Purple Rep Presents Gay Plays for Straight People 4/8-30

Purple Rep, a new theatre company founded by playwrights Larry Kunofsky (What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends at Theater Row; A Guy Adrift in the Universe) and Mariah MacCarthy (Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story with Looking Glass Theatre; The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret at UNDER St. Marks), will present their inaugural project Gay Plays for Straight People (and also gay people), April 8-30 at The Paradise Factory (64 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery). The project will feature the world premiere of Kunofsky's play, The Un-Marrying Project and the revival of Ms. MacCarthy's play The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret (sold-out run at UNDER St. Marks in 2009), both of which deal with issues of gender identity and sexual equality

The Un-Marrying Project
Written by Larry Kunofsky
Directed by Rachel Eckerling
Welcome to The Un-Marrying Project, a documentary film where legally (and "happily") married couples will divorce! In the name of gay marriage! And not re-marry until marriage is legal for everyone! An act of civil disobedience that becomes a hard lesson: When you try to change the world, the world changes you.

The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret
Written by Mariah MacCarthy
Directed by Heidi Handelsman
Eight gender stereotypes, countless dance breaks, one intimately outrageous cabaret, and one androgynous omnipotent emcee to guide them all. A story about back-alley fights, The Pussies of America, sexting, acquaintance rape, infidelity, and the ass-backwards ways we seek affection. Welcome to the Genderf*ck.

"A great artist provokes without malice, evokes feeling and understanding, and perhaps plants the seeds of change. MacCarthy succeeds...one of the best off-off-Broadway productions I've see."
Le-Ann Garland, Theatre is Easy (Genderf*ck)

"Genderf*ck for the Y Generation is what Reality Bites was for the X Generation"
Grace Moon, Velvet Park
The project, presented by Purple Rep will play at The Paradise Factory (64 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery), April 8-30. Performance schedule and cast TBA.

PURPLE REP was founded by playwrights Larry Kunofsky and Mariah MacCarthy in order to produce their work in rep, so that when their plays are presented together, a larger story can be told. Over time, Purple Rep will expand in order to include other playwrights in our repertory model. We are committed to plays that provoke, plays that crack you up and crack you apart so that you can put yourself together again, plays that make you see red and hear the blues...until it all mixes in your mind's eye into a purple rush.

LARRY KUNOFSKY (Playwright, The Un-Marrying Project) is a New York-based playwright whose work includes My Therapist, a monologue play for forty-five actors; The Cat Person, a two-hander, with live cats; "Oh, Magic Bag..." about a bag of porn possessed by demons; Vicky Victim, about vicious office friendships among women; So Retarded - A Play For Idiots, a kind of Vagina Monologues-takeoff on the mentally challenged; bender/gender/straight/&neutered, a play-cycle on the ever-changing nature of sexuality; Death and The Pizza Man, a satire on developmental theatre; Thanks For Having Me, about a well-educated homeless guy who couch-surfs a lot; The Lunch Anxieties, which is kind of like the movie Groundhog Day, but with lunch, and without Bill Murray, and much scarier; Social Work (a nightmare), about health care, race, and Internet dating; and The Worst Person In The Whole Entire World Of All Time Ever, which is about everybody's mom. His current, ongoing project is THE GENESIS TAPESTRIES; a cycle of plays inspired by stories or themes from the Book of Genesis. The three plays completed so far in this project are The Myths We Need - or - How to Begin; ‘think-yer-better-than-me?!; and The Big Ear. He has been a three-time winner of the John Golden Award for Drama and a resident at the Edward Albee Foundation. His work has been excerpted in the 2009 editions of "The Best Men's and Best Women's Stage Monologues and Scenes", published by Smith & Kraus, and his full-length play What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends - an anti-social comedy, will be published by Playscripts in early 2011. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild.

"Kunofsky's voice is original and quirky." Martin Denton, nytheatre.com

"Friendships, we all know, can be awkward; social lives can be nonexistent. Playwright Larry Kunofsky satirizes these sad truths with deft skill... When we chuckle here, we're truly laughing at ourselves."
Amanda Cooper, Time Out NY (What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends)

"Kunofsky has an intensely theatrical gift for comedy, and his cast and crew have risen to the challenge of his smart, heartfelt play." Sam Theilman, Variety (What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends)

MARIAH MACCARTHY (Playwright, The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret) is a playwright and sometimes director/dramaturg/producer/blogger. She writes plays about the intersection of sex, gender expression, and the Kinsey scale, among other things. Her plays include A Man of His Word (San Diego Old Globe with Playwrights Project), a neo-noir about sexual obsession; Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story (Looking Glass Theatre, winner of 20 Looking Glass Forum Awards), a modern, cynical Romeo & Juliet with a girl as Romeo; Detained (Left Hip's "From the Hip" Festival), which is sort of like Deathwatch with lesbians; Bachelor/Bachelorette (a radio play with Co-Op Theatre East), which is about androgyny and bachelorette parties; Dismemberment (Player's Theatre), about a skeleton marionette's friendship with a lovestruck actor; The Foreplay Play (FullStop Theatre Collective), about a straight couple and a lesbian couple trying to all have sex with each other; and The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret (sold-out run with Rapscallion Theatre Collective). She's also working on a new play, Magic Trick, in which a hot 20something paraplegic leaves her boyfriend and becomes a burlesque dancer. She has a blog, A Rehearsal Room of One's Own, and contributes to 2amtheatre.com on occasion. She is also a member of the Dramatist's Guild.

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