Electric Pear's Fourth Season Opens with the World Premiere of BALATON 10/17-11/7

Electric Pear Productions (Melanie Sylvan, Executive Producer and Ashlin Halfnight, Artistic Director) announces its 2009/2010 series and their grant from the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
Electric Pear Productions is the recipient of a Peter Jay Sharp Foundation Grant in 2009. Electric Pear was named Best Off-Off Broadway Theatre of 2008 and People of the Year for contributions to New York theater in 2007.

Artifacts of Consequence by Ashlin Halfnight, directed by Kristjan Thor was hailed as "deliriously imaginative and talent-rich" by The New York Times in April 2009. The Off-Broadway production, Stitching, starring Meital Dohan of Showtime's Weeds, and John Ventigmiglia of HBO's The Sopranos was extended due to popular demand and then transferred to Los Angeles in March 2009. Synesthesia 2008 garnered feature articles in The New York Times and Time Out New York. Electric Pear won a Theatre Communications Group/ITI Travel Grant to journey to Budapest to create an original, bi-lingual piece of theatre with artists from the National Theatre of Hungary in 2007. Diving Normal won "Best Ensemble" at FringeNYC, and was extended in FringeNYC Encore Series in 2006.

Balaton
October 17 - November 7 2009
The Theatre at 30th Street, NYC
The newest play by critically acclaimed playwright Ashlin Halfnight and director Kristjan Thor.
Starring Jessica Cummings (The Seagull, Broadway; Crimes of the Heart, Roundabout Theatre), Kathryn Kates (Sa Ka La, 45 Bleecker; The Babka Lady on "Seinfeld"), Peter O'Connor (Jailbait, Cherry Lane).

A New "Off-Site" Theatrical Work
February 2010
Details Coming Soon...

Synesthesia
April 19 - May 3 2010 The Wild Project, NYC
Artistic telephone across the genres... pass it on
"... strangely prophetic..." - New York Times

Balaton
October 17 - November 7, 2009

Electric Pear kicks off its fourth season with the World Premiere of Balaton by Ashlin Halfnight, presented with the support of the Hungarian Cultural Center and the Extremely Hungary Festival. Set in a tenuous afterlife, Balaton is a multi-generational drama that charts a fractured Hungarian family's fight for unity and security in a world after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Frightened and disoriented, Sabrina stumbles her way through a cold and indiscernible space, where time lurches forward, rushes back...and disarmingly stands still. In this liminal world, where memories replace and highlight reality, Sabrina and her divided Hungarian kin must confront the post-communist, Americanized world that has drastically altered their lives. Desperate for unity, the family struggles violently against the infiltration of fast food, designer clothing, infidelity, assimilation and uncompromising youth. And all the while, the stars shine above Balaton.

Ashlin Halfnight (Playwright) began work on this play in 2006 while on Fulbright writing with the Hungarian National Theatre in Budapest. The play received a series of readings at the Lark Play Development Center in 2007 and 2008. Halfnight's plays include Artifacts of Consequence, Good Pictures (Outstanding New Play - Summer 2008 - Talkin' Broadway), God's Waiting Room (Best Play, 2005 NYFringe Festival), Diving Normal (Plays and Playwrights 2007). He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a TCG Travel Grant, a Ludwig Volgelstein Artist Grant, and the Howard Stein Playwriting Fellowship. He was an artist in residence at the National Theater of Hungary in 2005/2006, was member of The Royal Court's (UK) New York Residency, and is a member of the MCC Playwrights'Coalition.

Kristjan Thor (Director) is an Icelandic-American director. Kristjan recently directed Locker Room Talk at Cherry Lane, and the U.S. premiere of The Sexual Neuroses of our Parents and Artifacts of Consequence with Electric Pear. He has also directed LeaRegardless, Maeterlinck's The Blind, and A Christmas Carol:The New Musical (conceived by Joel Bravo and Kris Thor). He directed St. Fatso's Lament at the Cherry Lane and the Edinburgh Fringe. More recently, he directed Paul Cohen's Heist at the Sargent Theater. Kris worked with the Moscow Art Theater, Dell' Arte School. He graduated as a Senior Fellow from Dartmouth College and received his MFA in Directing from Columbia's School for the Arts.

Balaton will be presented in concurrence with the Extremely Hungary Festival, a year-long celebration showcasing contemporary Hungarian visual, performing, and literary arts in New York and Washington, D.C., throughout 2009. The festival reveals the roots of Hungary's thriving contemporary culture and its impact on American society through a broad spectrum of events at leading cultural institutions including: Lincoln Center, BAM, Galapagos, and The Jewish Museum. The festival is part of a larger arts movement in 2009, bringing artists and exhibitions from former Eastern Bloc countries to NYC. The closing night of Balaton will also commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989) and the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

Balaton reunites the team that produced Artifacts of Consequence ("deliriously imaginative...fantastical drama..." - The New York Times; "an important play that's a joy to watch." - Kul). Balaton will have scenic design by Jennifer de Fouchier: lighting design by Kathleen Dobbins: costume design by Stephanie Alexander: sound design by Mark Sanders: and video design by Alex Koch. Melanie Sylvan serves as Executive Producer with Associate Producer Veronique Ory.

SYNESTHESIA 2010
April 19 - May 3
Artistic Telephone Across The Genres...
An artist is asked to select and open a fortune cookie.
She spends the next two weeks working on a piece inspired by the fortune.
She then presents her work to the next artist...
Two weeks later, that artist's work is presented to the next creative collaborator.
And then another artist, and then another artist... eventually, ten in all.
From April 19 - May 3, the assembled works of all ten artists will be presented live, in-sequence, at the Wild Project in New York City's East Village.

"Electric Pear Productions has taken the grade-school game of Telephone to a new level." - Time Out NY

Witness the next stage in the convergence of media. Now in its fourth season, Synesthesia is a live, annual event which unites a select and diverse range of arts and artists for two weeks only. Synesthesia is an Electric Pear exclusive production, conceived by Ashlin Halfnight and Melanie Sylvan, and staged for the first time in 2007. Don't miss this 90-minute journey through original film, song, comedy, composition, drama, dance, and cuisine.

Further season details and casting to be determined.

Electric Pear Productions, founded by Ashlin Halfnight and Melanie Sylvan in 2006, is a non-profit company which cultivates, backs and presents original and persuasive theatrical endeavors. The company is committed to exploring the junction between disparate entities; Electric Pear seeks to deepen the performance landscape by working at the crossroads where the mainstream meets the avant-garde, where artistic disciplines cross-pollinate, and where translation and border-crossing is embraced. Electric Pear seeks to create a welcoming, vibrant community of artists and enthusiasts where respect and generosity are paramount, where creation and vision are honored.

Electric Pear: At home on the stage, at play in the world.
www.ELECTRICPEAR.org