Andrea Kuchlewska & Zac Jaffee proudly announce the world premiere of COMPLETE. Written by Andrea Kuchlewska and directed by Birgitta Victorson, COMPLETE will be part of the 13th annual New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC.
Performances will take place at the Studio at Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street, on SAT 8/15 @ 5:00pm, WED 8/19 @ 2:15pm, FRI 8/21 @ 7:00pm, MON 8/24 @ 3:30pm, WED 8/26 @ 6:15pm, SAT 8/29 @ 2:45pm.
BEFORE TONY ROBBINS, BEFORE "THE SECRET," BEFORE DR. PHIL, WERNER ERHARD'S EST TRAINING TAUGHT US THAT WE "CREATE" OUR LIVES. Est, a four-day group training on the self-help landscape of the 1970s and '80s, was accused by some of being a cult. Inspired by her involvement in est starting at age eight, playwright Andrea Kuchlewska constructs a fictional "Training" in COMPLETE - a world in which "I intend to create a parking space" and "You can create yourself being any way you want to be" are normal statements, even in the mouth of a nine-year-old - one of the play's main characters. COMPLETE is a fast-paced comedy in which two obsessive linguists, a nine-year-old zealot, and a charismatic seminar leader wrangle over the power and perversion of language. When Eve finds out Micah is doing "the Training," she risks their careers, their relationship, their safety to prove how destructive the notion of self-creation can be.
"COMPLETE is a fast-paced comedy that taps into our national obsession with individualism and the insecurities that accompany it, and highlights the often-absurd legacy of self-help jargon found in our everyday conversations," says director Birgitta Victorson. "The play also points to why things like ‘the Training' are attractive to and helpful to so many people."
This spring COMPLETE was read at The Barrow Group Theatre Company where Kuchlewska is a member of the Women's Development Group. COMPLETE was developed in the Z Magic Monday reading series at Magic Theatre in San Francisco, as well as in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and at The Z Space Studio, where Andrea Kuchlewska is an artist in residence.
Victorson's directing credits include the new musical Paris by Night at Trinity Repertory Company, Iggy Woo at Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep., co-direction of Fatty Arbuckle's Spectacular Musical Review at Second City Theatricals, and The Book of Liz at Roadworks, Chicago. She has also choreographed for Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, Two River Theater Co., Miloco Theater Company in Prague, CZ, and holds an MFA in directing from Brown University.
The cast includes Dylan Price (David Barth's Hard Right), Lucy Owen, Zac Jaffee, and 9-year-old Sophia Rodyakin. Sound design by Daniel Kluger (The Temperamentals, Jailbait), lighting by Christopher Studley, costumes by Karen Flood (original production of Urinetown).
For more information visit, www.completetheplay.com.
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