Bradbeer's The Roof Runs Through Oct. 1 in NY Premiere

By: Sep. 22, 2005
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The Roof, written by Suzanne Bradbeer and directed by Maggie Low will be presented by the Blue Collar Theater Company in its New York premiere. The show will run September 15th through October 1st at the Sanford Meisner Theater (164 11th Ave., between West 22nd and 23rd Streets).

"Beginning in 1919, and told over a twenty year period, The Roof is a bittersweet family saga about three complicated people who love each other deeply but clumsily, and affect each other profoundly. George needs his fraternal twin brother Billy in order to shine most brightly, but Billy needs to escape George's dominating presence in order to survive. Their mother Arabella needs to keep her boys close in order to feel safe in the world. The action takes place in what passes as the family's backyard, the roof of their building in New York City. Through humor and heart-rending conflict, we learn that family life in this triangle is as much a battlefield as the one in Germany where the boys' father was killed just after the armistice of the First World War," according to production notes.

The Roof, commissioned by the Blue Collar Theatre Company and was workshopped at The Lark Play Development Center and The New Harmony Project.

Bradbeer's past productions include The Sleeping Girl, developed at Southern Writers' Project of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and produced in 2005 by Relentless Theatre Company, and a commissioned children's play, Cocus and Doot – The Belly of the Beast, produced at Vital Theatre Company. Other plays include Lone Star Grace, Bethlehem, PA, McIntyre's, Fear and Loathing on the Nile and Dead Lucy. Her play Full Bloom, developed at the New Harmony Project, named Best New Play of the Season by the Berkshire Eagle, was published in the Smith and Kraus anthology Women Playwrights – The Best Plays of 2000, and will be produced in New York City by Vital Theatre Company, Winter 2006.

Low previously directed Fear and Loathing on the Nile by Bradbeer for Blue Collar Theater Co. Other credits include The Ring of Death by H. M. Koutoukas and Two Rooms by Lee Blessing at Theater for the New City, We are the Champions by Tom Gilroy with Machine Full, Snowing at Delphi by Catherine Butterfield for The Infinite Space Theater Co.

The show will feature Lucas Blondheim ("Ed," Beyond Glory at the Actor's Studio), Andrew Lawton (the Australian TV show "Neighbors," "One Life to Live") and Denise Lute (Fear and Loathing on the Nile, Ago, "Law and Order"). The technical staff includes sets by Shaun Motley, lights by Pamela Kupper, costumes by Laura Bowman, and sound by Ryan Maeker.

Established in 2001 under Artistic Director, Tim Phillips, the mission of the Blue Collar Theater Company is to foster the relationship between writers and directors in order to develop and produce plays which showcase the extraordinary struggle of the common man. To date B.C.T.C has developed and produced the full length plays Leaded and The Big Vig by up and coming playwright Jason Furlani and the ten minute play series "Blue Collar Shorts."

The Roof runs Wednesdays through Fridays at 8:00 pm, Saturdays at 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm and Sundays a 3:00 pm September 15th through October 1st. All tickets are $15.00. For reservations please call 212-592-3855.

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