TOSOS in Association with Emerging Artists Theatre presents DAMAGED GOODS

Award-winning TOSOS, New York City's oldest professional LGBTQ theater, returns with the second full length production of their 2016-17 season with Virginia Baeta's Damaged Goods. The production is directed by Mark Finley (Penny Penniworth/Off-Broadway), and reunites the cast of the 2010 hit FringeNYC/Fringe Encore Series, The Secretaries written by The Five Lesbian Brothers. The critically acclaimed cast won an Overall Excellence Award at FringeNYC.

Damaged Goods received its first reading at the TOSOS Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwrights Project and was featured in the Dixon Place HOT! Festival in 2016. TOSOS Artistic Director, Mark Finley explains TOSOS decision to bring this production to the stage

"We had a great experience at the HOT! Festival and the response to the performance was really exciting...Sometimes Damaged Goods feels like it could be the grandchild of plays presented at the WOW Café, Theater in Limbo or dare I say, the Ridiculous Theater. Those pioneering LGBT artists blazed the trail and we're proudly carrying on the tradition."

It was supposed to be an easy job: trail the bad girl heiress and report her doings to dubious daddy. But private dick Thomas Sparks finds out the hard way that nothing is what it seems as he's lured through a lethal labyrinth of love, lies and larceny towards...Celerys? NYCs oldest LGBT theater company is back. And this time, its murder.

The cast includes Playwright Virginia Baeta (Nun of the Above at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and The Secretaries/FringeNYC) playing Thomas Sparks, leading a cast that includes TOSOS favorites Elizabeth Bell (R&J&Z/New Ohio Theater and How I Learned to Drive/Nashville Rep), Jamie Heinlein (Penny Penniworth/Off-Broadway and Weight of Water/Provincetown Theatre), Karen Stanion (Reasons to Live/Provincetown Theatre and Miss Caswell in All About Eve with Charles Busch), and Casey Weaver (Eat The Taste/Barrow Street Theatre and Gareth and Lynette/TOSOS).

Tickets are $20.00 for general admission, $10 for students/seniors (with ID), and are available at www.damagedgoodsnyc.bpt.me - cash only at the door. Performances take place at TADA, 15 W 28th Street (between Broadway & 5th Ave.), New York, NY 10001. Subways: R/W to 28th street, B/D/F/M/N/Q to 34th street, F to 23rd street. Running time: 90 minutes.

Show Dates:

Thursday, March 2nd at 7:00 pm (Opening night)

Friday, March 3rd at 7:00 pm

Saturday, March 4th at 9:00 pm

Thursday, March 9th at 7:00 pm

Friday, March 10th at 7:00 pm

Saturday, March 11th at 9:00 pm

Thursday, March 16th at 7:00 pm

Friday, March 17th at 7:00 pm

Saturday, March 18th at 9:00 pm

More information is available at www.damagedgoodsplay.com or www.tososnyc.org

About TOSOS

TOSOS ("The Other Side of Silence") is dedicated to preserving the theatrical heritage of the LGBTQ community through the development of new plays by emerging artists as well as revivals of established works. Their productions honestly explore the unique LGBTQ experience and cultural sensibilities in a life-affirming and respectful way. In 1974, Off-Off Broadway veteran Doric Wilson, cabaret star Billy Blackwell, and director Peter dell Valle, started the first professional gay theatre company in NYC. It was called The Other Side of Silence; TOSOS for short. In 2002, directors Mark Finley, Barry Childs, and playwright Wilson resurrected TOSOS. The company has produced over 25 main-stage shows and so many readings of new plays and works in progress they have trouble counting them all. TOSOS recently won The New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Revival of a Play for Doric Wilson's play, Street Theatre.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TOSOSNYC Twitter: @TOSOSNYC

Virginia Baeta (Playwright) has been an actor and singer for the past 20 years. She was most recently seen in "Nun of the Above," two plays from TOSOS/En Avant at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival (nomination, Eva Gore Booth Award), and at the Lower East Side Theater Festival. She has long worked with The Queen's Company (of which she is Associate Producer), an all-female classical theatre company, playing male characters from fops and fools to ill-fated kings. Through this work with The Queen's Company, she began creating new plays that challenge gender expectations and put strong female and queer characters on stage. Her play "Icarus" was presented to much acclaim in the Hysteria Festival of Women's Work at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. She continues to act and direct with The Queen's Company, TOSOS, other indie companies in NYC and in independent films.

Mark Finley (Director) is the Artistic Director of TOSOS (NYC's original LGBT theater company) where he has directed many of its award-winning productions including Doric Wilson's Street Theater at the Eagle which recently won a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Revival of a Play. Recent directing credits include the FringeNYC production of the critically acclaimed comedy, A Microwaved Burrito Filled with E. coli, and Rebel Boy Fireworks with TOSOS. Other directing credits include the OOBR winning A Perfect Relationship, FringeNYC favorites And Sophie Comes Too, The F*cking World According To Molly, and The Secretaries. His work as a director has also been seen locally, regionally and internationally including at the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival with Kathleen Warnock's Some Are People and Outlook, Chris Weikel's Pig Tale, and Michael Lynch's Living On The Real. Mark is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. His play The Mermaid is available from United Stages.

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