A HAND IN MY HEART Opens Tonight at Standard ToyKraft

An original play about contemporary society, fear of darkness, and undivided reality, A Hand in My Heart defies easy definitions.

It is the story of a young man who receives oracular instructions from a strange bedfellow, befriends a waltzing anthropologist, dates a spirit of complacent consumerism incarnate, and follows the dictates of an inscrutable prophecy towards a final showdown with a sinister coffee-drinker and his sirenic henchwomen.

With eerie musical numbers performed by a live string trio, choreographed movement, puppets, nylon "skin-masks," and an ecstatic wildness of language, A Hand in My Heart reveals and incarnates the primordial forces that vie for the soul of humanity amidst the upheaval of the contemporary moment. It is an attempt to reveal the unspeakable strangeness of everyday life in the 21st Century and to invent a mythology capable of giving it meaning.

Cracked Kettle is a new Production Company founded by Rachel Wohlander, Max Bean, and Matt Biagini. Rachel, a graduate of Brooklyn College's MFA program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts, has been directing experimental, interactive, and site-specific theatrical works in NYC since 2008. Max, a sometime school-teacher and essayist, is the author of three full-length plays and numerous one-acts and shorter works. In all of his work, he seeks new ways to tell stories through live performance. Matt is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a recipient oF Brown University's Weston Fine Arts Award for Acting. He has been working professionally as an actor for most of his life, and has performed in recent years at venues in New York and New Haven, including Performance Space 122, The Flea, and Yale Rep.

A Hand in My Heart will play December 12th through 16th at Standard ToyKraft, in Williamsburg. Press is invited to all performances.

Tickets: $12/$15/$18 (sliding scale). Purchase in advance at ahandinmyheart.com/reservations.

Performances: Tonight, December 12-16. Weekdays at 7:30pm, Saturday at 2pm & 7pm, Sunday at 6pm.

Venue: Standard ToyKraft, 722 Metropolitan Avenue, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY.

Written by Max Bean

Directed by Rachel Wohlander

Puppets and Masks by Isolde Chae-Lawrence

Music by Whitney George

Choreography by Stephanie Card

Featuring Matt Biagini*, Stephanie Card*, Michael Hurst, Olivia Jampol, Neal Kelley, Aja Nisenson, and Sarah-Doe Osborne*

*appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association.