LESSER AMERICA Granted Home at Iconic THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY

After working together on the critically acclaimed run of the original play "Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times)" at Theater for the New City in 2010 (written by Jonathan Blitstein, directed by Daniel Talbott), Daniel Abeles, Jonathan Blitstein, Nate Miller and Laura Ramadei teamed up to launch a new theater company called LESSER AMERICA. Theater For the New City has granted Lesser America a residency affording the group three full-scale productions in its inaugural year, the first residency of its kind at the theater.

About LESSER AMERICA:

"Lesser America is pop theater. We are an ensemble of renegade artists dedicated to smart, quality entertainment that puts the audience first, fulfilling the promise of affordable, accessible theater for the 21st century." Learn more at www.lesseramerica.com.

Jonathan Blitstein says: "Theater For the New City is such an inspiring downtown institution and we're honored to have the opportunity to put up our new work there. There's a buzz going on in the East Village, and it truly feels like the neighborhood is the new epicenter of off-off- Broadway. We're delighted that Crystal Field, Mark Marcante and Jon Weber see the potential of our group to add to that community."

Laura Ramadei says: "We're deeply honored to be welcomed into Theater for the New City's space. So many great artists are associated with TNC and the role it played in the history of downtown theater. We only hope to maintain and enhance the theater's reputation for putting out significant original work, for the next generation of theater artists."

Crystal Field (Artistic Director, Theater For the New City) says THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY‘s mission is to nurture and develop writers for the American Stage. This fledgling group of writers and artists, coming together under the banner LESSER AMERICA, is a true continuation of a history that spanned Richard Foreman, Irene Fornes, Harvey Fierstein, Tim Robbins, Charles Busch, Mabou Mines, Romulus Linney and so many more. Young writers need a place to experiment, stretch their talents and bear their souls in an atmosphere free from censorship or commercial constraints. At the same time, they need to grow in Artistic Strength, have final say in all aspects of the production of their plays and learn how to protect their art as they enter the commercial arena. That is the place of Theater for the New City in the History of American Playwriting. We are pleased to welcome LESSER AMERICA into the TNC Family.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for both its quality artistic work and unique widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Vin Diesel, Oscar Nuñez, Laurence Holder, Romulus Linney and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and COBU, the Japanese women's drumming and dance group. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play by Gao Xingjian ever produced in America before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 42 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

BIOS:

Daniel Abeles is a founding member of Lesser America and a partner in the arts' financing company Dalyda. His on-stage NYC credits include: Ethan Coen's Offices at the Atlantic Theater, Keep Your Baggage With You..., Too Little Too Late (IT Award Nom.), Behold! The Bowery, The Heart Attack, and Falling Petals. Regional: The Gnadiges Fraulein (Provincetown), The Comedy of Errors (Lake George). Film/TV: Son of Mourning, Hunting, Gasoline. "Law & Order" (final season). Upcoming film: Repatriate. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Jonathan Blitstein is a founding member of Lesser America, and a member of the Rising Phoenix Repertory. He is a playwright, performer, filmmaker, sometimes musician and graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Recent projects include the acclaimed play Keep Your Baggage With You at all times at Theater For the New City, and his film Let Them Chirp Awhile which opened the Woodstock Film Festival, and played in theaters in several cities and on TV. In New York, he has worked with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and back in Chicago he studied at the Piven Theater Workshop and The Second City. He's currently working on several new plays including Squealer (coming May 2011 at TNC), and a play for the Rising Phoenix Rep's Cino Nights, and he recently wrote and directed a feature length thriller film called ANOTHER KIND for Vicart Entertainment.

Nate Miller, a New York based Actor is a founding member of Lesser America and the Detroit Arts Immersion Program. A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he is a graduate of Marquette University's theatre program and The Juilliard School's Drama Division (Group 39). While at Juilliard he worked with ArtReach and ASTEP and was the recipient of the Jared Nathan Memorial Scholarship. Since graduating, he has become an Associate Artist with the LoNyLa project and has been seen performing with The New Juilliard Ensemble, at Theatre for The New City In Jonny Blitstein's Keep Your Baggage With You... and at The Cino Nights Series with Rising Phoenix Rep in Florencia Lazano's Busted.

Laura Ramadei is a founding member of Red Elevator Productions, The Nola Project, and now Lesser America. An alum of Denver School of the Arts and NYU, Tisch, she's performed at The Public Theater, Cherry Lane, Dixon Place, the Pearl Theater, HERE Arts Center, the Seventh Street Small Stage, and Theater 80, among others. Ramadei has also worked extensively with the LAByrinth Theater Company as a performer, and behind the scenes; she assisted on the play production of Jack Goes Boating, and went on to work with Bob Glaudini, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and John Ortiz on development of the screenplay for the recently released film. Despite all this, she's probably most widely known for her work with viral web comedy greats BriTANick and Joey and David On such films as "Laundry Room Girl" and "Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses." www.lauraramadei.com

 

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