Marymount Manhattan College Premieres GIRL GONE, 10/21

Marymount Manhattan College Theatre Arts Division (Mary Fleisher, department Chair) focuses on the performing arts student, New York City is the place to begin, to learn, to grow, and to be seen. The student who chooses the Theatre Arts programs at Marymount Manhattan College wants something special: professional theatre training combined with a strong liberal arts education in Manhattan.

Girl Gone will star DiAna Gonzalez-Morett (Headmistress), Terrell Green (Vadoo), Molly Groome (Buggins), Rebeca Iavarone (Faye/ Dorrit), EVan Johnson (Chaz), Courtney MacNeil (Dinah), Jillian Mason (Evil Sister), Devin Nelson (Hope), Liana Rowe (Faye/ Dorrit), Kaylyn Scardefield (Madame Tomba), Chris Stokes (Forrest), Elise Vanderkley (Mother), Jessica Zambrotta (Evil Sister) and Rachel Zeiger-Haag (Evil Sister). Paul Lazar will direct Girl Gone written by Mac Wellman, with songwriter with music direction by Cynthia Hopkins and choreographed by Timberly Harris and Molly Hickok.

Girl Gone's production includes Paul Markert (Assistant director), Chip Rodgers (Assistant Director), Lisa Jaeger (Stage Manager), Elise Napoli (Assistant Stage Manager), Andrew Jennings (Assistant Stage Manager), Rob Dutiel (Set Director), Sophia Palacios Blanco (Assistant Set Director), Ray Recht (Lighting Director), T. Michael Hall (Costumer), Kirche Zeile (Costume Designer Professor), Mary Fleischer (Producer), Owen Spruill (Student Producer), Ross Champpell (Operations Director), CatrIona Jones (Administrative Secretary).

Mac Wellman's elliptical and witty play serves as a canvas for integrating dance, song and intriguing stage images. This production is performed by students in the Theatre Arts programs of the College with direction by Paul Lazar, choreography by Annie-B Parson, music composed and directed by Cynthia Hopkins, scenic design by Robert Dutiel, lighting design by Ray Recht, and vocal coaching by Jeff Morrison.

"Something is terribly wrong at St. Lulu's school for proper young ladies. The teacher is going mad. Strange men wander in and out. And students are disappearing. That is the story the playwright Mac Wellman and the choreographer Annie-B Parson tell in 'Girl Gone,' a musical theater piece...Mr. Wellman builds his story through the steady accretion of surrealistic detail revealed in loops of nonsensical dialogue that makes irrational but gripping sense. Music and dance are woven seamlessly through the piece, merging stylization and folk qualities to suggest the kind of rigidity and hyper reality that often go with madness. Three young women known as 'the evil sisters' are playing a game they call 'going away,' to an imaginary country called Vadoo that becomes all too real. A writer with a sneaky sympathy for his characters, Mr. Wellman has clearly traveled through Vadoo himself at some point. This is the country of anarchic childhood emotions, particularly those of adolescent girls. 'Girl Gone' resembles a post-modernist re-envisioning of Christina Rossetti's fevered 'Goblin Market.'" (Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times).

Tickets are available through email at TheatreTickets@mmm.edu or by telephone at 212.774.0760. Ticket prices range from $5.00-$10.00. Reservations begin Wednesday, October 7. For more information please visit the Marymount Manhattan College Theatre Production Workshop website at http://marymount.mmm.edu/cgi-bin/MySQLdb?MYSQL_VIEW=/news/view_theater.txt.

Girl Gone will play from Wednesday, October 21 through Sunday, October 25, 2009. Wednesday-Saturday evenings at 8:00PM, Sunday matinees at 2:00PM.

Paul Lazar founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Annie-B Parson. His work with the company includes conceiving, directing and/or performing in such works as PLAN B, Mac Wellman's Antigone, Another Telepathic Thing, Shunkin, , Mac Wellman's Girl Gone, as well as dance/theater adaptations of Tristan Tzara's The Gas Heart, Ödon von Horvath's Don Juan Returns from the War, and Fassbinder's Bremen Freedom. He received a BESSIE in 2002. Outside his work with Big Dance Theater, Mr. Lazar has been an Associate Member of The Wooster Group, acting in Brace Up!, Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape. Other acting credits include Marie Irene Fornes' Mudd, and Richard Maxwell's Cowboys and Indians. His film career includes roles in Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Lorenzo's Oil, Philadelphia, and Henry Fool. He has been a guest teacher at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, The Bill Esper Studio, The Michael Howard Studio and Rutgers University. He co-directed Botho Strauss' Big and Little with Annie-B Parson, and directed Len Jenkin's Dark Ride for NYU's Experimental Theater Wing. He directed Major Bang for the Foundry Theater in the spring of 2005.

Mac Wellman's recent plays are: BITTER BIERCE, at P S 122; JENNIE RICHEE, with the Ridge Theater, at The Arts at St Ann; ANYTHING'S DREAM at Mulhenberg College; and ANTIGONE, with Big Dance Company at Dance Theater Workshop. He has published two novels with Sun & Moon Press: THE FORTUNETELLER and ANNIE SALEM; Sun & Moon also published A SHELF IN WOOP'S CLOTHING, a book of poems, FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CENTURY II, an anthology of plays (co-edited with Douglas Messerli), TWO PLAYS: THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST, and CROWTET 1 and 2, the latter two volumes under the Green Integer imprint. Roof Books has recently published his MINIATURE, a book of poems. He has received numerous award: NEA, NYFA, Rockefeller, McNight and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 1990 he received an Obie for Best American Play (BAD PENNY, CROWBAR, and TERMINAL HIP). In 1991 He received another Obie for SINCERITY FOREVER. He has received a Lila Wallace-Readers' Digest Writers Award, and most recently the 2003 Obie for Lifetime Achievement. He is the Donald I. Fine Professor of Play Writing at Brooklyn College.

Cynthia Hopkins is a writer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and theater artist. In 1999, she formed the band Gloria Deluxe, which has since produced five full-length albums and performed at numerous venues in New York City and elsewhere. Opening for legendary artists such as David Byrne and Patti Smith, the group has developed an enthusiastic following for its unique blend of folk, cabaret, rock, blues, and country music. Gloria Deluxe has been an integral component of works created with Accinosco, including Accidental Nostalgia (an operetta about the pros and cons of amnesia) (for which Ms. Hopkins received a 2005 Bessie Award) and Must Don't Whip ‘Um, a prequel to Accidental Nostalgia which premiered in January 2007. Ms. Hopkins has also created solo music/theater works including Tsimtsum, a piece commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop for the May 2006 'Sourcing Stravinsky Festival'; and Song Before Love Songs (a post-apocalyptic requiem for the human race), a composition commissioned by Bang on a Can which premiered in February 2005. In addition, Ms. Hopkins has worked as a composer, musician, and performer for many projects, including Big Dance Theater's

MARYMOUNT MANHATTAN COLLEGE DIVISION OF FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS programs offer men and women individualized attention and a strong faculty advisement program. This enables qualified students to take on substantial projects and roles beginning with their first year. The Theatre Arts programs can be augmented by choosing a minor in Musical Theatre, Arts Management, or Communication Arts, as well as in many other areas. Independent study projects provide opportunities for specialized training and performance experience. Junior and senior level students may also study abroad for credit at schools such as the British Academy of Dramatic Arts (BADA) or the Drama Studio in London. Internships in a variety of settings (Broadway, Off and Off-Off Broadway, television, dance) develop experience and a potential employment network in the NYC performing arts community.

Upon completing the major in theatre arts, students will be able to: Recognize and appreciate achievements in drama and theatrical production across a range of periods and cultures. Understand the interdisciplinary of theatre study and the collaborative nature of theatre production. Acquire writing, research, performance, and technical skills as a foundation for building specific expertise in selected secondary areas of concentration. Learn to draw on external resources for further study and work experience by utilizing museums, theatres, performing arts organizations, libraries, and other institutions in New York City and abroad.

Currently, the Theatre Arts programs enroll 435 full-time students and have a faculty of 50, 16 of whom are full-time. Because of MMC's location in New York City, our faculty are working professionals, connected with such theatres as The Culture Project, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The McCarter Theatre, Irondale Project, Theatreworks/USA, The Signature Theatre Company, The Women's Project & Productions, The Actor's Studio, The New York Shakespeare Festival, The Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Saturday Night Live, HB Studios, The Actors' Theatre of Louisville and Manhattan Theatre Club. The student-faculty ratio in performance and production classes is 12:1 and each theatre student is assigned a full-time faculty advisor.

Performance opportunities include two fall and two spring mainstage productions per year which are fully produced with sets, lights and costumes often designed by student designers. Past productions include Antigone; Suburbia; Ah, Wilderness; The House of Blue Leaves; Three Penny Opera; As You Like It; The Three Sisters; The Hot L Baltimore; The Grass Harp; The Hostage; She Loves Me; and The Lucky Chance.

The MMC Directing Projects are produced each semester and are performed in the Black Box Theatre. These short contemporary plays are directed by the students in the class and are cast with acting students. Staged readings of new plays provide student playwrights with an opportunity to hear and see they're works-in-progress. Senior BFA and BA students perform an Acting Showcase for professional agents and casting directors.

MMC Theatre Arts graduates leave with viable, competitive portfolios and audition material. Recent graduates of MMC have gone on to prestigious graduate schools (The Juilliard School, Yale School of Drama, DePaul University, Harvard, Columbia University), films (Chaplin, Field of Dreams, Get on the Bus, Little Odessa, Scenes From A Mall, The Edge of Seventeen), television (100 Centre Street, Ellen, ER, In Living Color, New York Undercover, Melrose Place, The West Wing), The Royal National Theatre (London) and Broadway (Wicked, Legally Blonde, Mary Poppins, Rock 'n' Roll, The Lion King & Little Shop of Horrors) national tours (Aida, Dreamgirls, Fosse, Guys & Dolls, Showboat), Off-Broadway (Lincoln Center Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, Krane Theatre, American Place Theatre, Mabou Mines, La Mama Theatre, LAByrinth Theater Company) and regional tours. Others have been hired as stage managers, lighting designers, directors, playwrights and arts managers in performing arts venues such as The Dallas Theatre Center, The Second Stage Theatre, The New York Shakespeare Festival, Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, Touchstone Pictures and Dance Theatre Workshop. Still others have gone on to careers in architecture, education, law, medicine, and business.

Marymount Manhattan College Division Of Fine And Performing Arts fall 2009 season includes:
Girl Gone, Mac Wellman's elliptical and witty play serves as a canvas for integrating dance, song and intriguing stage images. This production is performed by students in the Theatre Arts programs of the College with direction by Paul Lazar, choreography by Annie-B Parson, music composed and directed by Cynthia Hopkins, scenic design by Robert Dutiel, lighting design by Ray Recht, and vocal coaching by Jeff Morrison, Choreographed by Timberly Harris and Molly Hickok. October 21-24 at 8:00PM and October 25 at 2PM Location: Theresa Lang Theatre Cost: General admission: $10; senior citizens & students with valid ID: $5.

As You Like It William Shakespeare's witty, playful and totally magical As You Like It is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden. This production is performed by students in the Theatre Arts programs of the College with direction by John Basil, scenic design by Aaron Switzer, lighting design by Gretchen Engle, costume design by Kirche Leigh Zeile, music composed and directed by Bruce Lazarus, vocal coaching by BarbAra Adrian, and choreography by Haila Strauss. November 18-21 at 8:00PM and November 22 at 2:00PM Location: Theresa Lang Theatre Cost: General admission: $10; senior citizens & students with valid ID: $5.
Daw In The Great Hall dedicated to training and supporting the next generation of choreographers. Performances are November 19 at 8pm, November 20 at 8pm and November 21 at 2pm & 8pm Suggested donation: $5; senior citizens and students with ID from other schools: $2 Admission is free for MMC students, faculty, and staff with valid MMC ID card. For reservations please call (212) 517-0610; (Reservations begin Oct 1st. Seating is extremely limited).

Fall Repertoire, This season the MMC Dance Department will present distinguished works by five faculty members including Pat Catterson, Anthony Ferro, Nancy Lushington & Maxine Steinman. Performances begin Thursday, December 10th at 8:00pm; Friday December 11th at 8:00pm; and Saturday, December 12th at 2pm and 8pm. Tickets: General admission: $12; senior citizens and students with ID from other schools: $8. Reservations begin Monday, November 2, 2009.

For more information visit mmm.edu