Boston Playwrights' Theatre Presents WINDOWMEN by Steven Barkhimer, Now thru 11/24

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) continues its 2013-14 season with Windowmen by award-winning playwright Steven Barkhimer. Running from tonight, October 31 to November 24, this fast-paced coming-of-age comedy will be directed by Brett Marks.

"Steve is a Renaissance man of the theatre - what with his acting, directing, and composing - so we've been waiting for him to have enough time to sauté this "filet of fish." Now we can finally sit down to eat!" says BPT Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass. The play is loosely based on Barkhimer's experiences at Lower Manhattan's Fulton Fish Market - where he worked for three years - when he was fresh out of college. The young Barkhimer was taken with his colorful co-workers.

"I was impressed by their spontaneous and utterly-immediate wit, making hilarious remarks and sometimes dangerous decisions that could never have been pre-planned," Barkhimer says. "Despite [Windowmen] being a fictional work, the best stuff in the play is stuff I could never have invented. I found myself laughing out loud as I wrote."

Windowmen centers on Kenny, a young man struggling to make ends meet in 1980s New York City. Kenny's new job at the Fulton Fish Market is complicated with some daunting demands, math puzzles, and some shady characters who want to hide some even shadier dealings with the cash register.

Barkhimer received his M.F.A. in playwriting from Boston University, where he began the first draft of Windowmen. He was awarded an Artist Fellowship for Dramatic Writing from the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2011 to finish the play. His one-act A Hard Rain was the recipient of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play in 2008.

In addition to his work as playwright, Barkhimer is an acclaimed local actor. He is currently performing in BPT's production of Burning by Ginger Lazarus.

Windowmen is the BPT debut of director Brett Marks. Marks is the Founder and Artistic Director of Argos Productions, a Boston-based company devoted to the production of new works.

ABOUT BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS' THEATRE

Founded in 1981 at Boston University by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) is an award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new works. At the heart of BPT's mission is the production of new plays by alumni of its MFA Playwriting Program, the latter in collaboration with Boston University's renowned School of Theatre. The program's award-winning alumni have been produced in regional and New York houses, as well as in London's West End. BPT's productions have been honored with numerous regional and Boston awards, including 11 IRNE Awards for "Best New Script" and five Boston Critics' Association Elliot Norton Awards.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Steven Barkhimer is a Boston-based writer, director, actor, musician and instructor, and a graduate of the playwriting program at Boston University. Plays: Blood Rose Rising (Davis Square Theatre, Somerville MA); A Hard Rain (Best Short Play of 2008, Cauble Award, Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival): Windowmen (Artist Fellowship Award for Playwriting, 2011, Massachusetts Cultural Council). Directing credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor (Actors Shakespeare Project); Fully Committed (Elliot Norton Award, Best Solo Performance); The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) (Elliot Norton Award, Best Fringe Production, Orfeo Group). A member of the Resident Acting Company of Actors Shakespeare Project, he has also appeared at the Lyric Stage Company, New Repertory Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Gloucester Stage Company, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Underground Railway Theatre, Nora Theatre, Zeitgeist Stage. Author of a collection of original songs (scoring and performances for Twelfth Night, The Beard of Avon, Troilus and Cressida, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), Steve has taught writing, mathematics, literature, philosophy, history, acting, and drama at Boston University, Worcester State College, Cambridge College, Huntington Theatre, and the China Institute at the University of Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

BRETT MARKS is a Boston-based director, producer and actor. He is the Founder/Artistic Director of Argos Productions, a company devoted to the production of new works. For Argos, he has produced and directed Junkie (John Shea), Wandaleria (David Valdes Greenwood), and Murph (Catherine M. O'Neill). In January he will be directing a new adventure/comedy, Walt McGough's The Haberdasher! a tale of derring-do. Additional directing credits include Almost Blue (Theatre on Fire), Book of Days (Bad Habit Productions), Cherry Smoke (Gurnet Theatre Project), Glengarry Glen Ross (Independent Drama Society), Charlotte's Web and Robin Hood (Acton-Boxborough Regional High School). He was previously the Producing Associate at The Lyric Stage Company, and under the Growing Voices New Play Development program there, directed numerous readings of plays by local playwrights. Brett is a proud alumnus of Boston College.

WINDOWMEN AT A GLANCE:

This fast-paced, coming-of-age comedy centers on Kenny, a young man struggling to make ends meet in 1980s New York City. His new job at the Fulton Fish Market is complicated with some daunting demands, math puzzles...and some shady characters who want to hide some even shadier dealings with the cash register. The REAL Fulton Fish Market is lost to the ages, but she comes alive again in this exhilarating look at the lost world of Lower Manhattan long before gentrification and Homeland Security. Barkhimer, winner of the Kennedy Center's John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play, is a skilled caricaturist and his gifts are in rare form in this seriously comedic look at "fish."

$30/General Admission - $25/BU Faculty/Staff, Seniors (62+) - $10/Students (with valid ID)

Call 866.811.4111 or visit www.bostonplaywrights.org

Season subscriptions available - $50/Adult - $27/Student (25 and under with valid ID)

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