David Van Asselt's A FABLE Opens Tonight at Cherry Lane Theatre

piece by piece productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater present the world premiere of A Fable, written by David Van Asselt and directed by Daniel Talbott, at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street. The opening night is set for tonight, May 22 at 7pm. A Fable is scheduled to run through Saturday, June 28.

The epic adventure of an idealist spurred on by love to right a long-forgotten wrong, A Fable follow his encounters with a whole cast of characters--colorful and corrupt, lucky and ill-fated--as they each grope their way through a landscape of nationwide strife and corporate greed. A play of dualities, A Fable takes into question how each choice we make can drastically change our ending.

The cast of A Fable is Edward Carnevale, Liza Fernandez, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Maxwell Hamilton, Jerry Matz, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Eileen Rivera, Pamela Shaw, Samantha Soule, Alok Tewari, Sanford Wilson, and Gordon Joseph Weiss.

Music for A Fable is by Elizabeth Swados; set design is by John McDermott; costume design is by Tristan Raines; lighting design is by Joel Moritz; projection design is by Kaitlyn Pietras; sound design is by Janie Bullard; fight direction is by UnkleDave's Fight-House; hair and make-up design is by Caitlin Conci. The production manager is Dave Nelson; the production stage manager is Andrew Slater.

David Van Asselt is the Artistic Director and a co-founder of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Because he is also a playwright (Dog Daze, Incident at Irving's Pet Place (a radio play), A Trip to the Beach, Winning), he started the company with six other playwrights as a kind of playwrights cooperative, which then evolved into the present day company. He has degrees in film and philosophy from NYU.

Daniel Talbott is an actor, director, playwright, producer, literary manager of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and the artistic director of the Lucille Lortel and NYIT Award-winning Rising Phoenix Rep. Recent directing work includes Gin Baby (IRT), Scarcity (Rattlestick), Mike and Seth (Encore), Slipping (Rattlestick), AZAK (Rattlestick/Encore), Lake Water (Neighborhood Productions), Eightythree Down (Hard Sparks), Much Ado About Nothing (Boomerang), Squealer (Lesser America), and The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC - Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play). His plays include Slipping (The Side Project, Rattlestick), Yosemite (Rattlestick), AZAK (Encore/Rattlestick), What Happened When (RPR/HERE), Someone Brought Me (Quince Productions), Mike and Seth (Quince, Encore, upcoming at The Side Project), Extraordinary Things (Rising Phoenix Rep), and Grey. He is a graduate of Juilliard and of Solano College Theatre's ATP, teaches at Primary Stages/ESPA, and is a proud member of Lesser America.

Elizabeth Swados is perhaps best known for her Broadway and international smash hit Runaways. Ms. Swados has composed, written and directed for over thirty years. Some of her works include the Obie Award-winning Trilogy at La MaMa, Alice at the Palace with Meryl Streep at the New York Shakespeare Theater Festival and Groundhog at Manhattan Theater Club and was optioned for a Milos Forman film. Her work has been performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, at La MaMa, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, and locations all over the world. Ms. Swados has scored films for Francis Ford Coppola and Arthur Penn and many documentaries, including Auf Wiedersehen, and "What do Children Think About When They Think About the Bomb" for HBO. She was commissioned to write an oratorio commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It was performed in New York City and at the site of the fire outdoors in Washington Square Park. In 2010, she adapted poems of Roald Dahl for the Atlantic Theater Company. She has had three books of poetry published by Hanging Loose Press, the most recent, The Contest, published in 2013. Her book, My Depression, A Picture Book (from which this film is based) won the Ken award from the National Alliance of Mental Illness. This book is being published this year by Seven Stories Press to coincide with the film's premiere. My Depression, A Picture Book also won the New York Public Library award for best non-fiction work for teenagers.

A Fable plays Tuesday through Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 2pm and 7pm; and Sunday at 3pm at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street. There will be no performance on Friday, May 23. Tickets are $66 and may be purchased by visiting www.OvationTix.com or by phoning 866-811-4111. Tickets for those under 30 and theater artists are $26; student tickets are $21. For more information about A Fable, visit www.piecebypieceproductions.org, www.RisingPhoenixRep.org, or www.rattlestick.org.

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