Complete Emerging America Festival Line-Up Announced: PIRATES OF PENZANCE, EXPERIMENT AMERICA and More

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston today announced additional events and offerings as part of the third Emerging America- an annual festival featuring groundbreaking performance by American artists.

From June 21 through 24, The Emerging America Festival will bring together some of the country's most promising performers, writers, companies, and directors for a weekend filled with energy, imagination, creativity, and drama.

Emerging America spans Boston and Cambridge with events at all three artistic homes throughout the four-day Festival: A.R.T.'s OBERON, 2 Arrow St. Cambridge MA; the Huntington's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston; and the ICA at 100 Northern Avenue, Boston.

Weekend passes and individual tickets are now on sale. Ticket prices range from $5 to $25, and packages are available for special discounts and experiences across all three institutions. For more details and for tickets visit http://www.emergingamericafestival.org.

This year's events will include:

PIRATES OF PENZANCE
By Gilbert and Sullivan, Directed by Sean Graney, Performed by The Hypocrites
Thursday, June 21 at 8pm; Friday, June 22 at 10pm; Saturday, June 23 at 6pm; and Sunday, June 24 at 4pm – A.R.T.'s Oberon
Bringing their sold-out production from their native Chicago, The Hypocrites treat this hilarious musical in an entirely thrilling new way. Treat yourself to an eighty-minute exotic excursion featuring bathing beauties, philosophizing pirates, and grown men in remarkably short shorts! Warning: If you want boring, stay away; this experience will cause immense joy and the compulsion to spontaneously sing along. Come ashore with the "Very Model of A Modern Major General," the Pirate King, and a banjo-picking Mabel. The show features beach balls, sunshine (the artificial kind), and tons of fun music.

THE HOTEL NEPENTHE
Huntington Theatre Company presents the Actors' Shakespeare Project production
Written by John Kuntz, Directed by David R. Gammons
Thursday, June 21 at 7:30 and 10:30pm; Friday, June 22 at 8pm; Saturday, June 23 at 2pm and 8pm; and Sunday, June 24 at 2pm – Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Winner of the 2011 Elliot Norton Award for Best New Script and the 2012 IRNE Award for Best New Play. A starlet and her paramour, a senator's wife and a prostitute, a mother of an abducted child, a bus driver, a taxi dispatcher, a desperate lover - these lives and others intersect in and around the Hotel Nepenthe as mysteries multiply and deepen, and interactions between strangers reveal an unsettling interconnectedness among all. The 2011 Elliot Norton Award-winning ensemble of Marianna Bassham, Daniel Berger-Jones, John Kuntz, and Georgia Lyman reunites for six performances only.

Steve Cuiffo IS Lenny Bruce
Friday June 22 and Saturday June 23 at 8pm – A.R.T's OBERON
The celebrated performer Steve Cuiffo has immersed himself in the work of Lenny Bruce, delivering sublime, hyper-real, verbatim resurrections of the great American thinker's monologues. The New York Times has declared, "Lenny Bruce is brought back from the dead in the form of Mr. Cuiffo," who will perform a compilation of Bruce "bits" on still-hot topics, including organized religion, race, illegal and prescription drugs, sexual mores, obscenity, and the Constitution. It's fifty years later, but Bruce's often prophetic, freedom-loving skewering of American culture is as dazzling, hilarious and insightful as ever.

EXPERIMENT AMERICA
Friday, June 22 from 9:30pm to 1am – The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
What if your phone could let you in on the secret stories of strangers in the crowd? Immersive theater artist Mikhael Tara Garver (Fornicated From the Beatles, and the sold-out Experimen tAmerica 2010) will collaborate with over fifty writers, dancers, actors, and performers to bring you an evening filled to the brim with music, dancing, and hidden discoveries with unexpected encounters waiting in your pocket and around every corner at the ICA. It's a dance party, it's a performance, it's an experience: it's Experiment America.

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE
Saturday, June 23 at 3pm and Sunday, June 24 at 6pm – A.R.T.'s OBERON
By Stickball Productions, Based on the novel by George V. Higgins, Adapted for the stage by Bill Doncaster, Directed by Maria Silvaggi
The godfather of badass Boston crime stories comes to life in this stage adaptation of George V. Higgins' The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Set in the winter of '69, Eddie Coyle is a bottom of the barrel hood tried to stay alive and out of jail among his "friends" – bank robbers, student radicals, bartenders, hit men, cops and informants. The Friends of Eddie Coyle has been called the best crime novel ever written and now Higgins' dialogue comes alive through live theater in a return to OBERON following its sold out winter run.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION! BRUNCH
Sunday, June 24 at 12pm – Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Mingle with festival-goers and artists and discuss the festival's offerings. Enjoy surprising, unconventional performances by local artists that will intrigue, fascinate, and amuse.

[NEW] Featuring:
· Tyler Catanella and Paradise Lost: Responsive, setting-inspired contemporary dance
· Tom Bardwell, aka Nicholle Pride: Sensational, dynamic drag performance
· Jan Paul Kaim: Improvisational musical underscoring
· Bad Habit Productions: Spontaneous Shakespeare from thriving fringe theatre

FESTIVAL CLOSING PARTY
Sunday, June 24th at 8:30 p.m. – A.R.T.'s OBERON
Celebrate the end of the weekend with Festival artists, live performance, conversation and fun. Special musical guests to be announced!

And on our website:
THE EMERGING AMERICA AUDIO PLAYS, PODCASTS, AND WALKING TOURS
A new batch of dynamic free downloads follow the dozens of audio events offered in 2011 and 2010. The Huntington Theatre Company shares site-specific audio plays by Huntington Playwriting Fellows and inspired by locations surrounding each Emerging America partner venue. The A.R.T. and ICA offer podcasts and walking tours from local artists and festival participants. Listen in and explore, investigate, and imagine the lives of places in Boston and Cambridge. More info at http://www.emergingamericafestival.org.

During the festival:
THE FESTIVAL TENT
Come together at the Festival Tent, just outside OBERON at the A.R.T., where festival-goers can grab a drink and meet artists and audiences from all over Cambridge, Boston, and the nation.

For more information, visit www.emergingamericafestival.org