J.Stephen Brantley's THE JAMB Makes World Premiere at The Kraine Theater Tonight

FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade in association with Hard Sparks will present the World Premiere of J.Stephen Brantley's THE JAMB, directed by David Drake, tonight, September 1, through September 17 at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery) with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7pm. Tickets ($25) may be purchased in advance at www.horseTRADE.info.

The cast will feature J.Stephen Brantley (R & J & Z at The New Ohio; Murder in the First at 59E59), Todd Flaherty (Sleep No More with Punchdrunk; Pirira with Theatre 167), Nico Grelli (Animals Commit Suicide with terraNOVA Collective; The Foreplay Play with CapsLock Theater), and Carole Monferdini (Obie Award for The Club at Circle in the Square; Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom) with Lighting Designer Jonathan Cottle, Set Designer Andrew Diaz, Sound Designer Mark Van Hare, Costume Designer Audrey Nauman, and Stage Manager Leah Montesinos.

The Jamb is a queer coming-of-middle-age story set in 2008. Directed by Obie-winner David Drake, J.Stephen Brantley's punk rock rom-com on crystal meth examines how addiction, politics and pop culture have impacted the lives of gay American men who grew up post-Stonewall, pre-Will & Grace. Mature audiences only.

It's 2008 and gay punks Tuffer and Roderick are turning forty. Neither wants to face it. While Tuffer continues to smoke, snort, and screw his way through Manhattan's collegiate male population, Roderick's gone straightedge, embracing activism and martial arts. With the arrival of Tuffer's latest boy toy, Roderick can take no more. After a disastrous quasi-intervention, Tuffer agrees to a sobering-up at Roderick's folk-singing mother's house in rural New Mexico. Both will hit bottom on the high desert, on The Edge, in the jamb.

Frequent collaborators J.Stephen Brantley (Pirira, Chicken-Fried Ciccone) and David Drake (The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me,The Lily's Revenge) stage-dive into the love lives of gay American men who grew up outlaws, now teetering on The Edge of equality. Their previous piece together, Chicken-Fried Ciccone: A Twangy True Tale Of Transformation, presented by the FRIGID Festival, was nominated for two New York Innovative Theatre Awards. Brantley and Drake, themselves both in recovery, present a close-up view of sex, drugs, and rock and roll through a decidedly queer lens.

FRIGID New York Artistic Director Erez Ziv and playwright J.Stephen Brantley first crossed paths inside the small basement black box theatre run by Horse Trade Theatre Group known as UNDER St. Marks. But writer-performer Brantley was doing neither at the time. Homeless and in the throes of heroin addiction, he was squatting in the little performance space, sneaking in late at night and scurrying away before first rehearsals the next day. That is, until he was ushered out by Ziv one final time. It would be years before the two met again - they co-produced Brantley's 2011 NYIT-nominated Eightythree Down - and neither realized who the other was until 2014, when mention of the incident was included in Brantley's autobiographical one-man cabaret Chicken-Fried Ciccone, performed, naturally, at UNDER St. Marks.

J.Stephen Brantley (Playwright/Actor) Off-Broadway: The Directors Co production of Murder In The First at 59E59, and Theatre 167's Pirira at West End Theater. Regional: The Night Alive at Guild Hall, Of Mice And Men at Bay Street, Slap & Tickle at Provincetown Theater, and Romeo And Juliet with its zombie sequel R & J & Z at Stonington Opera House. Brantley has also worked with Big Dance, CapsLock, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Jewish Plays Project, and at venues including Queens Theatre, LaMaMa, Metropolitan Playhouse, The New Ohio, P.S.122, and Soho Rep. His plays include Billy Baal, Blood Grass, Break,Chicken-Fried Ciccone, Eightythree Down, Furbelow, and Pirira. Brantley is an eight-time New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee, and winner of the Micheál MacLiammóir Award for Best Actor at the 2013 Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival. He is the Producing Artistic Director of Hard Sparks and a member of the Indie Theatre Hall Of Fame. www.jstephenbrantley.com

David Drake (Director) is an Obie Award-winner for his long-running solo show The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, David is thrilled to helm J.Stephen Brantley's The Jamb, having developed and directed Brantley's acclaimed musical memoir Chicken-Fried Ciccone for the 2014 FRIGID Festival (which received two NYIT Award nominations). David has twice been a directing fellow at the Sundance Theater Lab, as well as residencies at DTW and the KimMel Center. He developed and directed The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac (New York Times, TONY, New Yorker Critic's picks) which played Under the Radar at The Public before an extensive global tour, as well as the world premiere of Mac's Obie Award-winning epic The Lily's Revenge at HERE. Most recently, David gender-swapped production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest broke box office records at the historic Provincetown Theater on Cape Cod this past spring. Meanwhile, at Joe's Pub for the past year, David has been the writer and director of Migguel Anggelo's Another Son of Venezuela (NY Magazine Critic's Pick), which, this summer, launched its first international tour in Russia.

FRIGID NEW YORK is a theater development group with a focus on new work that produces a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater every season. FRIGID's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. FRIGID New York grew out of the annual FRIGID Festival, the first and only festival of its kind in New York City to offer artists 100% of their box office proceeds, and Horse Trade Theater Group, a self-sustaining theater development and management group.

The Jamb is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

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