STITCHES to Run 8/6-15 at TheaterLab

In Stitches Jane is coming apart at the seams, and her sister Jill is trying to hold it all together. When the phone rings their lives become irrevocably intertwined, and the fine line between self-destruction and self-control quickly begins to erode.

The world premiere of a new play by Leah Franqui, (recipient of the Goldberg Playwrighting Prize and Sloan Foundation Award,) Stitches explores the issues of family, trust, and self-harm with wrenching honesty and thoughtful humor while suggesting that, in a world where everything is manufactured, perhaps the most revolutionary act is to make something with our own hands.

Stitches is a guest production of TheaterLab and features Victoria Frings (An Enemy of the People), David Kenner (Hamlet), and Anastasia Olowin (The Killer) under the masterful direction of Elena Araoz (Architecture of Becoming), and is presented by To-By-For Productions in an effort to create work by and about women.

Performance Schedule
Thursday Aug. 6 @ 7:30pm
Friday Aug. 7 @ 3pm *matinee
Friday Aug. 7 @ 7:30pm
Saturday Aug 8 @ 7:30pm
Thursday Aug. 13 @ 7:30pm
Friday Aug. 14 @ 7.30pm

Saturday Aug. 15 @ 3pm *matinee
Saturday Aug. 15 @ 7:30 pm

Location:

TheaterLab is located at 357 W 36th Street, 3rd Floor, New York NY 10018 b/w 8th and 9th Avenues.

More info at: www.theaterlabnyc.com

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Elena Araoz (director)

Elena Araoz directs theater and opera, internationally, Off-Broadway, and regionally. Productions include Mac Wellman's Wu and Horrocks (Sleeping Weazel at ArtsEmerson), Architecture of Becoming by Kara Corthron, Sarah Gancher, Virginia Grise, Dipika Guha, and Lauren Yee (Women's Project), Li Tong Chen's The Power (Beijing), Natalia Naman's Lawnpeople (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), Lucia di Lammermoor (Opera North), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Prague Shakespeare Company), Falstaff (Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM), Latin Lovers (Glimmerglass Opera), La traviata (New York City Opera at BAM), Naomi Wallace's The Fever Chart (Underground Railway Theatre), Jaclyn Villano's The Company We Keep (Boston Playwright's Theatre), Monika Bustamante's Thirst: a spell for Christabel (HERE), The Price (Northern Stage), and Off-Broadway productions of two Carl Djerassi plays. Elena worked extensively with Sir Jonathan Miller as Choreographer and Associate Director and with Sir Richard Eyre as Associate Director on Ghosts (BAM). She is currently writing and will direct Plastic Drastic, an environmentally-aware adaptation of the Odyssey commissioned by the Rose Theatre, www.elenaaraoz.com

Leah Franqui (playwright)

Leah is a native of Philadelphia, PA. She is a recipient of the Goldberg Playwrighting Prize for her play Above and Below, and the Sloan Foundation Screenwriting prize for her screenplay Origin. Franqui's work has been read at Dramatic Theater Question, The Players Club of New York, IATS Theatre Company, PlayPenn, Teatro Repertorio Espanol and Yale University. As an undergraduate at Yale University, she began to write more at the encouragement of one of her favorite professors, Deborah Margolin. She then began her Masters at NYU-Tisch in Dramatic Writing and graduated in May of 2014. Currently she tutors and teaches sewing classes, and she writes, in Brooklyn.

Victoria Frings (Jill)
Broadway: An Enemy of the People, Off-Broadway: Tales from Red Vienna (Manhattan Theatre Club), Select Regional: The Kennedy Center, Wilma Theater, Arden Theatre, People's Light and Theatre Co. Film/New Media: Sleeping with Other People, Lucy 4:57PM, After Ever After Web Series. Frings is the proud founder of To-By-For Productions, and this fall she will also direct her screenwriting debut short, An Out. Frings is an alumni of the Public Theater's Shakespeare Lab, ACT's Summer Training Congress and the University of Pennsylvania.

David Kenner (Adam)
Theater credits include: Hamlet (Capital Rep), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare in the Park), RED (Capital Rep), Old Wicked Songs (BRT), Romeo & Juliet, Pride & Prejudice (PSF), The Overwhelming (Hangar Theatre), Caravan Man, Help Yourself (Williamstown Theater Festival). Film: Excuse Me for Living, Follow the Leader. BFA from SHSU. MFA from NYU Graduate Acting.

Anastasia Olowin (Jane)
Off-Broadway: The Killer (Theatre for a New Audience), Other NY: Set in the Living Room..., You On the Moors Now, and Three Seagulls, or MASHAMASHAMASHA! (Theater Reconstruction Ensemble), Plum de Force (The Bushwick Starr), Obedient Steel (Tugboat Collective), Obskene (The Talking Band), Target Margin's Lab Series. Film/Media: Tourists, The Pressure, After Ever After Web Series. She is the Associate Artistic Director of Theater Reconstruction Ensemble. BFA: NYU Tisch.