Photo Flash: Artists Rep Presents the 2015 Pulitzer Prize Winning Play BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY

Artists Rep presents the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Guirgis. The play is directed by Adriana Baer and runs from March 4 through April 1 on the theatre's Alder Stage.

Retired cop and recent widower Walter "Pops" Washington slings back whiskey while his newly paroled son and friends wander in and out of his longtime apartment on Riverside Drive. The dog is a nuisance, the landlord wants him gone, and the NYPD is demanding a settlement on an outstanding lawsuit. After an enlightening encounter, Pops decides to take things in his own hands while everyone else hustles to get what they think they deserve.

"This play feels like a tightly wound spring - when you let it go, it takes off and doesn't stop until the final beat. The writing is so precise that I believe my job is mostly to just lean in and listen, acting as a witness for where our actors take this story," said director Adriana Baer. "This is a play about gentrification and how identity is linked to place, about race, mistakes, and second chances. It's set in New York City, right around the corner from where I lived during grad school, but its themes are universal and highly relevant."

"Following our 2014 production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' brilliant The Motherfucker with The Hat, we knew it would only be a matter of time before we returned to the work of this extraordinary playwright," said Artistic Director Dámaso Rodríguez at the play's first rehearsal, "Guirgis' distinct and masterful style of writing uses language that is at once naturalistic and poetic, and both tender and blisteringly funny. Riverside takes on incendiary issues including racism, money, corruption, co-dependency, and responsibility in humane and highly entertaining ways."

For Between Riverside and Crazy, Resident Artist Kevin Jones will return to the stage in the lead role as Walter "Pops" Washington, who has retired after 30 years from the NYPD after being shot by a white, rookie cop, and is struggling to make life-changing decisions. Jones is known widely for his work with the August Wilson Red Door Project and Hands Up, as well as his deft work as a director with Artists Rep (We Are Proud To Present..., The Motherfucker With the Hat, Seven Guitars), Profile Theatre (A Lesson Before Dying and Blood Knot) and Portland Playhouse (How I Learned What I Learned, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson). This production also features a talented six-person supporting cast: Artists Rep Resident Artists Val Landrum and Ayanna Berkshire; returning guest artists Julana Torres and Bobby Bermea; and Illya Torres-Garner and Ben Newman making their Artists Rep debuts.

Between Riverside and Crazy (2014) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2015 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, the 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play and the 2015 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play. Artists Rep's production is the play's Northwest Premiere.

Photos by Russell J Young

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