Erin Markey's A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM Premieres Tonight at Abrons Arts Center

Abrons Arts Center and American Realness is pleased to present the world premiere of Erin Markey's A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM, a sharp and playful, performance art musical about the role childhood plays in our adult intimacies. Directed by Jordan Fein, A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM stars real-life couple Becca Blackwell (Doris Duke Impact Award Recipient) and Markey, a "magnetic diva," (The New York Times). It features a live, four-piece band playing original music composed by Kenny Mellman, Emily Bate and Erin Markey.

A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM is a musical anchored inside the memory of a Michigan backyard on the bank of the Kawkawlin River. A live band and original score become the space for the thrills and terrors of a relationship between Reagan (Markey), a vainglorious self-made girl, and Irish Cream (Becca Blackwell), her family's pontoon boat/horse. They are in love, but when their relationship is tested by dust ruffles, intimacy for money, severe T-storms, and a secret cellar, the only way to stay together is to remember all the parts of themselves their bodies tried to forget.

Performances of A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM will take place tonight, January 13, through January 31 at Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand St, Manhattan). Tickets are $20-$30 and can be purchased by calling 212.352.3101. Performances on January 13-17 are part of American Realness, an annual festival of new dance and contemporary performance at Abrons Arts Center.

The creative team for A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM includes Barbara Samuels (lights), Enver Chakartash (costumes), and Adam Rigg (sets). Musical direction is by Emily Bate, musical composition is by Emily Bate, Erin Markey and Kenny Mellman, and will be performed live by Ian Axness, Emily Bate and Chenda Cope.

For more information and to support the show, check out their fundraising campaign at igg.me/at/AROTIC.

About the Artists:

Erin Markey (Reagan, Writer, Creator, Co-composer & Lyricist) is a New York based performance artist, comedian, writer and composer named a "magnetic diva" by the New York Times and a Time Out New York Top Ten Cabaret Performer 2013-2015. Her work has been shown at BAM, Under The Radar Festival (Public Theater), New Museum, PS122, Bard Spiegeltent, New York Comedy Festival, San Francisco Film Society, and regularly at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater. She is the recipient of a 2014 Franklin Furnace Grant and a 2012 NYFA Cutting Edge Artist Award. She won an Eliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance in 2013. In development for A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM, she has been a resident artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Mount Tremper Arts and Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is a member of the Obie Award- winning theater company Half Straddle and is performing in and co-composing music for the company's upcoming Ghost Rings at New York Live Arts in April 2016. As an actress, she has appeared in numerous live and film/video driven projects. For a complete list, type "Reese Witherspoon" into an imdb search. She currently teaches at New York University.

Becca Blackwell (Irish Cream) is a NYC based trans actor, performer and writer. Existing between genders, and preferring the pronoun "they," Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expend our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Some of their collaborations have been with Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, Richard Maxwell, Sharon Hayes, Theater of the Two Headed Calf and Lisa D'Amour. Becca is a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award 2015 and recently wrote a solo show They, Themself and Schmerm that will be having a run in the upcoming spring of 2016.

Jordan Fein (Director)is a Brooklyn based theatre and opera director. Directing credits include War Lesbian (HarunaLee/Dixon Place), The Dixon Family Album (Williamstown Theatre Festival: Boris Sagal Fellow 2014), The Rake's Progress and L'Elisir D"Amore (Curtis Opera Theatre), Dialogues of the Carmelites (Opera Philadelphia), Rags Parkland (Ars Nova Ant Fest/Jack), Edibles Inc. (Incubator Arts Project). Jordan was the Associate Director on Rodger and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (Bard Summerscape, dir. Daniel Fish) and The Elephant Man (Broadway and The West End, dir. Scott Ellis). This spring Jordan will return to Curtis Opera Theatre (Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts) to direct a new production of Mozart's Le Nozze Di Figaro. He currently teaches at New York University, Playwrights Horizons Theater School. jordanfein.net

Emily Bate (Co-composer/Musical Director/Vocalist/Guitarist) is a singer, composer and harmony fanatic based in Philadelphia. Her current projects include Going Down Mount Moriah, a theater piece based around an 8-voice women's choir; a series of "zingles" (zine + single) combining writing and music; and acoustic chamber-math duo Jonagold.

Kenny Mellman (Co-composer) is in The Julie Ruin. Fronted by Kathleen Hanna, of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre fame, they released their critically acclaimed debut album Run Fast in September 2013 and have toured extensively since then. They are currently recording their 2nd album. Mellman was, for many years, one half (with Justin Vivian Bond) of the Tony nominated and Obie and Bessie winning act Kiki and Herb. Active from 1994 to 2008, Kiki and Herb were critically and popularly embraced for their mix of political fervor, punk rock extremity, outrageous humor and heartfelt passion. Kiki and Herb are reuniting for a brief run at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in April of 2016. That show will be called Kiki and Herb: Seeking Asylum. His show Kenny Mellman Is Grace Jones toured the US, Australia and the UK and his one man musical about gay bashing and homophobia, Say Sea Boy You Sissy Boy?, was commissioned by Dixon Place. After collaborating with Bridget Everett for many years, doing shows at Ars Nova, Joe's Pub and countless other venues, he co-wrote, with Everett and Michael Patrick King the show At Least It's Pink at Ars Nova. He also, with Bridget Everett and Neal Medlyn, co-created Our Hit Parade, a downtown NY deconstruction of the pop charts, which ran for 4 years at Joe's Pub and was one of Time Out New York's top ten cabaret shows three years running. He has performed with The Three Terrors (Stephin Merritt (The Magnetic Fields), LD Beghtol, and Dudley Klute, and was featured on Stephin Merritt's The 6ths record, Hyacinths and Thistles, playing piano for Bob Mould (Husker Du).

Created by Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor in partnership with the Abrons Arts Center in January 2010, American Realness is a festival of contemporary dance and performance. An internationally recognized platform for the discovery of new works from subversive artists, tearing at the boundaries of their forms, American Realness commands attention for the proliferation of choreographic and performative practices transcending the traditions and rewriting the definitions of American dance and performance. Since 2014, the eleven-day festival has expanded its scope to include the work of international artists, engaging a global dialogue around the practice and presentation of contemporary dance and performance.

The Abrons Arts Center is the Obie award-winning performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. The Abrons supports the creation and presentation of innovative, multi-disciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their practice with educational programs, mentorships, residencies and commissions; and serves as an intersection of engagement for local, national and international audiences and arts-workers.

Each year the Abrons offers over 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions and 30 residencies for performing and studio artists, and 100 different classes in dance, music, theater, and visual art. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, introducing more than 3,000 students to the arts.

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