Eliza Bent's TOILET FIRE to Play Abrons Arts Center, 10/29-11/14

Toilet Fire: Rectums in the Rectory is Eliza Bent's ceremony and celebration of the one thing that unites us all: our need to go. Using the structure of an ancient religious ritual to talk about matters of digestion, philosophy, and faith, Toilet Fire written and performed by Bent, with direction by Kevin Laibson and music accompaniment by Alaina Ferris, explodes with song, story, audience participation, and unexpected textual twists.

Welcome to the Blerch of Our Blight where digestive ailments trouble congregants and audience members alike. Good thing it's Keester-a holiday when indulgences don't backfire and gluten and lactose can be enjoyed with liberal abandon. A larger than life Peest oversees the ongoing ceremony and a cast of colorful characters-including a Russian émigré, a Bostonian flight attendant, and a sullen Australian teen played by Bent-help perform the ancient religious service. Conflushions, songs, prayer, and collections create a toilet landscape of redemption.

By the end of this tour-de-toots, the trappings of a religious service fall away and Toilet Fire reverts to a more traditional solo show structure with the real Eliza Bent ultimately asking: How can we best relieve suffering? Poo puns and word play mix together in a show that is as madcap in its irreverence as it is incisive in its thought and feeling.

Toilet Fire features Eliza Bent (Half Straddle) and Alaina Ferris; directed by Kevin Laibson (The PIT); dramatur(d)gy by Jess Barbagallo (Half Straddle); set + lights by Christopher Bowser; costumes by Enver Chakartash (the Wooster Group, Half Straddle); projections by Anthony Jackson; stage management + assistant direction by Nic Adams; produced by Caroline Gart; associate produced by Charlie O'Leary.

Performance Schedule:
Thurs Oct 29 at 8pm
Fri Oct 30 at 8pm
Sat Oct 31 at 8pm
Thurs Nov 5 at 8pm
Fri Nov 6 at 8pm
Sat Nov 7 at 8pm
Wed Nov 11 at 8pm
Thurs Nov 12 at 8pm
Fri Nov 13 at 8pm
Sat Nov 14 at 8pm

Location:
Toilet Fire is performed at Abrons Arts Center, which is located at 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street) in the Lower East Side. F/J/M/Z trains to Delancey/Essex stop.

More info at:
http://www.abronsartscenter.org/performances/eliza-bent-toilet-fire.html

Tickets: $15

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Eliza Bent (writer/performer)
Eliza Bent is a performer / playwright / journalist. Her plays include: The Beyonce (Breaking String Theatre, 2014 Payne Award for Outstanding Theatrical Event), Blue Wizard / Black Wizard (Incubator Arts Project / Other Forces 2014 festival), The Hotel Colors (Bushwick Starr, L magazine's 25 best stage shows of 2013), and Karma Kharms (or yarns by Kharms) (Target Margin Lab at Bushwick Starr). Her performance pieces include: Fire the Hire (New George's Jam Festival), Toilet Time with Eliza Bent (Catch! 50, Great Plains Theatre Conference, "Little Theatre" at Dixon Place), Trumped! (Solo Nova Ones at Eleven) and Pen Pals Meet (Iranian Theatre Festival at the Brick). Bent is a MacDowell Colony fellow, a Bay Area Playwrights Finalist, a New Georges affiliated artist and member of Project Y's Playwrights Group. Bent is a contributor with American Theatre magazine and TDF's Stages, a frequent performer with the Obie-award winning company Half Straddle, and lives in Brooklyn. MFA in playwriting Brooklyn College.

Kevin Laibson (director)
Kevin Laibson is a producer, director, educator, improviser, and grump. In 2010, he co-founded Magic Futurebox, a performance and development space for experimental theater in a factory in Sunset Park, which closed so the landlords could make it a food court or some shit. From 2010-2012, he was the theater curator for The Tank. He developed the improv program for the New York Film Academy Musical Theater wing, and was on faculty in the filmmaking, acting, and musical theater departments there for 8 years. Other teaching includes TVI studios, NYU Tisch, the Boys and Girls Club of America. Directing highlights: Tommy Smith's Demon Dreams (Oni No Yume) with a new score by DJ Spooky (NY Premiere, 3 NYIT Award Nominations, 1 win), Alan Schmuckler's I Miss the City (Joe's Pub), Dance School: School for Dance (#serials at the Flea), Katharine Clark Gray's The Pestilence is Coming - A Superfun New Musical About How You Will Probably Die! (Magic Futurebox, based on the album by The Minor Leagues), City Hall Sketch Comedy (2010, 2010, 2011 INNY Noms., Best Sketch Group), Next to Normal (Steel River Playhouse, PA), Skyscraper National Park (narrative comedic improv on and about rooftops), rebecca AND ron (2011 INNY nom., Best Twoprov). Producing highlights: Much Ado About Nothing (Public Theater - Mobile Shakespeare Unit), Sometimes in Prague (Ice Factory), The Throwbacks (NYMF), SEEWATCHLOOK (High Line, Canal Brasil Documentary), Public Domain Series (The Tank). @kevinlaibson

Jess Barbagallo (dramaturg)
Artist and writer Jess Barbagallo has collaborated with Eliza Bent, Becca Blackwell, The Drunkard's Wife, Katherine Brook/Tele-violet, Cat Galasso, Hoi Polloi, Big Dance Theater, Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf, The Builders Association, Casey Llewellyn, Nellie Tinder and Andrea Geyer. He is a founding member of Half Straddle, Red Terror Squad, and the Dyke Division of 2HC. Other acting credits include Men on Boats (Jaclyn Backhaus/Will Davis/Clubbed Thumb), Man in a Case (Annie-B Parson/Paul Lazar/Mikhail Baryshnikov), House of Dance (Tina Satter/NYC Players), Fiabe Italiane (John Turturro), An Oresteia (Paul Lazar/Brian Kulick), and MilkMilkLemonade (Josh Conkel). Jess has been a guest artist/teacher at Brooklyn College, Brown, Princeton, Duke, New York University, and The Flea Theater's Pataphysics Playwriting Workshop. Honors: Dixon Place Mondo Cane Commission 2007, Himan Brown Award 2008 and 2009, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab 2010, Queer Art Mentorship Fellow 2012, MacDowell Colony Fellowship 2013, New York Live Arts Context Notes Writer-in-Residence 2014-15. Currently he curates the Little Theater performance series at Dixon Place with a number of esteemed colleagues. MFA: Brooklyn College.

Alaina Ferris (music)
Alaina Ferris is a composer, performer, and poet. She composed for Mac Wellman's play, The Offending Gesture, performed in Gary Winter's Daredevil (The Brick Theater) and Temporary Distortion's six-hour durational piece My Voice Has an Echo in It (Watermill Center, Exit Festival, Stereolux). She has also recently worked with playwrights Mia Rovegno, Mark Sitko, Scott Adkins, and William Burke. She has an MFA in Poetry from New York University. She lives in Brooklyn with Paul Ketchum.

ABOUT NEW GEORGES SUPPORTED PRODUCTIONS
Toilet Fire is a participant in New Georges' Supported Production program, which provides advice, mentorship, and additional resources and support to New Georges affiliated artists who produce their own work.

ABOUT ABRONS ARTS CENTER
The Abrons Arts Center is the performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. The Abrons supports the presentation of innovative, multi-disciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their creative development through educational programs, commissions, and residencies; and serves as an intersection of cultural engagement for local, national, and international audiences and arts-workers.

Each year the Abrons offers over 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions, 20 residencies for performing and studio artists, and 100 different classes in dance, music, theater, and visual art. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, introducing more than 3,000 students to the arts. Some of the most adventurous artists of the past century have trained, taught, or performed at Henry Street, including John Cage, Aaron Copland, Dizzy Gillespie, Martha Graham, Alicia Keyes, Alwin Nikolais, Jackson Pollock, Denzel Washington, and Orson Welles. Recent artists to appear on the Abrons' stages include Laurie Anderson, Joey Arias, Justin Vivian Bond, Philippe Petit, Rufus Wainwright, and John Zorn. Henry Street Settlement, founded in 1893, serves 50,000 New Yorkers each year with social service, arts and health care programs from 17 program sites on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toiletfire/toilet-fire