Rising Phoenix Rep Starts Waiting Lists for Sold Out Run of CEREMONY, Runs Thru 9/29

After the critical success and sold out runs of its first two Off-Broadway productions, with Piece by Piece Productions-of Slipping at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Too Much Memory at the New York Theatre Workshop's Fourth Street Theatre-Caffe Cino Fellowship winning company Rising Phoenix Rep returns to the backroom pub space at the Seventh Street Small Stage to present the world premiere of Ceremony, award-winning playwright Mark Schultz's new site-specific play. Directed by RPR Artistic Associate Brian Roff, the production will feature Evan Crommett, Alex Flores, and Meg Gibson.

Remaining performances are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 6PM. All shows are sold out and a waiting list forms at the theatre at 5:30PM each night. Running time approximately 45 minutes. Tickets: $10, cash only at the door. For more information please call 212.946.5198 or visit www.risingphoenixrep.org.

Commissioned and written specifically for the moody and extremely intimate close quarters in the basement space of downtown restaurant Jimmy's No. 43, in Schultz's play two boys from different families meet on the eve of the wedding that will make them brothers. As they test the boundaries of acceptance and innocence, life after the ceremony hangs in the balance.

Small Stage, 43 East Seventh Street (6 to Astor Place, R/W to 8th Street, F train to 2nd Ave).

Mark Schultz (Playwright) Plays include: The Gingerbread House (the stageFARM); Deathbed(Apparition Productions); Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy (Soho Rep/True Love Productions) for which he won the 2005 Oppenheimer Award and the 2006 Kesselring Prize; Polar Bear (commissioned and produced by Birmingham Rep, UK); Gift (Rising Phoenix Rep / NY Fringe Festival); and various one-acts including Fun (commissioned and produced by the StageFARM). Everything Will Be Different was produced by the Actors Touring Company with Theatre Royal Plymouth under the title A Brief History of Helen of Troy at the Soho Theatre in London after a UK tour. Other plays include Magic Kingdom; Brightness. He has received a Sloan Commission from MTC, as well as commissions from
Playwrights Horizons and The Exchange. Readings and workshops: MCC Theater; The Vineyard; Rattlestick; MTC; New York Theater Workshop; The Public; Studio Dante; Woolly Mammoth. He was selected for a 2006 Royal Court Residency. He is a member of Rising Phoenix Rep, and is coordinator of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University.

Brian Roff (Director) Recent directing credits include Dutch Masters by Greg Keller (LAByrinth) What Happened When by Daniel Talbott (HERE), Crazy Little Thing by Melissa Ross (Center Stage), The Claiming Race by Robert Glaudini (Theater for a New City), Amazing by Brooke Berman (Contemporary American Theater Festival), Water Born by Edith Freni (EST), The Sibling Plays by Daniel Talbott (Rising Phoenix Rep), Ponies by Mike Batistick (FringeNYC) and seven LAByrinth Celebrity Charades benefits. He was assistant director to Philip Seymour Hoffman on The Little Flower of East Orange, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Our Lady of 121st Street, all by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He is an artistic associate of Rising Phoenix Rep and a member of LAByrinth Theater Company.

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 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); 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); Gift by Mark Schultz and Ponies by Mike Batistick (FringeNYC). Inspired by Joe Cino and his Caffe Cino, starting in September the company will present Cino Nights, a year-and-a-half-long event of fully produced plays commissioned for the Seventh
Street Small Stage.

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