'CHAD DEITY' to Open 2/7 at Firehouse Theatre

Firehouse Theatre Project combines faith and professional wrestling in its next installment of its 20th Season Anniversary, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, by Kristoffer Diaz. Directed by Kerry McGee (Any Given Monday) and a proud participant of Richmond's annual Acts of Faith festival, this balls-out dramatic comedy will play 15 performances, February 6 - March 8. Opening Night is Friday, February 7th.

"Chad Deity isn't just a play - that's what I like best about it - it's a rock n' roll, adrenaline-fueled experience," says director, Kerry McGee. "It's totally different from anything you've ever seen in a theatre before. It's a whole lot of action accompanied by a whole lot of heart."

A "delicious crackle and pop of galloping, honest-to-God, all-American satire" (The New York Times), The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity explores the larger-than-life world of professional wrestling. Mace is a great professional wrestler, but he's no champion - that's the impossibly charismatic Chad Deity. When Mace discovers a young Indian-American Brooklyn kid whose charisma rivals that of the champ, Mace decides to get him a job in the company. Only problem is, the boss has a very specific plan for the duo: put them onscreen as terrorists.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity features two-time Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award winner Nicklas Aliff (Any Given Monday, The Rocky Horror Show), Axle Burtness (POP!), Josh Marin (The Wild Party), Mauricio Marcés (The Rocky Horror Show) and professional wrestler James Long.

Kristoffer Diaz is a playwright and educator living and working in Brooklyn. His full-length titles include The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (published by Samuel French), Welcome to Arroyo's, Guernica, f-ing Vigwan (or Swag), and #therevolution. Awards include 2011 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award; finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; winner, 2011 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play; winner, 2011 OBIE Award, Best New American Play; and the inaugural Gail Merrifield Papp Fellowship from The Public Theater (2011). His work has been produced, commissioned, and developed at The Public Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Geffen Playhouse, Center Theatre Group, The Goodman, Second Stage, Victory Gardens, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, American Theater Company, The Atlantic, InterAct, Mixed Blood, The Orchard Project, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Lark, Summer Play Festival, Donmar Warehouse, and South Coast Repertory. He has written short work for the 24 Hour Musicals and the 24 Hour Plays on Broadway. Kristoffer was one of the creators of Brink!, the apprentice anthology show at the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays. He is a playwright-in-residence at Teatro Vista; a resident playwright at New Dramatists; a co-founder of the Unit Collective (Minneapolis); and a recipient of the Jerome Fellowship, the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant, and the Van Lier Fellowship (New Dramatists). Kristoffer holds a BA from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, an MFA from NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing, and an MFA from Brooklyn College's Performing Arts Management program.

Kerry McGee currently lives in Washington, D.C. where she is the Marketing Director of We Happy Few Theatre Company, teaches drama for Imagination Stage, and slings whiskey drinks at Southern Efficiency. Kerry also is the co-artistic director of Night Light Collective (NLC), an east-coast based ensemble theatre company. NLC recently produced Dinner with the Devil, directed by Kerry, at Penny Lane Pub and The American Girl Project, a show written and performed by Kerry, both in Richmond and at the New Orleans Fringe Festival. Kerry received her MFA in Theatre Pedagogy from VCU and has worked for Richmond Shakespeare, producing and their Bawdy Bard Readings Series, in their education department, and as an actor in King Lear, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream, which won an RTCC award in 2009 for Best Ensemble Performance. Kerry has directed The Lover at Sycamore Rouge, Henry V and Betrayal with the VCU's Shafer Alliance Laboratory Theatre series and the staged readings Desdemona, A Play About a Handkerchief and Richard III: The Zombie Cut for Richmond Shakespeare. She's also worked locally as an actor with Firehouse Theatre Project, Henley Street Theatre and Richmond Triangle Players. Recent productions include Any Given Monday, Bootleg Hamlet, The Liar, Stupid Kids, Merchant of Venice, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. HOWEVER, some of you may know Kerry best from Richmond Lucha Libre/Richmond RVA as AKA's manager, Rebecca Van Price, the CEO of MVP Sports Agency.