Tjasa Ferme's WILD CHILD IN THE CITY Kicks Off Theaterlab's Fall Season Tonight

Theaterlab (Orietta Crispino, Artistic Director; Jolene Noelle, Program Director) opens its 2016 Fall in Love with Solo season with Tjasa Ferme's one-woman show Wild Child In The City, an absurdist comedy chronicling her quest to find a livable apartment in New York City.

Directed by the immersive theater stalwart Ana Margineanu (NYITA-winning The Window: 4 ALICE; Broken City), the show invites interaction with the audience and transforms viewers into active participants. Performances run tonight, September 30, through October 2, 2016 at Theaterlab's Midtown home (357 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor).

In this piece, Ferme combines her European sensibility and Kafka-esque sense of irony with down-to-earth toughness of a New York single girl who has seen it all. It is a story so unbelievable, twisted, and smelly that it must be true. The writer-performer recalls the top 10 experiences that occurred in her roughly 25 different rented apartments in New York. In the first scenario, as reported by WABC's Eyewitness News, an intruder claims to be Tjasa's boyfriend. In another, a subletter turns out to be a relapsed heroin addict who, in one of his fits, smears the walls with his own feces. Part dark comedy, part rant with a strong feminist twist, part immersive theater experience, Wild Child In The City proves with grit and wit that in New York City, the truth is often much stranger than fiction. Theaterlab's Artistic Director Orietta Crispino is delighted to kick off the company's 2016 Fall in Love with Solo season with Wild Child in the City. "Tjasa Ferme and Ana Margineanu are passionate artists, who make thought-provoking art," she explained. "Everyone in New York City can relate to this piece since space is our city's most precious commodity."

Wild Child In The City marks Ferme's first collaboration with director Ana Margineanu, who shares her European roots, and process-driven approach to creating work. The piece premiered at the Secret Theatre in 2015, and returns for a limited engagement New York City run after two European tours, September 30 through October 2, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 5:00 pm at Theaterlab (357 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor, between 8th and 9th Ave; Subway: A/C/E or 1/2/3 to 34th Street).

Tickets are $20 and available at www.theaterlabnyc.com. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Tjasa Ferme (Writer/Performer) is is an award-winning international Film/TV/theatre actress based in New York. She is a Slovenian National Film Award and Stane Sever classical stage award recipient. Known for: Three Trembling Cities, Simbi Zombies, Larry Gone Demon (8 wins), Two Pints Lighter, Weird (Cannes) and Revolution of Everyday Life. New York Theater credits include The Upper Room (Rady and Bloom, New Ohio), Leaves of Grass (dir. Jeremy Bloom, the cell), Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice, the cell), 400 Parts Per Million (dir. Peter Richards, Blessed Unrest), Red Noir (The Living Theatre) and more. Her first fully developed piece was the hit comedy Cocktales: Confessions of a Nymphomaniac, described by a NYC critic as "nothing short of brilliant."

The show ran for several weeks to sold-out houses and was later produced as part of Miami Art Basel. Her recent performance in Before God Was Invented was praised by the nytheatre.com reviewer as "a standout performance." She is a resident actress at The Cell Theatre Company and PopUP Theatrics. She is also the creator of a short film Ophelia's Flip (Cannes Film Festival, 2012). Ana Margineanu (Director). Hailed as "one of the reigning queens of New York's highly intimate, one-shot-only, conceptual-based theater" by the NYC critic Randy Gener, Ana Margineanu is a Romanian-born theatre director based in New York and a co-founder of PopUP Theatrics, an acclaimed group developing and presenting site-specific and immersive work throughout the world. The trademarks of her directorial approach are close cooperation with the local communities who are audiences for her work, highly metaphoric visual style, and ability to draw raw, visceral performances from her actors. Ana has directed many award-winning productions, including theatrical installation The Window: 4 ALICE, nominated for the 2013 New York Innovative Theatre Awards in seven categories and recipient of four awards, including Best Ensemble. Margineanu's other credits include: Broken City (2014 undergroundzero festival, NYC; Harlem, 2015; Financial District, 2016), Long Distance Affair (Edinburgh, New York, Mexico, Buenos Aires), Inside (Madrid, Bucharest),The Blind Trip (New York City), The Sunshine Play (Dublin/Bucharest).

She is teaching as an Associated Professor at the National University of Theatre and Film, Bucharest. She is a founding member of DramAcum (directors collective that supports young Romanian playwrights) and an alumna of Lincoln Centers Directors Lab. More at www.anamargineanu.com and www.popuptheatrics.com Theaterlab (Presenting Organization) has curated and presented new, experimental and hybrid work for theater as well as the visual arts. The company has a longstanding relationship with International Artists of note, showcasing their work to New York audiences. Recent productions include Reut Shemesh's Wildwood Flowers, Nicole Renaud's The Inflatable Salon, French POV#1-Body (Jacques Perdigues, Karine Laval and Pierre Kaufmann), and Orietta Crispino's Snow in the Living Room.

Theaterlab will present a Fall 2016 season celebrating the power and potential of the solo artist. Whether wildly fantastic or fiercely autobiographical, the sense of authorship, autonomy, and vulnerability found in solo performance make it a complexly compelling form. Through guest productions and sponsored projects, Fall in Love with Solo season challenges artists and audiences to explore the intimate and intricate relationships between performer, invented character, and spectator. For more information, visit www.theaterlabnyc.com.

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