The Bushwick Starr and terraNOVA to Present Christina Masciotti's SOCIAL SECURITY, 2/25-3/14

The Bushwick Starr and terraNOVA Collective are proud to present the world premiere of acclaimed playwright Christina Masciotti's newest work, Social Security.

The play centers on June, a retired pretzel factory worker, who finds herself deaf after forty years with machines, widowed, and stranded in the urban muck of Reading, PA. She forges ahead gamely, aided by her robust will to find the good in life, and attended, for better or worse, by a few neighbors. Her landlord, once a community pillar, insinuates himself into what remains of her affairs with Machiavellian panache, while a younger neighbor from down the block selflessly chaperones her trips to the grocery store. But June, generous in her affections and unworldly-wise, seesaws between these two unlikely alliances, and her yearning for ordinary human companionship only drives her further into danger.

The production will unite downtown stars: Cynthia Hopkins, T. Ryder Smith, and Elizabeth Dement under the direction of Paul Lazar. "Social Security asks: what do people owe to strangers?" says Masciotti. "If you have no family, how viable are your other options?" Lazar interjects, "But the play is not as straight as meets the eye." Masciotti explains, "The characters' DNA warps each line, and those little perversions gradually extend to the structure of the story."

"There's also a cruel humanity to the play that I find entirely true to life," adds Lazar. "And I feel I am in the presence of a kind of language that is at once entirely real and entirely heightened." Masciotti asserts, "I want to deliver, line-by-line, an authentic voice, so the full force of character can come through. Speech is a great equalizer in the sense that any of us, when we speak, imprint ourselves onto what we say. I want to keep that individuality intact and undiluted - partly, as a form of recognition. Who we are means something. It matters. And theater, as a medium where we come together in a room and listen to each other, can honor that. People who deserve to be heard, can be. "

In his direction of Social Security, Lazar incorporates a dichotomy of styles. He notes, "The writing seemed allergic to a naturalistic presentation like no other writing I've encountered. The physical life of the play is not working in concert with its verbal life, but in contrast with it." Masciotti continues, "If the writing is photo-real, the set probably doesn't need to be anyway. When all the orienting details are in the lines, a burden is actually lifted in terms of what needs to be established visually. Instead of the characters being cocooned within the world they describe, they can drift into an alternate universe that includes all of us."

Performances will play The Bushwick Starr theater: 207 Starr Street, Brooklyn, NY [between Irving and Wycoff]. Via Subway take the L Train to Jefferson Street, exit at Starr Street, walk against traffic on Starr, and the theater is 3/4 of a block on the right. For detailed driving directions, visit: www.thebushwickstarr.org/DIRECTIONS. Tickets are $18.00 at www.thebushwickstarr.org.

About the Artists:

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 Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature, Supernatural Wife (BAM), Man In A Case, CommeToujours Here I Stand, PLAN B, Mac Wellman's Antigone, Another Telepathic Thing, Shunkin, Mac Wellman's Girl Gone, Tristan Tzara's The Gas Heart, Ödon von Horvath's Don Juan Returns from the War, and Fassbinder's Bremen Freedom. Outside of his work with Big Dance Theater, Paul directed Elephant Room at Saint Ann's Warehouse "Major Bang" at Saint Ann's Warehouse, and Young Jean Lee's Obie Award-winning We're Gonna Die. As an actor, Paul has appeared in The Wooster Group's North Atlantic, Brace Up!, Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape. Paul's film career includes roles in Silence of the Lambs, Mickey Blue Eyes, Lorenzo's Oil, and Philadelphia among many others. He has taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, Rutgers University, The Bill Esper Studio and The Michael Howard Studio.

Christina Masciotti's work has been presented by The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival; CUNY's Prelude Festival; Arts Emerson's TNT Festival (Boston); Circle X Theatre (Los Angeles); LaStarria 90's Desorientacion Series (Santiago, Chile); Theater Bonn (Bonn, Germany); the VIE Scene Contemporanea Festival (Modena, Italy); International Theatre Institute (Athens, Greece); and, as part of PS 122's New York Express Tour, Theater Garonne (Toulouse, France), T2G (Genevilliers, France), Le Maillon (Strasbourg, France), and ZKM (Zagreb, Croatia). Her most recent production, Adult, was a TONY Critic's Pick and selected monologues have been anthologized in Smith and Kraus': The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 2014, and Applause Theater and Cinema Books': Best Contemporary Monologues for Women. Her earlier play, Vision Disturbance was named one of the Best Plays of 2010 by Time Out New York, described as "brilliant and unforgettable" by The New Yorker, and "a showcase for Ms. Masciotti's gift for writing" by The New York Times. Vision Disturbance is currently being published by Broadway Play Publishing, and the scripts for both Vision Disturbance and Adult have been selected for inclusion in the permanent archives of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Masciotti has been honored as a multiple-year finalist for The Princess Grace Award, a Berks County Community Foundation SPA Fund Fellow, and a nominee for the Doric Wilson Independent Theater Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, and the Francesca Primus Award. Her work has been funded by The Jerome Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, the French-American Fund for Contemporary Theater,Foundation for Contemporary Arts,the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NYSCA, the Independence Community Foundation, LMCC, and The Puffin Foundation. She studied playwriting at Brown University and earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

About The Bushwick Starr: The Bushwick Starr is an Obie Award winning non profit theater that presents an annual Season of new work in theater, dance, and puppetry. We are an organization defined by both our artists and our community, and since 2007, we have grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance. The Bushwick Starr's mission is to help ambitious artists and ambitious audiences find each other. We provide a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and we are a sanctuary where established performance companies come to experiment and innovate. Our past Seasons have included new work from groundbreaking artists such as Dave Malloy, The Debate Society, the TEAM, Half Straddle, and Witness Relocation.?

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