MY NAME IS GIDEON Opens Tonight at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

All For One Theater (AFO) welcomes Gideon Irving, making his American stage debut with his new solo show My Name Is Gideon: I'm Probably Going To Die, Eventually which opens tonight, November 17th, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (224 Waverly Place) for a limited run through December 11th.

The show's previous engagement was cancelled prior to its first preview by the sudden closing of Soho Rep.'s Walker Street theater.

Direct from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, after traveling across three continents, Irving is an unconventional theatrical couchsurfer who has been biking, rollerblading, and driving from one town to the next for the past five years, performing and residing in the homes of perfect strangers. After 504 home shows, Gideon is now inviting audiences into his own living room on the NY stage, bringing them "Stove Top Folk" - his unique blend of songs, stories, and underwater levitation, jam-packed with curiosities and surprises. Directed by Ewen Wright, My Name Is Gideon: I'm Probably Going To Die, Eventually is produced by AFO in association with Richard Jordan Productions.

Tickets are $35 general admission, $25 for seniors/students, $100-$500 for heroes and a limited number of $10 tickets for all performances (which are sponsored by the hero tickets). Tickets can be purchased by visiting web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/963075 or calling (866) 811- 4111.

My Name Is Gideon: I'm Probably Going To Die, Eventually has been developed over the course of 504 performances in living rooms around the world. The resulting theatrical excursion in storytelling is rooted in song and surprise, featuring more than 15 instruments - among them, the banjo, bouzouki, waterphone, shruti box, mbira, whirly tube, and scacciapensieri. Gideon's expedition continues as he looks for a new place to stay each night, relying on this audiences' hospitality.

Gideon's first collaboration with a theater company was in the winter of 2015 when he performed his NY Times' Critics Pick, Living Here, commissioned and produced by The Foundry Theatre. That tour covered 45 homes across the five boroughs, and was Gideon's first foray into a more established theatrical context.

"The heart of what I do has emerged from playing in people's homes," Irving says. "The show, the music, the communion, the travel, and the relationships are all interwoven. The challenge and the joy of bringing my show into a theater is in discovering how to maintain and play with that intimacy I've found in homes."

Scenic design is by Silvosky Studios, with lighting design by Stephen Terry, sound design by Dan Gerhard, and costume design by Alice Tavener. Casey Alexander Smith is the property master.

Since 2012, Gideon Irving has been playing shows, amalgams of music, stories, and other theatrical curiosities in people's homes - 504 at this point - across England, Scotland, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. Using a menagerie of instruments, he describes his style as Stove Top Folk, "a bit of this and some of that." He has toured home to home by bicycle towing a trailer, on roller blades pushing a modified shopping cart, and driving automobiles. Building his tours through connections made by audience referrals on good old-fashioned maps after each performance, and staying with his hosts along the way, Gideon is building a global and committed network of hosts and audiences. Last year he was commissioned by The Foundry Theater to create a new home show presented in 45 NYC apartments. He has also performed his two-man home-show The Gideon and Hubcap Show in homes domestic and abroad - as well as a run at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Gideon has been covered by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vice, Time Out NY, The Village Voice, Culturebot, Howlround, BBC, Broadway Baby, The Mumble, The Herald (Scotland), TV Bomb, and several New Zealand publications and TV shows. He is currently developing another solo show for an eighteen-month tour across the US on horseback and a children's show with his two man show partner Dr. Hubcap "Nate" Sloan.

Now in its fifth year, All For One Theater (AFO) has presented over 50 acclaimed full-length solo plays. AFO is rooted in the belief that extraordinary solo theater is unique in its ability to deliver life-changing stories, speaking with passion and intimacy that compels us to lean in, learn, relate and revel, while offering a range of topics and experiences as diverse as humankind itself. In 2016, AFO launched its touring initiative to bring solo shows to stages across America and around the world. It also created the AFO Solo Collective (AFO|SoCo) to nurture and develop some of the brightest writing, performing, and directing talent in the solo world.

Beginning November 11th the playing schedule for My Name Is Gideon: I'm Probably Going To Die, Eventually Tuesdays - Saturday's at 7:30pm and Sunday's at 3pm, exceptions are December 3rd and 10th at 7pm. Dark nights are as follows: November 13th, 20th, 30th and December 7th.

The mission of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is to develop and produce diverse and challenging plays that otherwise might not be produced and to foster the future voices of American theater. They have produced the first plays and the early works of some of today's leading voices, including Annie Baker (The Aliens), Sheila Callaghan (That Pretty Pretty), Jesse Eisenberg (The Revisionist), Samuel D. Hunter (The Few), Adam Rapp (The Hallway Trilogy), Lucy Thurber (The Hilltown Plays). This season includes: Orange Julius by Basil Kreimendahl, in a co-production with P73, and Martin Zimmerman's Seven Spots on the Sun, in partnership with The Sol Project, the Amoralists' production of Ken Urban's Nibbler.

Photo Credit: Maria Baranova

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