Stolen Chair to Present POTION: A PLAY IN THREE COCKTAILS, Beg. 3/2

In a Lower East Side bar combine... 4 parts downtown theatre 3 parts live music 2 parts love story 1 part farce 3 dashes of opera. Shake vigorously and garnish with cocktails designed by award-winning mixologist Marlo Gamora (head mixologist at Trix in Willamsburg) and you have Potion: A Play in Three Cocktails.

Charley sells potions, handcrafted and custom made. From potions that can make the forgetful remember to potions that will stop a compulsive liar from fibbing, Charley's concoctions satisfy a diverse clientele. But the one potion Charley hasn't been able to master is that one she wants for herself: a love potion. Potion, a "spoken word opera" immerses its audience in the giddy world of Charley's bar and her regular (and irregular) customers, with Gamora's flight of 3 original "potions" served by the actors as the play unfolds.

Stolen Chair (three-time Drama Desk Award nominees for The Man Who Laughs) will kick off their 12th Season with a site-specific theatrical experience, Potion: A Play in Three Cocktails, performing every Sunday at 7pm at PEOPLE Lounge (163 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington) for an open-ended run beginning Sunday, March 2nd. Tickets ($25, plus $20 cocktail prix fixe) may be purchased online at www.stolenchair.org or by calling 212-868-4444. The show runs approximately 90 minutes, with no intermission.

To create the uniquely rhythmic text for Potion, Stolen Chair's playwright Kiran Rikhye dug deeply into the Italian libretti of the operas by Mozart, Verdi, Donazetti, and more. For each scene of Potion, Rikhye mapped out the meter, rhymes, repetitions, and simultaneity of an aria, duet, trio, or quartet to create a template for her own original text. The result is an intoxicating and incantatory verse play unlike any other, set to a genre-bending original score performed live by multi-instrumentalist Sean Cronin. The ensemble performs this "opera" in spoken voice that is every bit as virtuosic, dizzying, and delightful as operatic song in a site-specific staging by Jon Stancato that explores every nook and cranny of PEOPLE's bar and makes the audience feel they are VIP guests at Charley's magical speakeasy.

The production will be directed by Jon Stancato (The Man Who Laughs; The Bachelors' Tea Party) and will feature Raife Baker* (David Dirry-Moir in The Man Who Laughs), Liz Eckert* (Bessie in The Bachelors' Tea Party), Jon Froelich* (Ursus in The Man Who Laughs), Molly O'Neill* (Dea in The Man Who Laughs), Noah Schultz (Young Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs), David Skeist* (Richard Foreman's Old Fashioned Prostitutes (A True Romance) at The Public Theater), and Amanda Sykes* (NYIT nomination for Lady Macduff in The Crook Theater Company's Macbeth) with live music by multi-instrumentalist Sean Cronin. The creative team will include Costume Design by Beth Goldenberg (Julie Taymor's A Midsummer Nights Dream with Theatre for a New Audience), Props by Aviva Meyer (The Man Who Laughs), Makeup Design by Jaclyn Schaefer (The Man Who Laughs) and Lighting Installation by Daniel Winters (Drama Desk Award nomination for The Man Who Laughs). *Appearing courtesy of the Actors' Equity Association.

STOLEN CHAIR Called "Ingenious" by The New York Times, "Innovative" by Time Out NY, and "Captivating" by The Huffington Post, Stolen Chair creates playfully intellectual and exuberantly athletic works of theatre so immersive you don't need to leave your seat to be completely transported. Aesthetically promiscuous and wickedly irreverent, the company refuses to draw the line between high art and great entertainment or between thinking and feeling. Previous productions, all written by Kiran Rikhye and directed by Jon Stancato, include The Man Who Laughs (Drama Desk "Unique Theatrical Experience", "Outstanding Music in a Play," and Outstanding Lighting Design" Award nominations), Bachelors' Tea Party, Kinderspiel, Theatre is Dead & So Are You, Quantum Poetics, Commedia dell'Artemisia, and Stage Kiss. Stolen Chair is supported, in part, by public funds from the NYSCA and The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York's Nancy Quinn Fund. Potion was developed, in part, through a residency SPACE @ Ryder Farm.

For more information, visit www.stolenchair.org.

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