The Monster at the Door Premieres at the Alley

By: Jan. 20, 2011
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Alley Company Artist and Pulitzer finalist Rajiv Joseph is currently enjoying an astonishing year, with three plays opening in the next few months. Gruesome Playground Injuries, which premiered at the Alley October 2009, opens on January 31 at Second Stage in New York City, features Jennifer Carpenter and Pablo Schreiber. His award-winning Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is being primed for its Broadway debut on March 31 and will feature Robin Williams. Rajiv's newest play The Monster at the Door (whose previous Working Title was The Medusa Body) is being developed through the Alley Theatre's New Play Initiative, and will have its world premiere on May 4 on the Neuhaus Stage.

In Rajiv Joseph's The Monster at the Door, meteors are falling, Sirens are calling, and priceless works of art are disappearing from the global headquarters of Connor Fergueson and White, a securities firm with blood on its hands. In this darkly funny play, five very different people are drawn together as the world around them crumbles, and their dreams of health and prosperity are threatened by something terrifying, just outside their door. Recommended for mature audiences.
The Monster at the Door will be directed by Daniella Topol, who is making her Alley Theatre debut. Performances on the Neuhaus Stage begin on April 29, opens officially on May 4, and run through May 29, 2011.

Last month, Rajiv Joseph was awarded a USA Fellowship. He was one of 52 artists, nine of them from the Theatre World, given an unrestricTed Grant of $50,000. Winning artists were chosen from 302 nominated applicants and where awarded to those artists who "demonstrate artistic excellence, unique artistic vision and significant contributions to their fields."
"Like Gruesome Playground Injuries, Rajiv Joseph's new play is imaginative and conjures new stage worlds for artists and audiences," said Alley Theatre Senior Dramaturg and Director of New Play Development Mark Bly. "The Alley's collaboration with Rajiv is an extraordinary and unique one."

"Rajiv Joseph is one of the most exciting new voices in American Theatre and we are delighted to have him continue to work with the Alley Company" said Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd.

As part of the innovative partnership between the Alley Theatre and Ucross Foundation, last spring Rajiv Joseph was able to spend time at the Ucross Foundation writing The Monster at the Door. Ucross Foundation is a nonprofit organization which runs a prestigious retreat for writers, artists and composers in northern Wyoming.

Rajiv Joseph (Playwright) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which opens on Broadway on March 31, 2011 with a cast featuring Robin Williams. Second Stage Theatre's off- Broadway production of Gruesome Playground Injuries (Alley Theatre 2009) opens January 31, 2011 featuring Jennifer Carpenter and Pablo Schreiber. Joseph was awarded the 2009 Kesselring Fellowship, received a Whiting Writers' Award in 2009 and was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for "Outstanding Play" for Animals Out of Paper. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo also won five Backstage Garland Awards last year.

Daniella Topol (Director) is focused on directing and developing new musicals and plays. Her New York credits include Sheila Callaghan's Lascivious Something at Cherry Lane Mainstage, the off-Broadway commercial production of Susan Yankowitz's Night Sky , Judith Thompson's Palace of the End at Epic Theatre, the Women's Project and Productions of Trista Baldwin's Sand, Stanton Wood's The Snow Queen at Urban Stages, Jakob Holder's Housebreaking for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (mentored by Chuck Mee), Sheila Callaghan's Dead City at New Georges, Peter Gil-Sheridan's Topsy Turvy Mouse for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (mentored by Michael Weller), Zakiyyah Alexander's Sick? at Summer Play Festival, and Dreams This Way (Best of Raw Impressions Musical Selections). Regionally, she has directed the musical Pool Boy by Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard at Barrington Stage Company; Instructions for Breathing by Caridad Svich at Passage Theatre; Kim Oler, Alison Hubbard, and Sean Hartley's world premiere musical of Little Women at Village Theatre and Forgetting by Trista Baldwin at The Playwrights Center. She has directed workshops of musicals at Goodspeed Musicals and Barrington Stage in conjunction with NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and readings and workshops for a number of New York companies including the Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists, NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, the Public, and the Roundabout. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon's directing program, Daniella has served as Artistic Program Director at the Lark Play Development Center, New Works Program Director at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Associate Producing Director of City Theatre Company and resident artist at HERE developing a new multi-media piece on floods called Water (Or the Secret Life of Objects) with Sheila Callaghan, Leah Gelpe, and Katie Down. Upcoming productions include Morini Strad by Willy Holtzman at City Theatre Company and Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler at Theater J. Daniella is based in New York.
ABOUT THE Alley Theatre'S NEW PLAY INITIATIVE

The Alley Theatre's New Play Initiative facilitates the creative collaboration between playwrights, directors, actors, designers and dramaturgs during all stages of a new play's development. Central to this Initiative are readings, workshops, commissions, Affinity Series Symposiums and residencies. Three world premieres have been developed through this Initiative in the 2009-2010 season: Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries, which ran October 16 to November 15, 2009, Jack Murphy, Gregory Boyd, and Frank Wildhorn's Wonderland, which ran January 15 to February 14, 2010, and Kenneth Lin's Intelligence-Slave, which ran May 23 to June 20, 2010. Along with The Monster at the Door, the Alley Theatre will produce the world premiere of Herbert Siguenza's A Weekend with Pablo Picasso as part of the 2010-2011 season. In producing these new plays, we intend to give each the fullest production values and support to bring forth and enhance the theatrical poetry and imagination that the playwright has poured into the play. This is the primary focal point and purpose of the entire New Play Initiative at the Alley Theatre - for the artists and audience to come together within the imagination of a living, working playwright and to help create a first production that will launch the new work to become what we all believe it will be - a play destined to become a classic for the future.

ABOUT Alley Theatre AND UCROSS FOUNDATION

The Alley Theatre and Ucross established an ongoing, innovative partnership in 2009. Each year they will create a writing residency for a playwright and a workshop that involves the playwright and the Alley Theatre artists to focus on a newly developed play. Playwright Rajiv Joseph spent time at Ucross residency in Spring 2010. Kenneth Lin, whose Intelligence-Slave has its world premiere at the Alley in May 2010, had a highly successful writing retreat at Ucross in August 2009.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets to The Monster at the Door start at $21. All tickets to The Monster at the Door are available for purchase at www.alleytheatre.org, at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Avenue, or by calling 713.220.5700. Groups of 10 or more can receive special concierge services and select discounts by calling 713.220.5700 and asking for the group sales department. The added convenience of reservations by phone or Internet is available for a nominal fee. Tickets purchased in person at the Alley Theatre Box Office have a $1 building restoration fee.

The Monster at the Door is generously sponsored by Neuhaus Stage Season Sponsor Randall H. Jamail. The Alley Theatre is supported by the 2010-2011 season sponsor United Airlines, the official airline of the Alley Theatre.

 

 

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