Theatre Exile Presents The Aliens 9/1-18

Theatre Exile will launch their 2011/2012 season with the Philadelphia premiere of 2010 OBIE Award-winning The Aliens by Annie Baker. Directed by Exile's associate artistic director Matt Pfeiffer and starring the Philly Fringe's favorite son, Jeb Kreager, The Aliens runs September 1st through September 18th at Theatre Exile's Studio X, with the press opening September 7th at 8pm.

The Aliens invites you to the back of an organic coffee shop on a warm Fourth of July evening. Two ex-band-members, Japser and K.J have staked out this tiny corner of the world as their own personal fortress of solitude. When a new teenaged employee tries to get the 30-somethings to vacate the premises, an unexpected alliance emerges. Jasper takes the high-schooler under his wings, and introduces the lonely teenager into his and K.J's world of alienation and rebellion.

Theatre Exile presents the Philadelphia premier of one of America's hottest playwrights, Annie Baker, staged in the intimate Studio X. Starring Jeb Kreager, Sam Henderson, and Aubiee Merrylees, The Aliens promises to be a night of music, Bukowski and shrooms befitting the fringiest of the fringe.

Theatre Exile continues their legacy of bringing Philadelphia its first taste of the world's most exciting and adventurous playwrights. They have introduced Philly to Tracy Letts, Adam Rapp, Noah Haidle, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and many other nationally acclaimed playwrights. Exile will be the first to bring you the world of Annie Baker. Her work astounded New York audiences with her off-Broadway debut Body Awareness (being produced by the Wilma later this season)and Circle Mirror Transformation, which was extended multiple times due to popular demand and won the Obie Award for Best American Play. The Aliens, receiving its world premiere at Rattlestick just a year ago, also enjoyed rave reviews, securing Annie Baker's place as one the nation's most uniquely funny and quietly arresting female playwrights.

Theatre Exile welcomes Jeb Kreager back into the fold, after his critically hailed performance in Mr. Marmalade. Jeb is a familiar face to fringe audiences after years of creating work with New Paradise Laboratories, as well as appearing in the riveting European Lesson in 2008. Last festival, Jeb's performance as John Wilkes Booth in NPL and Riots Group's Freedom Club became one of the most talked about performances of the festival. The Aliens brings this powerhouse performer to audiences in his most gentle and surprising role yet as Jasper, the poetic would-be writer and leader of the lost boys.

Theatre Exile also welcomes Sam Henderson to Exile for the first time as the guitar-tinkering, psychedelic-tea-drinking K.J. Sam's unique performance style has been featured at the Arden, The Lantern and the Wilma Theater. Sam is also a prolific musician, playing in several bands including King of Prussia, Whales and Cops and the avant-garde Man Man. Also joining Exile for the first time is Aubie Merrylees as the sensitive Evan. Aubie has been a regular at People's Light and Theater Company since junior high school, having most recently appeared as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Matt Pfeiffer has assembled an exciting design team for a unique environmental night of theater. Philadelphia's own renaissance man Thom Weaver takes on set and lighting design, turning Exile's Studio X into a cement and chain-link sanctuary. Mike Kiley takes on sound design and musical composition, bringing to life the many songs filled with longing and rebellion that the young men share in the night. Mike's band The Mural and the Mint is a staple of the fringe scene and his work composing last festival's Takes put him on the map as one the city's most adventurous sound designers.

Director
Matt Pfeiffer is the Associate Artistic Director of Theatre Exile where he's directEd Barrymore nominated productions of Shinning City, American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bug and most recently The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Theatre Exile smash-hit of last season. Other credits include; Arden Theatre (Romeo and Juliet, A Moon For the Misbegotten, and Go Dog, Go!), Walnut St. (An Infinite Ache), Two River Theatre (Charlotte's Web and You're a Good Man Charlie Brown), Orlando Shakespeare Theatre (Wittenberg), Lantern Theatre (The Foocy), 1812 Productions (Beautiful Boy), Flashpoint Theatre (Run, Mourner, Run), Brat Productions (Popsicle's Departure), and 14 seasons with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. Matt is a 5-time Barrymore Award Nominee and a recipient of the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist

Playwright
Annie Baker grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her full-length plays include Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, OBIE Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, OBIE Award for Best New American Play), Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright) and Nocturama. Her work has also been produced and developed at the Bush Theatre in London, New York Theatre Workshop, MCC, MTC, Soho Rep, the Orchard Project, the Ontological-Hysteric, Ars Nova, the Huntington, Victory Gardens, Z-Space/Theatre Artaud, the Magic Theater, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah and Ucross, Wyoming. Annie is a member of New Dramatists, MCC's Playwrights Coalition and EST, and she is an alumna of Youngblood, Ars Nova's Play Group and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Recent honors include a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, a Lilly Award, a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, and a MacDowell fellowship. An anthology of her work, The Vermont Plays, is forthcoming from TCG in 2011. MFA, Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.

When: September 1 - September 18, 2011

Wednesday - Sunday (Times Vary)

First preview: September 1, 2011
Opens: September 7, 2011
Closes: September 18, 2011

TICKET INFO:
Call 215.218.4022 or on the web at www.theatreexile.org for specific dates.

About the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe

The 15th Annual Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe will take place September 2-17, 2011. Tickets prices range from free to $55, and can be purchased online at www.livearts-fringe.org or by calling 215.413.1318. The Festival Guide will be available the first week of August, and can be either downloaded as a PDF or picked up in hard copy at any Festival venue as well as at key "Hot Spots" (to be announced online in July) throughout the city.
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe were originally founded in 1997 as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Today, the Live Arts Festival is a curated festival of the world's most cutting-edge, high-quality performing arts groups who are invited by the Festival's Producing Artistic Director. The Live Arts Festival is often the only opportunity the region's audiences will have to see these works without traveling internationally. In 2011, 16 Live Arts shows will be presented.

The Philly Fringe is an unfiltered festival, where a platform is provided for new and established artists to present their work free of a selection process. For some it's a once-a-year, or once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a show; for professional companies, it can be an opportunity to try something new. The Philly Fringe seeks create a cityscape filled with theater, dance, music, and everything in between for audiences to enjoy; encourage artists to give expression to and develop their talents and artistic visions in total artistic freedom without any curatorial barriers in bringing that work to an audience; to help artists become successful independent producers; and ensure the growth and continued health of the local and regional performing arts community. In 2011, over 200 Philly Fringe shows will be self-produced by thousands of artists from throughout the region.

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