Godlight Theatre's THE PILO FAMILY CIRCUS World Premiere Plays New Ohio Theatre, Now thru 2/23

New Ohio Theatre presents the World Premiere of Godlight Theatre Company's The Pilo Family Circus, the sold-out hit of the 2012 Ice Factory Festival. The Pilo Family Circus is based on the novel by Will Elliott, adapted by Matt Pelfrey and directed by Joe Tantalo. The show runs from tonight, January 31 to February 23, 2013 in a limited engagement at New Ohio Theatre, located at 154 Christopher Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in New York City. Previews begin tonight, January 31 for a February 6 opening.

Performances are Tuesdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm and Saturdays at 3pm, with additional shows on Sunday 2/3 at 2pm and 7pm. There is no performance on Saturday 2/2 at 3pm. Tickets are $20 and $15 for students/seniors and can be purchased online at http://www.NewOhioTheatre.org or by calling SmartTix at 212-868-4444. The show is not appropriate for kids 12 and under. The running time is 90 minutes. For more information, visit http://www.NewOhioTheatre.org.

The Pilo Family Circus is recruiting and whether he likes it or not, Jamie is auditioning. He never dreamed of running away to join the circus, but you just don't say no to a troupe of exuberantly sadistic clowns out headhunting. Darkly funny and gleefully macabre, The Pilo Family Circus follows Jamie's furious descent into the nightmare world of a centuries-old carnival where amid the acrobats, clowns, dwarves, freaks and fortune tellers, you may lose more than just your way. Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ - the most vicious clown of them all. And JJ wants Jamie dead...

The cast includes Nick Paglino, Chris Cipriano, Dre Davis, Brett Glass, Lawrence Jansen, Gregory Konow, Craig Peterson, Michael Shimkin, Jenny Stulberg, Michael Tranzilli and Jarrod Zayas. The creative team includes Drama Desk nominee Maruti Evans (Set and Lighting Design), Orli Nativ (Costume Design), Ien DeNio (Sound Design), Rick Sordelet (Fight Choreography), Michael Blackmon & Maiysha Cade (Choreography), Brendan Tay & The Puppet Kitchen (Masks) and Cyrus O. Taylor (Production Stage Manager).

Godlight Theatre Company, founded in 1994 by Artistic Director Joe Tantalo, is an award winning and critically acclaimed company and the winner of the 2010 Special Drama Desk Award for consistent originality and excellence in dramatizing modern literature, and especially for the vibrant theatricality of Godlight Theatre Company's innovative productions. GTC's mission is to commission novels from the 20th and 21st centuries and produce world première adaptations in new, unexpected ways. GTC was a 2010 NYTheatre.com Person of the Year. The Pilo Family Circus received funding and developmental support from the Drama League Director's Project's New Directors/New Works Program. For more info, visit http://www.godlightnyc.org.

Will Elliott, based in Brisbane, Australia, is the 34 year old author of six books. He began writing fiction after dropping out of law school with the onset of mental illness. Pilo Family Circus was his debut. The book won 5 national awards in Australia, one international prize and was short-listed for an International Horror Guild Award. Elliott wrote Pilo whilst experimenting with sleep deprivation and various other states of altered consciousness.

Joe Tantalo is a recent Drama League New Directors/New Writer's Fellow (The Pilo Family Circus). His directing credits include Winkie, In the Heat of the Night, 1984, The Basketball Diaries, Slaughterhouse-Five Or: The Children's Crusade, Blindness, Fahrenheit 451 and A Clockwork Orange, all at 59E59. Other credits include An Impending Rupture of the Belly (Theatre Row) and Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy, The Trial of George W., Brown, Big Al, and Beds are Made to Lie In, all at EST. He directed both Fahrenheit 451 and A Clockwork Orange at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Tantalo was named Director of the Year (2002) by NYTheatre.com.

Matt Pelfrey is the writer-in-residence for Godlight Theatre Company and Furious Theatre Company in Los Angeles. His plays have been produced in the U.S. and overseas, and include Cockroach Nation, Terminus Americana, An Impending Rupture Of The Belly, Pure Shock Value, Freak Storm, No Good Deed and stage adaptions of In The Heat Of The Night and The Basketball Diaries. Pelfrey is the winner of the Actor's Theater of Louisville's Heidman Award and a Back Stage Garland Award for playwriting. He was a staff writer on the MTV series Skins.

The two-time Obie Award-winning New Ohio Theatre has a twenty-plus-year history producing and presenting the most exciting, sophisticated, irreverent and boundary-busting downtown theatre. From their new home in New York's West Village, they fulfill a distinctive need in the theater community, presenting works and supporting artists who challenge the mechanics of traditional narrative to create theatre that is both deeply humane and utterly fresh. The space is accessible from the #1 train to Christopher Street or the A, B, C, D, E, F or M train to West 4th Street.

Pictured: Lawrence Jansen as Gonko The Clown and Nick Paglino as Jamie. Photo Credit: Justin Ho.

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