told stories with The Moth, winning the first slam he participated in and appearing in many subsequent Moth StorySlams and GrandSlams. He also told stories at other open mic venues such as KGB Bar and Bar 2A. Wil was performed in the 2014 Future of Storytelling Summit in Snug Harbor, Staten Island (with The Windmill Factory), and the 2016 Future of Storytelling Festival at the Africa Center (with Woodshed Collective.)

Petre received his BFA with honors in Drama from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he taught for almost a decade. He is currently based out of Brooklyn, NY where he operates a cocktail experience company Aqua Regia and its signature Bar for One. He occasionally performs boylesque under the name Handsome Peter. www.wilpetre.com

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