Factory 449 Presents Sarah Kane's 4.48 PSYCHOSIS, 10/8

Factory 449: a theatre collective debuts with its inaugural production of 4.48 PSYCHOSIS by Sarah Kane, author of Crave and Blasted. The production, a remount of Factory 449's award-winning workshop production staged as part of the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival, was recognized as "Best Drama" & "Best Overall Production" by the Festival and "Favorite Festival Play" by DC Theatre Scene. Directed by John Moletress and produced by Rick Hammerly, the cast features Factory 449 company members Sara Barker, Lisa Hodsoll and Brian Hemmingsen.

4.48 PSYCHOSIS runs October 8 - 25, 2009 at The Warehouse. Performances are Thurs - Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 2:30 & 7 pm, with additional performance on Monday, October 19 at 8 pm. All tickets are $20 and can be purchased by phone at (866) 811-4111 or online at: www.factory449.com

"The play presents several challenges," states Factory 449 co-Artistic Director John Moletress. "It has no character delineations, no stage directions, exists in 24 separate sections, and dialogue is only suggested in certain sections by dashes." In wanting the "environment of the play to be incredibly visceral," Moletress has worked with Factory 449 company members Jesse Achtenberg, Eric Grims and Ryan Keebaugh to create (respectively) a video design, lighting design and original music for the production. As he incorporates these design elements, Moletress looks for the audience to respond not just to Sarah Kane's provocative text, but to "experience the play from the mind of someone who is in the depths of madness."

Written from the point of view of someone with severe clinical depression, a disorder from which Sarah Kane suffered, 4.48 PSYCHOSIS  is a brutal and poetic exploration of a mind preparing to shut itself down. Spiked with gallows humor, Kane's fifth and final play charts the journey of mind and body: from darkness into light, from pain into love, from life into death. A repeated motif in the play is "serial sevens": counting down from one hundred by sevens, a bedside test often used by psychiatrists to test for loss of concentration or memory. According to friend and fellow-playwright David Greig, the title of the play derives from the time (4:48 a.m.) when Kane, in her depressed state often woke. Greig considered the play to be "uniquely painful in that it appears to have been written in the almost certain knowledge that it would be performed posthumously."

During the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival workshop staging, Nelson Pressley (The Washington Post) referred to 4.48 PSYCHOSIS as, "the brilliant Factory 449 production..." and called the show, "Exquisite." Bret Abelman (The Washington City Paper) praised, "John Moletress's masterfully intuitive direction..." and Tim Treanor (DC Theatre Scene) summed up the show as, "An awesome play, awesomely done."

Sarah Kane (Feb. 3, 1971 - Feb. 20, 1999) wrote five full-length plays dealing unflinchingly with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture - both physical and psychological - and death. They are characterized by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, an exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. She struggled with intense manic depression for many years, but continued to work, and was for some time the writer-in-residence at The Royal Court Theatre. While the Daily Mail described her first play, Blasted, as "this disgusting feast of filth", she is now acknowledged as a major force in British theatre whose promising career was brought to a premature end by her suicide in 1999. 4.48 PSYCHOSIS, her last play, was completed very shortly before she died and was performed a year after her death. In 2001, The Royal Court Theatre, which had staged premieres of all but one of her stage plays, produced a season of her work, for which the critics were unanimous in their acclaim. Her influence on the next generation of writers remains to be seen, but has already been seen in the plays of Debbie Tucker Green and in Caryl Churchill's Far Away (2000).

Factory 449 company members include Sara Barker, Lisa Hodsoll and Brian Hemmingsen with Cesar Guadamuz Karin Rosnizeck, Julie Roundtree, Mary Suib, Randa Tawil, David Lamont Wilson and Stacy Whittle.

Sara Barker, a Factory 449 company member, was last seen as Varya in The Cherry Orchard at the Washington Shakespeare Company. Additional performances with WSC (where she is also a company member) include Peace, The House of Yes and the title role in Lulu, this November. She has also performed locally with Rorschach Theatre (This Storm is What We Call Progress), SCENA Theatre (Mother Courage and Her Children) and in NYC at Ensemble Studio Theatre and with Stillpoint Productions. Brian Hemmingsen, a Factory 449 company member, has worked locally with Theatre J (The Seagull on 16th Street), Solas Nua (Woman and Scarecrow, Scenes from the Big Picture, Bedbound), the Folger Theatre (Henry IV), The Keegan Theatre (Krapp's Last Tape, Death of a Salesman), and numerous productions with Washington Shakespeare Company and SCENA Theatre. He has received Helen Hayes Award nominations for his work in SCENA Theatre's Endgame and Horizon Theatre's Last Days at the Dixie Girl Café. Lisa Hodsoll, a Factory 449 company member, most recently appeared as Lisa in Lisa Kron's Well for Theatre Hopkins in Baltimore. Other Baltimore credits include additional performances with Theater Hopkins (Spinning into Butter, The Heidi Chronicles) and Fells Point Corner Theatre (The Sisters Rosensweig, Broadway Bound) as well as regional work in Chicago and Los Angeles. Cesar Guadamuz was last seen in the musical Titus! at this year's Capital Fringe Festival. A company member of Rorschach Theatre (The Skin of Our Teeth, Rough Magic, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot) he has also appeared with Forum Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theatre J, Catalyst Theatre, GALA, WSC and the Folger Theatre. Karin Rosnizeck has performed with Out of the Box Theatre (Catch 22), Laurel Mill Playhouse (Pillow Talk) and Castaways Repertory Theatre (You Can't Take it With You) since relocating to DC from Germany last year. Julie Roundtree was last seen as Mary Dalton in American Century Theatre's Native Son. Other credits include performances with the Maryland Shakespeare Festival (Hamlet, Wild and Whirling Words), Constellation Theatre Company (The Oresteia) and WSC (The Cherry Orchard). Mary Suib has performed locally with Olney Theatre (Present Laughter), SCENA Theatre (Jungle of the City), Classica Theatre (Uncle Vanya) and Source Theatre (Waiting Room). Regional credits include Arkansas Repertory (Grapes of Wrath, Streetcar Named Desire, To Kill a Mockingbird), Wayside Theater (Steel Magnolias) and TheatreVirgina (Anastasia). Randa Tawil recently graduated from Wesleyan University where she studied acting and directing. Most recently she wrote and directed The Yellow Chair Theater Company's production of All That Was Left of Them, which premiered at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival. David Lamont Wilson recently appeared in Charter Theatre's production of Am I Black Enough Yet? His regional credits include productions at The Shakespeare Theatre (The Oedipus Plays), Source Theatre (American Buffalo, Edmond) and with the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Heaven, Big Love), among others. Stacy Whittle has acted abroad with the Manama Theatre Company in Bahrain (Blithe Spirit, Black Comedy), in Ireland and the U.S.

Director John Moletress is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Factory 449: a theatre collective. He attended Muhlenberg College (BA Theatre), University of Tennessee (MFA Acting) and Goldsmith's College at the University of London (Directing, Acting, Butoh Dance, Clowning). He also studied modern dance and Pilates at Laban Dance Centre in London and the Viewpoints with Siti Company members. In New York, John performed at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Primary Stages, Manhattan Theatre Club and with deep ellum ensemble, performing in the new theatre/music project Doctor Tedrow's Last Breath in both NYC and Dallas. He also work-shopped the new musical Savage Light at The York Theatre in NYC and performed in the New York City Fringe Festival's award-winning play, How To Draw Mystical Creatures. Regionally he has acted in or directed for the Walnut Street Theatre, National Theatre for the Performing Arts, Burning Coal Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre and Act II Playhouse. He was recently seen onstage in the Source Theatre Festival and in the Washington Shakespeare Company's production of The Cherry Orchard as Charlotta Ivanovna.

Producer Rick Hammerly is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Factory 449: a theatre collective. He has worked as an actor and director for over twenty years, appearing locally in both parts of Angels in America (Helen Hayes Award nomination) at Signature Theatre, All's Well That Ends Well at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Me and Jezebel (Helen Hayes Award nomination) at MetroStage and Signature Theatre's production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for which he won the 2003 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Resident Musical. He has also performed Off-Broadway, regionally and on film and television. He has directed productions for Ganymede Arts, SCENA Theatre and Fourth Wall Productions. A Washington area native, Rick received his master's degree in film and video production from American University in 2006. His debut film, signage, which he wrote, directed and produced, has screened in over 60 film festivals in the U.S. and internationally, garnered six film festival awards and was licensed by MTV for their Logo Channel. In June 2008, Wolfe Video released signage on DVD in the US/Canada as part of the short film compilation, "S is for Sexy." Rick was last seen on stage this summer, playing the title role in Mather Theatricals' production of Pepe! The Mail Order Monkey Musical, at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival.

The design team for 4.48 PSYCHOSIS includes Factory 449 company members Greg Stevens (Set/Costume Design), Eric Grims (Lighting Design), Jesse Achtenberg (Video Design), Ryan Keebaugh (Composer/Sound Design) and Bill Carlton (Stage Manager).

Formed in April of 2009, Factory 449 has a working mission-in-development: "...committed to maintaining an ensemble of multi-disciplinary artists and professionals who are dedicated to the collaborative process of creating "theatre as event." The members of this collective will assume all roles involved in the development of new productions, affording artists the opportunity to write, act, direct, design and produce."

For more information, visit their website at www.factory449.com.

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