New Comedy About NAFTA - QUIT THE ROAD, JACK - Begins 3/5 at TheaterLab

Quit the Road, Jack, a new comedy by Jerry Polner about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), premieres Thursday March 5 as a guest production of TheaterLab in Manhattan.

NAFTA? Well, when the son of a divorced and miserable couple of burnt-out ex-musicians runs away from home to join up with the immigrant worker rights movement, mom and dad are forced to travel across North America together to find their boy. Directed by Jonathan Warman, 'Quit' plays Thursday to Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM through March 22. TheaterLab is at 355-357 West 36th Street in Manhattan (between 8th-9th Avenue; Subway A,C,E to 34th Street), and $18 tickets are available (discounts for groups of 10 or more ­ use promotional code BIG) at OvationTix at 866-811-4111, or go to https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/941428.

Jerry Polner is a writer of sketches, parodies, and stage comedies, many taking skewed looks at serious issues. Recently, his How Do You Want it, a romantic comedy about the Federal Reserve System, won the Planet Connections Award for Outstanding Production of a Staged Reading, and his Fix Number Six, nominated for six Planet Connectionsawards, was also published by Next Stage Press and Indie Theater Now. His other short plays have been produced by the Workshop Theater Company, Brooklyn Playwrights Collective, Manhattan Theatre Source, and NY Madness; and Weatherman, a comedy about the weatherbureau, was published by Samuel French. Jerry¹s comedy sketch script Fugitive Math Teachers was one of the winners of Break Media¹s Break.com Video Contest. Online, he has written for Political Subversities and McSweeney¹s.

Quit the Road, Jack, produced by Radical Gags Theatrics, is co-presented by ALIGN (Alliance For A Greater New York), Community Voices Heard. The Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, and New York Immigration Coalition. In connection with the subject matter of the play, the co-presenting organizations will join in Fair Work, an onstage panel discussion about immigration and worker rights, immediately after the Thursday March 12 performance.

Jonathan Warman's other New York work includes the premiere of Tennessee Williams' Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws, starring Mink Stole and Everett Quinton, and the new musical Me and Caesar Lee with Ernestine Jackson.

The cast of Quit the Road, Jack, features Cynthia Bastidas (productions at the New Ohio theater, Denver Theater Center); RJ Batlle (The Improv, A La Vida! at the Hudson Guild) Jes Caitlin Dugger, (Fancy Nancy Off-Broadway, Guest star on TV¹s Homeland, co-star of Warner Brothers¹ One Tree Hill); Rosemary Howard (featured in the recent films The Wolf Of Wall Street, Weight); Connor Johnston (Portland Center Stage, Actors Fund Theater); Jorge Marcos (Guest and Co-Star of TV¹s The Good Wife, White Collar,) Jay Reum (featured on TV¹s Animal Planet andInvestigation Discovery series), and Rob Skolits (The Normal Heart, Lincoln Center Theater).

Set design is by Eric Marchetta, costume design is by Maddie Peterson, lighting design is by Yuriy Nayer, and choreography is by Liz Piccoli. The production is stage managed by Vanna Richardson.

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