EXODUS CODE: ADVICE FOR WANDERERS to Premiere at Flea Theater, 7/12-28

This July at the Flea Theater, America-In-Play will present the premiere of Exodus Code: Advice for Wanderers, a new theater production inspired by Yiddish vaudeville and the history of the Lower East Side. Running from July 12-July 28 and featuring direction from Lynn M. Thomson, the production will honor this long-neglected and entertaining cultural art form, linking the past to the present and bringing together an array of immigrant stories to evoke an archetypal immigrant experience. The show was first read at and developed with the assistance of the Lower East Side Tenement Museumwhere America-In-Play had a four-year partnership.

The cast will feature Broadway's Ann Talman (The Little Foxes, The House of Blue Leaves, The Women), Max Arnaud,comedian Shane Baker, and Carey Urban.

Set in a recently discovered old American theatre accidentally uncovered in a building site, Exodus Code: Advice for Wanderers tells of four people, each with different connections to the abandoned theatre, who come together the night before demolition. They uncover objects, strangely still in the condition they would have been in 100 years earlier, and while talking about the old Lower East Side, begin to enact their notions of Yiddish Vaudeville. Made up of individual scenes and songs interspersed with comic monologues and anecdotes, the production seamlessly blends incidents from Yiddish drama and history and is also inspired by "A Bintel Brief," a column that appeared in the Yiddish language Jewish Daily Forward for eighty years and was an outlet for immigrants to voice their stories, queries and terrors about life on the Lower East Side.

Exodus Code: Advice for Wanderers is written by Shane Baker, Laura E. Henry, Rob Hartmann, Andrea Lepcio, Susan Tennierello and was conceived by Lynn M. Thomson. It features original music by Rob Hartman, lyrics by Andrea Lepcio and Susan Tennierello with dramaturgy by Elizabeth Bojsza, Shane Breaux, Andy Buck, and Lynn M. Thomson.

Exodus Code: Advice for Wanderers will run Wed-Sun from July 12-July 26 at the Flea Theater (41 White Street) with performances Wednesday & Saturdays at 5pm, Thursday-Saturdays at 9pm and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets, priced at $18 ($12 for students/seniors) can be purchased online at www.TheaterMania.com or by phone at 212-352-3101.