HOME|YUVA Premieres at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Tonight

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, located in Long Island City, presents the world premiere of the new play Home|Yuva written by Sami Berat Marcali. Directed by Ellie Heyman, the cast features Michael Cavadias, James Fluhr, Burcak Arya Gocmen, and Pailo Heitz. Performances are set to begin tonight, October 28, 2016 for a limited run through Saturday, November 12, 2016 at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City, NY).

No common language, past comforts or future dreams. Home|Yuva follows an unlikely quartet -- a Turkish refugee, autistic artist, club star, and taxi driver -- in search of common bonds. Void of shared language, their bodies begin to speak. Drawing from the current refugee crisis in the Middle East and the increasingly fractured American dream, Home/Yuva is an international collaboration between Turkish and American artists developed through LPAC's Global Exchange Program.

LPAC's production of Home|Yuva is a crucial work of daring artistic investigation at a time when more than 60 million people world-wide-forced to flee their homes because of war, famine and environmental disaster-now live as displaced persons. Many of these individuals will never again live in the place they once called home and their children, born in refugee camps, will never share their sense of home. This humanitarian refugee crisis is directly affecting communities throughout Turkey, including Istanbul where Home|Yuva is set. Syrian refugees in Istanbul, and across Turkey, live in exile, with little to no hope of return to their homeland. Their presence is forcing the Turkish community to respond to this refugee crisis directly, through daily interactions.

Home|Yuva will play the following performance schedule: Friday, October 28 & Saturday, October 29 at 8:00PM, Sunday afternoon, October 30 at 3:00PM, Thursday, November 3- November 5 at 8:00PM, Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12 at 8:00PM. Tickets are priced at $20 at the door /$10 for students, and may be purchased through the LPAC Box Office by calling (718) 482-5151, or online at here.

Home|Yuva is an informed, moving and vital work that creates a safe and affecting theater-based space in which to investigate personal and collective issues of, and reactions to, identity, belonging, xenophobia, assimilation and, ultimately, the experience of home.

LPAC's Global Exchange Program is part of a newly established three- to five--year initiative, "The Balkan Project," intended to create new, collaborative theatre pieces with NYC resident directors and established international Theatre Partners in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia. These collaborations will allow LPAC and partners to enrich their current artist development initiatives and support emerging, international work, through the sharing of ideas and practices, and the exposure to new audiences both in New York City and abroad. Home|Yuva is the second production in LPAC's Global Exchange Program.

For additional information, visit www.lpac.nyc.

Sami Berat Marcali (Playwright) graduated from Y?ld?z Technical University and together with Eyüp Emre Uçaray started the Second Floor Theatre Company. His first play, Little,was accepted to the International Interplay Young Writers Festival. Other works include Lemonade, Lonely Anonymous, The Terrorist Upstairs, Surprise, Six and a Half, P*rk andLeave Me. He is the recipient of the Sadri Alisik Award and the Elkin Yazin Award.

Ellie Heyman (Director). Recent directing credits include Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleept (Mabou Mines), Elevation 509 (The Drama League), Lemonade (La Mama),They, Themselves and Schmerm (Abron Arts Center), Long Yam (The Bushwick Starr), among others. Upcoming projects include Beardo (Pipeline Theatre, January 2017) and Mr. Pictures in Boomtown (PS 122/Coil Festival, January 2017).

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center is a cultural "bridge" and integral part of LaGuardia Community College, located in the most culturally diverse urban area in the world, Queens, NY. LPAC has a long and respected history of engaging, presenting, and producing new artistic work by diverse, International Artists. The organization has evolved into a destination for high quality theatre, dance, and performing arts from emerging artists who are transforming the international arts community. In 2012, LPAC presented the New York theatre premiere of For Rent, by acclaimed Turkish playwright Ozen Yula, a work that was banned in Turkey and which was translated into English for its LPAC run. LPAC recently completed its pilot Rough Draft Festival, a showcase of compelling new artistic work-in-process by LPAC and other companies. The Rough Draft Festival's ongoing activities are being informed by a cultural exchange with Turkish Theatre Company VDST's New Text New Theatre Project.

The following are just a few of the many International Artists produced and/or presented by LPAC within the last five years: PCC, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, Ozen Yula, Anoushka Shankar, Pasha Dance (World Premiere), Albita, Carmen Consoli, Latif Bolat, D-Camerino, Alper Yimaz, Eldar, Luis Garay, Alejandro Caceres, Discanto, Tejas Luminous, Ayca Damgaci, Ayhan Aktas, Zishan Ugurlu, Alper Yilmaz, Ye Taik, Juri Nishio, Saviana Stanescu, Maja Milanovich, Ana Margineanu, Aktina Stathaki, Guillermo Ortega Tanus, and many others. To further its artistic mission, LPAC has partnered with some of the most prestigious international cultural venues that are located in NYC to present and produce new works including: Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy Of Music (BAM), The Public Theater, The Chocolate Factory Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, Flux Factory, NYC Opera, Queens Theatre in the Park, and Queens Council on the Arts among many others.

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