The Flea's SARAH FLOOD IN SALEM MASS Begins Performances Tonight

The Flea Theater presents the World Premiere of SARAH FLOOD IN SALEM MASS by Obie Award winner Adriano Shaplin (Pig Iron's Hell Meets Henry Halfway). This radical re-telling of the events leading up to the Salem Witch Trials will be directed by Rebecca Wright featuring members of The Bats. Previews begin tonight, September 24 with opening slated for October 6. The Flea's Producing Director Carol Ostrow says, "bringing Shaplin's work and his team of collaborators together with The Bats will be one of the most combustible theatrical events of the season."

In SARAH FLOOD IN SALEM MASS, blood feuds, black magic, and the birth of capitalism merge in this dizzying portrait of a village on the brink. Can the women of Salem alter their destiny?

SARAH FLOOD features Sound Design by The Riot Group's Adriano Shaplin, Set Design by Caitlin Lainoff, Lighting Design by Dante Olivia Smith, and Costume Design by Nikki Delhomme. The production stars Bradley Anderson (White Hot), Jamie Bock (White Hot), Veracity Butcher (A Letter from Omdurman), Thomas Carman, Yong Hyun Choi, Whitney Conkling (Restoration Comedy, These Seven Sicknesses), Matthew Cox (Restoration Comedy), Hannah Finn, Glenna Grant (These Seven Sicknesses, The Electric Lighthouse), Kana Hatakeyama, John Paul Harkins, Jed Krivisky, Christine Lee (a cautionary tail), Hank Lin, Elizabeth May, Jeff Ronan (These Seven Sicknesses), Isabella Sazak, Michelle Silvani (I Hate Mexicans), Elly Smokler, Mariette Strauss, Kate Thulin, and Nate Washburn (These Seven Sicknesses).

Adriano Shaplin is a playwright, performer, sound designer, and artistic director of the Riot Group, an ensemble he co-founded in 1997. He is the author of 11 plays for the Riot Group including Wreck the Airline Barrier, Pugilist Specialist, Victory at the Dirt Palace, Freedom Club and Sophie Gets the Horns. In 2004 Adriano joined Pig Iron Theater Company to create the Obie Award winning Hell Meets Henry Halfway, an adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz's The Possessed. In 2006 Adriano became the first International Playwright-in-Residence with the Royal Shakespeare Company and his first play for the RSC, The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, opened at Wilton's Music Hall in London in 2008. Adriano is a four-time recipient of the Scotsman Fringe First, a Sloan Foundation grant recipient, and has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, the Royal Shakespeare Company, New Paradise Laboratories, and Interact Theatre Company. His plays have been produced at the Soho Theater and Riverside Studios in London, the Arches in Glasgow, the Magic Theater in San Francisco, the Theater Der Welt Festival in Germany, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Princeton University, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Ice Factory Festival, 59e59 and The Culture Project. His most recent play, Sophie Gets the Horns, debuted at the Incubator Arts Project in May 2012. His plays have been published by Oberon Books, Playscripts Inc, and in the Yale School of Drama's Theater journal.

Rebecca Wright has directed and dramaturged for PlayPenn, the Lark Play Development Center, and InterAct Theatre Company. She has developed work with Philadelphia-based performers for First Person Arts, The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Micro-Fest Philadelphia, and SoLow Festival. Recent directing credits include Sophie Gets the Horns with The Riot Group, Merry Wives of Windsor with Shakespeare in Clark Park, 17 Border Crossings with Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, and Joan of Arc: Voices in the Fire with graduating MFA students at Columbia University, co-directed with Kristin Linklater. Rebecca is a co-founder of Applied Mechanics, with whom she creates immersive performance pieces, including Philadelphia Fringe Festival hit Overseers, and the 26-person historical fantasia Vainglorious: The Epic Feats of Notable Persons in Europe after the Revolution. She is a recipient of a 2012 Independence Fellowship in the Arts and a graduate of Artists U.

The Bats are the resident Acting Company members of The Flea Theater. Each year over a thousand actors audition for a place in this unique company. The Bats perform in extended runs of challenging classic and new plays. The Bats have recently appeared in premieres by A.R. Gurney, Will Eno, Adam Rapp, Beau Willimon, Mac Wellman, Elizabeth Swados, Thomas Bradshaw, Itamar Moses, Sheila Callaghan, Julian Sheppard, Ken Urban, Tommy Smith, Jonathan Reynolds, Trista Baldwin, Laurel Haines, Qui Nguyen, Sean Graney, and Amy Freed.

The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the world premieres by Steven Banks, Thomas Bradshaw, Bathsheba Doran, Will Eno, Karen Finley, Amy Freed, Sean Graney, A.R. Gurney, Hamish Linklater, Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio, Itamar Moses, Anne Nelson, Qui Nguyen, Adam Rapp, Jonathan Reynolds, Roger Rosenblatt, Elizabeth Swados, and Mac Wellman. Recent successes include Drama Desk nominated She Kills Monsters, These Seven Sicknesses and Restoration Comedy.

SARAH FLOOD IN SALEM MASS runs September 24 through October 26. Tuesday - Saturday at 7pm, Sunday at 3pm. The Flea Theater is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the A/C/E, N/R/Q, 6, J/Z and 1 subway lines. Tickets $15 - $55 with lowest priced tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. Pay-What-You-Can Tuesdays at the door. Tickets can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or online a twww.theflea.org.

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