Photo Flash: CINO NIGHTS Opens at RPR

Following the sold out performance and overflow crowd at its first Cino Nights presentation (of Gary Sunshine's BEST SEX EVER in September), Rising Phoenix Rep continued the series with Mando Alvarado's (O)N THE 5:31 on October 24th. Described as "A bar. A blind date. And a deconstruction of how it all began. (O)N THE 5:31 takes a trip into what is remembered and what could have been." It was directed by Taibi Magar and the cast featured Jolly Abraham, Sarah Baskin, and Bernardo Cubria.

Inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino-one of the original birthplaces of Off-Off-Broadway theatre and early home to such writers as Doric Wilson, Robert Patrick, John Guare, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, and William M. Hoffman-New York Innovative Theater Award winning company Rising Phoenix Rep has commissioned nineteen playwrights to write new, full-length plays for the Seventh Street Small Stage, the intimate back room space at Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village, where the company has produced critically acclaimed and award winning productions for the past five years.
Rising Phoenix Rep artistic director Daniel Talbott described the series as a place to tap into the raw, inspired, inventive, and pioneering work of the Caffe Cino, where the love of theatre and new work was joined with a scrappy, do-it-yourself work ethic. All shows will be rehearsed for a week and then fully mounted and produced, warts and all, for one night only with free admission.

Cino Nights are currently scheduled through March 2012 and will celebrate the spirit of indie theatre as a home for new plays and theatre artists as well as hopefully honor what has been said of the Caffe Cino: "the first studio of theater where playwrights can experiment as painters and poets have done for a century, free from the tyranny of audience, box-office, church, and criticism."

The plays will be fully produced for one night only on a monthly basis. The playwrights, in the order their plays will appear, are:

Gary Sunshine's BEST SEX EVER premiered on October 3, 2010. It was directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and featuring Stephen Bel Davies, Cathy Curtin, Jimmy Davis, Mike Doyle and Jeffrey Nauman.

Mando Alvarado's (O)N THE 5:31 premiered on October 24, 2010, directed by Taibi Magar and featuring Jolly Abraham, Sarah Baskin, and Bernardo Cubria.

Courtney Baron's new play will be performed on November 7, 2010, directed by Daniel Talbott and featuring Denis Butkus and Samantha Soule.

Florencia Lozano: December 12, 2010
Kristen Palmer: January 23, 2011
Emily DeVoti: February 13, 2011
Cusi Cram: March 20, 2011
Daniel Talbott: April 17, 2011
Jessica Dickey: May 22, 2011
Adam Szymkowicz: June 19, 2011
Laura Eason: July 17, 2011
Sheri Wilner: August 28, 2011
Daniel Reitz: September 18, 2011
Crystal Skillman: October 23, 2011
Megan Mostyn-Brown: November 13, 2011
Charlotte Miller: December 11, 2011
Keith Reddin: January 2012
Dael Orlandersmith: February 2012
Jonathan Blitstein: March 2012

Reservations will be available one week before the performance each month. Seating extremely limited. For reservations please call 212-946-5198; for more information please visit www.RisingPhoenixRep.org.

Mando Alvarado (Playwright) is a writer and an actor. He's currently working on La Maga de Oz for Theaterworks USA. His play Post No Bills had its Off-Broadway premiere at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. His play Splitting Mama was selected to participate at the Black Swan Lab at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He's had developmental support from INTAR, The Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Atlantic Theater, The Goodman, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and The Lark. He was a Hispanic-Playwright-in-Residence at INTAR and is currently a company playwright for Theater 167. Other credits include the feature film Cruzando, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Michael Ray Escamilla. He participated in the Freight Project where he developed his play (o)n the 5:31 which will have a showing in October as part of Rising Phoenix Rep's Cino Nights at the Seventh Street Small Stage. (www.cruzandothemovie.com, www.tgtgfilms.com).

Taibi Magar (Director) The Dime Show (co-director, Women's Project & Productions), Hamlet, Inhale (The Gallery Players), The Wake of Jamey Foster, Kindertransport (NYU Tisch), W.A.C. Iraq (DUTF),  Rum & Vodka (Faux Real), Orson's Shadow (Outrageous Fortune). As assistant, Joanna Settle's production of Othello (featuring music by Stew), Broadway's Exit The King, and multiple productions at The Alley Theatre. She has also developed work with Soho Rep, NYU Goldberg Dramatic Writing Center, INTAR and LAByrinth theatre companies and was the Festival Coordinator for Suzan-Lori Parks 365Plays/365Days at the Public Theater. A graduate of University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Otterbein College and Lincoln Center Director's Lab. The 2008 Directing Fellow for the Public Theater Shakespeare Lab.

Founded in 1999 by Artistic Director Daniel Talbott, Rising Phoenix Repertory began by producing an ongoing reading series of new plays and has continued to add workshops, festivals, and highly praised productions of new plays. Recent productions include the acclaimed, sold-out Off-Broadway runs of Slipping, produced with Piece by Piece Productions and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Too Much Memory (also with Piece by Piece Productions) which transferred to the New York Theatre Workshop's Fourth Street Theatre after winning the FringeNYC award for Outstanding Play in 2008. Other recent productions include Ceremony, Afterclap, Birthday and Don't Pet the Zookeeper (Seventh Street Small Stage); 365 Days/365 Plays (Jimmy's No. 43 and The Public Theater); What Happened When (HERE Arts Center); Fall Forward (part of the Sitelines/River to River festival produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council); The Telling Trilogy (including The Ride, 2006 NYIT Award Nominee - Outstanding Original Short Script- Crystal Skillman), Rules of the Universe (Winner, 2007 NYIT Awards for Outstanding Original Short Script - Daniel Reitz and Director - Daniel Talbott), and Three Sisters (Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy's No. 43); Gift by Mark Schultz and Ponies by Mike Batistick (FringeNYC).  

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