Elevator Repair Service Hosts Spring Benefit 4/1 With McDormand, Taylor, Armisen

Elevator Repair Service (ERS) is hosting their spring benefit on Monday, May 3rd, 2010. The company is currently finishing the third play in a trilogy of critically acclaimed plays based on great American novels by William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. This event will celebrate ERS's success with Frances McDormand (Burn after Reading, Fargo), Lili Taylor ("Six Feet Under"), Fred Armisen ("Saturday Night Live"), Frankie Faison ("The Wire"), and ERS company members in a one night only performance of loved, banned and mythologized American fiction. Readings will be accompanied by ERS's unique signature sound design.

For tickets purchased at $125 or higher, the evening begins with a pre-performance reception with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Tickets at $50 or higher gain entrance to the show, where stars perform an irreverent sampling of readings, curated by poet Paul Muldoon (2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry). The readings are brought to life by ERS sound designers and hosted by Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director of The Public Theater, and winner of the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director for Angels in America.

Sponsors include: Color Coded LLC, Le Tourment Vert Absinthe, Thomas Hooker Fresh Ales and Lagers, Saveur Caterers, and Three Clicks Wines.
Elevator Repair Service, a theater ensemble, was founded by director John Collins and a group of actors in 1991. Since that time, ERS has built a body of highly acclaimed work and has appeared on stages around New York, the U.S. and Europe. New York Magazine called ERS "the best experimental theater group in town," while New York Newsday has said the group's work was "wacko enough to be truly inspired." The New York Times has called them "thrilling...and audacious."

The event will benefit the development of ERS' new piece, The Sun Also Rises, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises will premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in August, 2010, and play for an extended run in New York at New York Theatre Workshop in 2011. A co-production of Elevator Repair Service and New York Theatre Workshop, The Sun Also Rises has been commissioned by the Ringling International Arts Festival/Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival through funding from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative. Additional support for the development of this production granted from ArtsEmerson: the World on Stage, Boston, Massachusetts.

The benefit committee includes: Anne Bogart (Siti Company, Best Director Obie Awards 1988 and 1990), Jill Dombrowski (Executive Producer, Montclair State University's Peak Performances), Boo Froebel (Producer of Lincoln Center Festival), Rinne Groff (playwright and winner of 2005 Whiting Writers Award), Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director of The Public Theater), Vin Scelsa (Sirius radio personality), ERS company members Laurena Allen and Annie McNamara, writers and performing artists Scott Adkins, Julie Bleha, Rachel Chavkin, Erin Courtney, Chris Lee, Greg Mehrten, Tanya Selvaratnam, and members of New York's professional and financial communities Peter Ackerman, Dave Bassett, David Becker, John Byck, Michaeline and Doug Curtis, Steve and Anne Dennin, Laurie Eustis, Elinor Fuchs, Nancy and Owen Hughes, Rachel Karpf, Robert Katz, Freddie Scelsa, Jay Scheib.

The ERS board of directors is: Steve Bodow (Head Writer and Supervising Producer for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"), John Collins, Elizabeth Derbes, Zoe E. Rotter, Nan Strauss, Anne Stringfield, Victoria Vazquez, Scott Watson, and Susan Wheeler.

Info/Tickets: Tickets go on sale April 1st.
Web: http://www.Theatermania.com or at www.elevator.org.
Mail: send a check to Elevator Repair Service at 138 South Oxford St. #2D, Brooklyn, NY 11217 by April 20th.
Call: 718-783-1905.
Email: benefit@elevator.org

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.