A new play about one of the first and most notorious cases of invasion of privacy on the Internet - "IF YOU CAN GET TO BUFFALO: An Exploration of 'A Rape in Cyberspace' by Julian Dibbell," written by Trish Harnetiaux and directed by Eric Nightengale - will be given its world premiere this winter by Incubator Arts Project (inside St. Mark's Church, 131 E. 10 St. in Manhattan), with preview performances Thursday, February 13th prior to an official opening on Sunday, February 16th, 2014. Scroll down for some photos from the production!
IF YOU CAN GET TO BUFFALO is set in 1993 when the newly-minted World Wide Web was, at most, a curiosity to the billions of people who now take it for granted, and the world's first social network, LambdaMOO was created as an intended utopia in which the only rule was the need for no rules. A virtual mansion - comprised entirely of text - through which users could travel from room to room, LambdaMOO became the center of extreme controversy when a sinister puppet master brought it crashing down during a wild party of virtual revelry. IF YOU CAN GET TO BUFFALO explores the rise and fall of this new utopia, taking us on a hyperlinked journey that investigates the dark complexities and unexpected comedy underlying the birth of online relationships, posing the question - how much are we responsible for the things that happen to us online?
IF YOU CAN GET TO BUFFALO is inspired by the 1993 Village Voice article, "A Rape in Cyberspace" by Julian Dibbell - a leading technology journalist and currently a student at The University of Chicago Law School. The cast of characters from that time as the drama played out in real-life include Dibbell, Charlie Rose, "Bill Gates" and a writer from The New Yorker.
Featured in the cast of BUFFALO are Rob Erickson, Julia Sirna-Frest, Alex Viola, Starr Busby, Greg Carere, Minna Richardson, & Demetri Bonaros.
The production also featues Sound Design by Rob Erickson, Production Design by Eric Nightengale, and Projection Design by Jacob A. Ware.
Tickets are $18.00 and can be reserved online at incubatorarts.org. For more information about the show please go to Gettobuffalo.net or incubatorarts.org.
Photo Credit: Marian Lefkin and Debby Goldman
Julia Sirna-Frest and Rob Erickson
Rob Erickson
Greg Carere, Rob Erickson, and Julia Sirna-Frest
Videos