Normandy Sherwood's RUFFLES, OR A PROGRESSION OF RAKES To Receives World Premiere at The Tank

The Tank in association with The Drunkard's Wife will present the World Premiere of Ruffles, or a Progression of Rakes, written & directed by Normandy Sherwood (The Golden Veil with the National Theater of The United States of America) at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), October 10-21. Performances will be on Wednesday, October 10 at 8pm, Thursday, October 11 at 8pm, Friday, October 12 at 8pm, Saturday, October 13 at 8pm, Sunday, October 14 at 8pm,Tuesday, October 16 at 8pm, Wednesdy, October 17 at 8pm, Thursday, October 18 at 8pm, Friday, October 19 at 8pm, Saturday, October 20 at 8pm, and Sunday, October 21 at 8pm.Tickets ($35 VIP; $25 General; $15 Student) are available for advance purchase at www.thetanknyc.org. The performance will run approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.

In a corridor haunted by wronged maidservants, a stable boy (Ruffles) considers the ways he is becoming bad because of the things his new job asks him to do. As a progression of rakes, profligates and libertines drink more liqueurs and vomit in the decorative urns, one rake reflects on his dawning consciousness that his actions harm others. He tells the audience: "I want to let you know that none of this is my fault. Not exactly. It's not like I want to do these things. It's just, I don't know, I do them?" ?Ruffles, or, a Progression of Rakes is a meditation on power, consent and how to be a person, that is, a good person.

The cast will feature Nicholas-Tyler Corbin, Braulio Cruz, Hannah Kallenbach, Ean Sheehy, Bear Spiegel, Ry Szelong, and Tony Torn with Sound Design by Craig Flanagin, Lighting Design by Kate McGee, Video Design by David Pym, Costume Design by Normandy Sherwood and Chelsea Collins, and Set Design by Normandy Sherwood and Craig Flanagin.

Normandy Sherwood (Playwright/Director) is a theater maker: playwright, costumer, director, performer. Her plays have been presented at The New Ohio (Theater Madame Lynch; Feather Gatherers), The Kitchen (The Golden Veil), The Brick (Permanent Caterpillar), Rubulad (Tiny Hornets and Mending) and more. Her theater company, The Drunkard's Wife, creates spectacles with no-wave inflected music and a generous, maximalist design sense. She was a lead artist of the OBIE-award-winning National Theater of the United States of America (2000-2017, R.I.P.). She has participated in residencies at Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, The Millay Colony, University Settlement and more. She is a fellow in the 2018 Target Margin Theater Institute. As a costume designer she has worked with Rachel Chavkin, Kristin Marting, Mac Wellman, Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Faye Driscoll and more. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College.

The Drunkard's Wife is a theater company led by Normandy Sherwood and Craig Flanagin that creates theatrical and musical spectacles in New York City. Our mission is to create and produce experimental musical plays and site-specific theatrical environments with a generous, maximalist design sense. Our plays are darkly comic, language-drunk, full of reverence for the hand-made and therefore wholeheartedly feminist and anticapitalistic. We are drawn to represent festivals and celebrations in our work, as well as complex moments of moral and emotional ambiguity. As such, our theatrical style combines our impulses towards camp, the carnivalesque, and the maximal with an appetite for subtlety, complex argument and tenderness. We make music that draws from folk mountain music traditions and no-wave dissonance, and that incorporates complex time signatures and improvisation. www.thedrunkardswife.com

The Tank is a non-profit arts presenter serving emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. We serve over 2,000 artists every year in over 400 performances, and work across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, public affairs, and storytelling. Our goal is to foster an environment of inclusiveness and remove the burden of cost from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. The heart of our services is providing free performance space in our 98-seat proscenium and 56-seat blackbox that we operate in Manhattan, and we also offer a suite of other services such as free rehearsal space, promotional support, artist fees, and much more. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all.

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