THE BUFFALO PLAY By Ciara Griffin & Kendra Mylnechuk Potter To Premiere At The Tank

The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) in association with MT + NYC Collaborative and BetweenTheLines Theatre will present the World Premiere of The Buffalo Play written by Ciara Griffin and Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, directed by Mason Wagner at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues), May 8-23.

Performances will be on Wednesday, May 8 at 7pm, Thursday, May 9 at 7pm, Friday, May 10 at 7pm, Saturday, May 11 at 7pm, Sunday, May 12 at 7pm, Thursday, May 16 at 7pm, Friday, May 17 at 7pm, Saturday, May 18 at 7pm, Sunday, May 19 at 7pm, Monday, May 20 at 7pm, Wednesday, May 22 at 7pm, and Thursday, May 23 at 7pm. Tickets ($35 VIP; $20 General) are available for advance purchase at www.thetanknyc.org. The performance will run approximately 90 minutes, with an intermission.

In a small town jail cell just outside Yellowstone National Park, an east coast social justice worker awaits her arraignment. Her crime? "Calfnapping." When she finds herself with a dead baby bison, its mother, and a local rancher as her cell mates, she's forced to reckon with her worldview. In The Buffalo Play wildness takes over, women and buffalos dish on sex, guts become armor, and media is an unavoidable storm. Inspired by true events, The Buffalo Play poses the question, "What kind of an idiot puts a baby bison in the back of their car?"

The cast will feature Ciara Rose Griffin, Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, Sukha Belle Potter, and Jeremy Sher with Installation Art by Liza Buzytsky, Media by Marshall Granger, Costume Design by Sarah Kelly, Dramaturgy by Kate Morris, Sound Design by Peter Musante, and Lighting Design by Mason Wagner.

Ciara Rose Griffin (Playwright) is a multidisciplinary artist whose inspired makeup creations have been seen on Good Morning America, The Late Show with David Letterman, Tribeca Film Festival, Fangoria, Vogue Online, Bust Magazine Online, Glamour, Refinery 29, and Comedy Central. Her NYC theatrical work includes FCKNLZ on Broadway (Museum of Art and Design), Three Day Hangover's Twelfth Night, or Sir Toby Belch's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Hamlet Project, Spem in Alium (MT + NYC Collaborative), and Astronauts Wanted (Dixon Place). Recent Montana credits include Dido of Idaho, and The Woodstove. Film credits include The Triangle, The Case of Josephine H, and Two Guys. In 2005 Ciara became a founding member of The Buttenik Ensemble (Butte Montana, Seattle Washington) and spent several years at Annex Theatre in Seattle as a company and staff member. In 2015 Ciara founded the MT + NYC Collaborative with Kendra Mylnechuk Potter. Since its conception the MT + NYC Collaborative has been an incubator for new works through a works in progress monthly reading series, productions, and writers retreats.

Kendra Mylnechuk Potter (Playwright) is a Native (Lummi) theatre artist and filmmaker. Her film performances screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, and festivals around the world. In 2013, she won best actor in NBC/Universal Pictures Short Cuts Film Festival. NY theatre includes both off and off-off Broadway venues. Regional work includes a national tour as Shelby in Steel Magnolias for MT Rep, and productions in LA, OR, and MT. She developed a theatre program at N'Kwusm Salish language school on the Flathead Reservation with William Yellowrobe, created and implemented 2017 curriculum for MCPS on Native American Studies using theatre in education techniques, and presented work at Thinking Its Presence '15 and '17, a conference on race, creative writing, and literary study. In 2015, she co-founded MT+NYC Collaborative, and directed two of the company's first productions: The Woodstove, and Dido of Idaho, and performed in The Wolf. With BetweentheLines, she directed last year's In the Snow. Kendra is currently working on a documentary called Daughter of a Lost Bird about her adoption and reunion with her biological mother and Native heritage.

Mason Wagner (Director) is a creator, director, actor, and producer based in Missoula where he serves as the Artistic Director of BetweenTheLines Theatre. Having founded BetweenTheLines in May of 2016, he has produced a dozen new, bold, and critically-acclaimed contemporary scripts. Often selling out their productions, BetweenTheLines has reinvigorated and reified the way theatre is made in Missoula. Mason holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Montana, where he received the President's Recognition Award, and recently trained with Siti Company during a month-long intensive. Credits include two national tours (The Great Gatsby; All My Sons), directed a touring production of 1984 (Pendragon Theatre), and an international collaboration with the Moradokmai Theatre School in Thailand on a deconstruction of Hamlet. This year he will produce another three-show season, as well as co-direct the lauded Dirty Sexy Chocolate Show.

MT + NYC As A Collaborative, We Are Deeply Interested In Both Rural And Urban Audiences: How They Are Similar, How They Are Different, And Where The Universal Human Experience Lies In Extreme Differing Demographics Of People. We Seek To Use The Audience As A Lens To Discover Where Our Story's Universal Truths Reside. We Are Dedicated To Sharing Montana With Urban Artists And NYC With Rural Artists Through Productions And Writers Retreats. www.mtnyccollaborative.org

BetweenTheLines Theatre is A Contemporary Theatre company devoted to telling stories that are true to us today. With a simple aesthetic, and unapologetically challenging content, we seek to cultivate empathy, reify listening, reflect humanity and present raw, fundamentally theatrical productions grown in the Missoula valley. Building bridges with other companies nationally and internationally, BTL Theatre seeks to connect with our rapidly changing global culture through the transmission of ideas and creative modalities. www.betweenthelinestheatre.org

The Tank is a non-profit arts presenter and producer. Our mission is to remove economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form, and to do so in an environment that is inclusive and accessible. We serve over 2,000 artists every year in over 800 performances, and work across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling. The heart of our services is providing free performance space in our two-stage theater complex Manhattan, and we also offer a suite of other services such as free rehearsal space, promotional support, artist fees, and much more. We support work at all phases of development, from readings and residencies to fully-produced world premieres. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all.

Recent Tank-produced work includes Drama Desk-nominated productions Ada/Ava (2016), youarenowhere (2016), The Paper Hat Game (2017), the ephemera trilogy (2017), and The Hunger Artist (2018), as well as New York Times Critics' Picks The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, directed by Meghan Finn (2016) and Red Emma & The Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan, directed by Katie Lindsay (2018). www.thetanknyc.org

 

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