Furious Theatre Company Announces Their 2010 Lineup Of Shows

Furious Theatre Company announces three premiere comedies for its seventh season. Season 7 promises "three shots of theatre adrenaline" from three daring young award-winning playwrights. The season begins with the West Coast premiere of Men of Tortuga by Jason Wells, which will open on Saturday, February 20 and run through Sunday, March 21 (Previews: February 17 - 19); leading into the Los Angeles Premiere of boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, which is slated for a May/June run; followed by the World Premiere of NOgoodDEED by Matt Pelfrey in the Fall of 2010. The first two plays will premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse Carrie Hamilton Theatre, 39 S. El Molino Ave. in Pasadena while NOgoodDEED will receive its world premiere at another, yet to be announced location.

The company is thrilled to see the return of playwrights Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and ensemble member/resident playwright Matt Pelfrey. Furious recently produced Nachtrieb's "savagely funny" play, Hunter Gatherers and will bring his hugely popular new work boom to the Los Angeles stage. Pelfrey's play, NOgoodDEED will be the second World Premiere of his work produced by Furious and is the first play commissioned by the company in its history. Pelfrey's play, An Impending Rupture of the Belly premiered in 2007 and garnered him a BackStage West Garland Award for Playwriting. Furious will also be introducing writer, Jason Wells, to Los Angeles audiences. His play Men of Tortuga was first produced at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre.

Furious Co-Artistic Director Dámaso Rodriguez says 2010 promises to be packed with the kind of intense work for which the ensemble has become known. "We're excited to deliver to our audiences these three shots of theatre adrenaline," Rodriguez said. "Each Season 7 play will provide audiences with what we've come to define as the prototypical Furious Theatre experience: gripping stories, urgently relevant themes, razor-sharp dialogue, a bold theatrical style and tight ensemble acting joining forces to create a theatre event that examines our society and challenges our perspectives. And, like many Furious plays of late, these will make you laugh one moment, and stun you into silence the next," said Rodriguez.

The upcoming season marks Furious Theatre's sixth year in residence at Pasadena Playhouse and adds a new dimension to the relationship by bringing in Playhouse Artistic Associate Alexis Chamow to direct the first show of the season. Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps believes The Playhouse's partnership with Furious has greatly benefitted both organizations. "One of the most exciting developments of my time here at The Playhouse has been our collaboration with Furious Theatre," Epps said. "This is a partnership that has grown stronger and stronger over the past five years; with mutual benefits that I know will bring even greater rewards as we head towards a decade of theatrical marriage. Along with Hothouse at The Playhouse, the Furious Company has filled the Carrie Hamilton Theatre with provocative new plays, bold theatrical energy, and a valuable introduction to a vast array of both new
artists and new audiences. I am hard pressed to think of any alliance in the American Theatre that has had more beneficial results on all sides."

The 2010 Furious Theatre Company Season:

West Coast Premiere
MEN OF TORTUGA
Written by Jason Wells
Directed by Alexis Chamow

Opens Saturday, February 20 and runs through Sunday, March 21, 2010
(Previews February 17 - 19)
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m.

Three power-brokers scheme with a weapons specialist to assassinate a despised opponent... Too bad they're all such incompetents. The bungling only gets worse as Maxwell, the senior power-broker, takes a young idealist under his wing. Suddenly his long-dormant conscience begins to reawaken and he must decide whether the ends justify their means. This comedic thriller discloses a sharp parable that takes a crack at the nastiness of covert governmental and corporate operations.

JASON WELLS is a Chicago-based actor with numerous stage, film and television credits. His first screenplay, From Missouri, was accepted for development by the New Harmony Project. His first play, Men of Tortuga, was produced at Steppenwolf's First Look Repertory in 2005, and subsequently at Asolo Rep in Sarasota, Florida where his most recent play, Perfect Mendacity received its World Premiere in 2009.

ALEXIS CHAMOW is Artistic Associate/Director of Education at Pasadena Playhouse. Her directing credits in new work, adaptations and ensemble generated material include: Air Guitar High by TCG Fellow Laura Schellhardt (workshop reading, Pasadena Playhouse); Sig Gotta Do by Jerome Fellow Megan Gogerty (workshop reading, Pasadena Playhouse); Eggs by Anne-Giselle Spiegler (workshop reading, Syzygy Theatre); Somewhere in Yellowstone by Jessica Smith (workshop reading, Syzygy Theatre); Dinner 101 by Kate Rigg (Center Theatre Group PLAY program); Pandas by Megan Gogerty (workshop reading, Syzygy Theatre); Love Jerry by Megan Gogerty (Oscar Brockett Theatre, Austin Critic's Table Nomination, Best Director - Musical); These Shining Lives, Weighing the World (adapted from Jeanette Winterson's novel, Weight), The K of D, The Trial (adapted from Franz Kafka's novel and Stephen Berkoff's performance translation), Our Country's Good (National High School Institute - Cherub program); The Troublesome Olives; Everyman; Bisclavret (Seattle Children's Theatre); The Locker (Seattle's Bathhouse Theatre); Flights of Fantasy (Assistant Director, Seattle Repertory Theatre); A Life So Far; A River Runs Through It; Christmas Panto (Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath, England); alumni, Lincoln Center Director's Lab & Director's Lab West.

Los Angeles Premiere
boom
Written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
Directed by Dámaso Rodriguez

Opens May 2010

A comedy both epic and intimate that spans billions of years. It begins as a grad student's online personal ad lures a mysterious journalism student to his subterranean research lab under the pretense of an evening of "no strings attached" sex. When a major global catastrophic event strikes the planet, their date takes on evolutionary significance and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

PETER SINN NACHTRIEB (Playwright) is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include boom, Hunter Gatherers, Colorado, T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common), and Multiplex. His work has been seen off-Broadway and across the country at Ars Nova, SPF, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Seattle Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Public Theatre, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep, the Bailiwick Theatre, Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theatre, Dad's Garage, and in the Bay Area at Encore Theatre, Killing My Lobster, The Magic Theatre, Impact Theatre, and The Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Hunter Gatherers received the 2007 American Theatre Critics Association/Steinberg New Play Award for best new play to premiere outside of New York and the 2007 Will Glickman Prize for best new play in the Bay Area. He is under commission from South Coast Rep and is a Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco. Peter holds a degree in Theater and Biology from Brown and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He likes to promote himself online at www.peternachtrieb.com.

DÁMASO RODRIGUEZ (Director) is the Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse and is a Co-artistic director of Furious Theatre Company, Artists-in-Residence at the Pasadena Playhouse Carrie Hamilton Theatre. His Pasadena Playhouse directing credits include: Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies (Opening 2010), The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman, Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton, NOgoodDeed by Matt Pelfrey (Hothouse Reading), Another Part of the Forest by Lillian Hellman (Hothouse Reading). His directing credits for Furious Theatre include: The Pain and the Itch by Bruce Norris (Los Angeles Premiere in a co-production with the Theatre at Boston Court), Hunter Gatherers by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb (Los Angeles Premiere), Canned Peaches in Syrup by Alex Jones (World Premiere, Back Stage West Garland Award Honorable Mention for Production), An Impending Rupture of the Belly by Matt Pelfrey (World Premiere, four LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations including Production & Direction), Grace by Craig Wright (Los Angeles Premiere, three Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards including Production & Direction), Back of the Throat by Yussef El Gundi (Los Angeles Premiere), The Fair Maid of the West Parts I & II (World Premiere Adaptation), The God Botherers by Richard Bean (West Coast Premiere), The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute (Los Angeles Premiere), Scenes from the Big Picture by Owen McCafferty (U.S. Premiere), Chimps by Simon Block (U.S. Premiere), The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge, and Saturday Night at the Palace by Paul Slabolepszy (U.S. Premiere, two NAACP Theatre Awards including Best Director). In 2010, he will direct Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets at Seattle's Intiman Theatre. With Furious Theatre, Dámaso has received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, Back Stage Garland Award, NAACP Theatre Award, and the Pasadena Arts Council's Gold Crown Award. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

World Premiere
NOgoodDEED
Written by Matt Pelfrey
Directed by Dámaso Rodriguez

Fall 2010

Furious Theatre's award-winning writer in residence exposes the dark side of good deeds in this skillfully drawn, violently dark comedy about young Josh Jaxson, who is driven to ruin by his own act of bravery. Josh and his two fellow "heroes" unite in the afterlife and vow to undo their courageous feats by adopting superhero personas and an unconventional brand of time travel. NOgoodDEED is a savagely humorous ride that is part play, part graphic novel, and part something utterly new and extreme.

MATT PELFREY (Playwright) plays include Pure Shock Value, Cockroach Nation, Terminus Americana, Honkies with Attitude, Gore Hounds, Drive Angry, FrEAk StORm, Jerry Springer is God, Monkey and A Feast of Famine as well as commissioned adaptations of The Basketball Diaries and In the Heat of the Night. They have been produced in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and South Africa by such companies as the Actors Theater of Louisville (Humana Festival '99), Roadworks, American Theater of Actors, (Mostly) Harmless Theater Company, Moving Arts, Hexagon Theatre and the Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. He is the recipient of the Heideman Award (National Ten-Minute Play Award), and has been nominated for an American Critics New Play Award and for a Los Angeles Ovation Award. In 2001 Mr. Pelfrey was a finalist for the Julliard Playwrights Program. Jerry Springer is God and Drive Angry are published by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus. Cockroach Nation is published by Original Works Publishing. Matt received his MFA from UCLA where upon graduation he spent a year teaching undergraduate playwriting.

Tickets for the season can be purchased online at www.furioustheatre.org for only $75.

The critically-acclaimed Furious Theatre Company are artists in residence at the Pasadena Playhouse committed to edgy, innovative and original works. The company debuted in April 2002 after they were generously granted the use of a 9,000 square foot section of Armory Northwest, a former plastics factory. The company converted the raw warehouse into an alternative performance space. Risers were constructed, the lighting grid hung and stage curtains built, all by the ensemble. In that converted warehouse, they rapidly produced five plays in 12 months. These productions earned 6 NAACP Theatre Award nominations, two LA Weekly Award nominations and numerous critics' picks from the Los Angeles media. The company also received the Pasadena Arts Council's Gold Crown Award and The Debut Award from Back Stage West. In September 2003, the City of Pasadena reclaimed the Armory Northwest and Furious needed to move. After a 13-month search, the Pasadena Playhouse granted Furious a residency at its Balcony Theatre (later renamed the Carrie Hamilton Theatre), The Playhouse's 99-seat second stage. Since its 2004 debut at The Playhouse, Furious Theatre Company has produced thirteen premieres, including the World Premieres of Alex Jones' Canned Peaches in Syrup and Matt Pelfrey's An Impending Rupture of the Belly (4 LA Weekly Award nominations, Garland Award) as well as Los Angeles Premieres of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, Yussef El Guindi's Back of the Throat (LA Weekly Award Winner: Best Playwright), Craig Wright's Grace (Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award Recipient: Best Production, Best Direction, Best Writing), Gina Gionfriddo's US Drag (7 LA Weekly Award Nominations), Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Hunter Gatherers and Bruce Norris' The Pain and the Itch. Furious Theatre Company is led by co-founders and Artistic Council members: Sara Hennessy, Shawn Lee, Vonessa Martin, Eric Pargac, Brad Price and Dámaso Rodriguez and fellow ensemble members Nick Cernoch, Katie Davies, Doug Newell, Megan Goodchild, Matt Pelfrey Dana Kelly, Jr., Robert Pescovitz, Christie Wright, James C. Leary, Richard Hilton and Melissa Teoh. For more info visit www.furioustheatre.org.