The Tank to Launch 2017 Season with World Premiere of PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

The Tank will host the world premiere of PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, co-written by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques, and directed by Skylar Fox. Produced by Nightdrive in association with Jenny Gorelick with Alexander Donnelly and Fortress Productions, and part of The Tank's Flint & Tinder series, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND begins performances on Friday, January 13 for a limited engagement through Sunday, January 29. Opening Night is Sunday, January 15 at 7 PM.

The performance schedule is Thursday - Sunday at 7 PM. Performances are at The Tank (151 West 46th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues). Tickets are $15 - $20. To purchase tickets, visit www.thetanknyc.org.

There's this town. All these people live there. There are all these places they live in. And eat at. And avoid. And die in. It's the kind of town you hear about and think: "I should take a trip up there. For the fall colors." But you never do. Tonight is all about this town. And its people. And their places. There are also giant squirrels in this town, and memorial dances, and a set of quintuplets mysteriously separated at birth-but we'll get to them later.

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND explores how people build towns, how towns build memories, and how those memories build new people and towns altogether.

The cast features Ava Langford, Chloe Ivanson, Danielle Guido, Simon Henriques, and Zina Ellis.

Nightdrive makes inventive, funny, strange plays that push theatrical boundaries in order to communicate with audiences in new and exciting ways. Their work has been produced at Ice Factory at the New Ohio, Ars Nova, the Brick, Fresh Ground Pepper, the Flea, and the Orange Tea Theatre in Amsterdam. Their show ...Apathy Boy was a 2015 O'Neill finalist.

Skylar Fox (co-writer/director) is a director, playwright, and actor. Recent solo writing credits include Heist Play (Brown University Mainstage), The Last of the Living Jeffersons (runner-up for the Gaffney Prize, administered by La Jolla Playhouse and UCSD), The Archives (Fort Point Theatre Channel), and A Brief Informational Session on What Used to Be Central Park (2015 Heideman Award Finalist; Everyday Inferno). His short play A Wake for David's Fucked-Up Face won the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Play Festival in 2014. He was the founding artistic director of The Circuit Theatre Company in Boston, where he directed nine productions over five seasons, including the Boston premieres of the six-hour genre-bending hero epic The Valentine Trilogy and Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play, for which he was nominated for an IRNE Award. Other directing credits include Providence premieres of The Aliens by Annie Baker and The Hotel Nepenthe by John Kuntz, as well as Enron by Lucy Prebble, Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and the world premiere of Minuet: a lullaby by Seth Simons.

Simon Henriques (co-writer) is a writer, actor, and comedian. His plays include Love Song for General Tso (2016 O'Neill Semifinalist), A play about Amy Adams (Writing is Live Festival), Narrators (2015 Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival Winner), and Cop Show Family Show News Show Show (Fresh Ground Pepper). He studied playwriting at Brown University, where he was awarded the T. Carpenter Elocution Prize for being "an exceptional and multitalented writer with a singular voice." He once got retweeted by either Cole or Dylan Sprouse, he can't remember which.

The Tank is a Manhattan-based non-profit arts presenter and producer. We serve emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. Our goal is to foster an environment of inclusiveness and remove the economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. The heart of our services is providing free performance space in the 62-seat blackbox that we operate in Manhattan, and we also offer a suite of other resources such as free rehearsal space, promotional support, and artist fees. Our programming is multi-disciplinary, representing disciplines including theater, music, dance, comedy, film, and storytelling. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all and positioning the arts within civic and socio-political discourse.

Founded in 2003 by nine emerging artists, The Tank has since provided an artistic home for tens of thousands of New York City-based performers. Recent successes produced by The Tank as part of Flint & Tinder include Manual Cinema's Ada/Ava (Drama Desk nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience, New York Times Critics' Pick), Mac Wellman's The Offending Gesture (New York Times Critics' Pick), Andrew Schneider's youarenowhere (Drama Desk nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience, New York Times Critics' Pick), and Torry Bend's The Paper Hat Game (New York Times Critics' Pick). Artists who have presented work at The Tank early on in their careers include Alex Timbers (Tony-nominated theater director), Reggie Watts (theater performer/comedian/ musician currently the bandleader on The Late Late Show with James Corden), Amy Herzog (Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright), Lucy Alibar (whose one-act play Juicy and Delicious premiered at The Tank and was adapted to be the Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild), Andrew Bujalski (film director, Computer Chess), and We Are Scientists (rock band). The Tank also presented the premiere of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant by Kyle Jarrow, which won an Obie Award and went on to a national tour. The Tank has been honored with an official City Council proclamation, chosen for the WNYC *STAR* initiative, and featured on CNN, BBC, the New York Times, and more.

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