STORM, STILL Adaptation of KING LEAR Begins Today in Brooklyn Backyard

Brand new play incubator Brooklyn Yard presents a showcase production of STORM, STILL, a three-person adaptation of King Lear, by playwright Gabrielle Reisman, in Reisman's own backyard in south Bushwick this fall. Part eulogy, part game of pretend, STORM, STILL, directed by Portia Krieger, follows the three Lear sisters as they gather together to clean out their recently deceased father's house, acting out a fast and loose version of Shakespeare's classic from (somewhat faulty) memory in their childhood backyard.

Reisman and Krieger previously developed STORM, STILL at Page 73's Yale Summer Residency in 2014.

Says Krieger, "This is such a great play to start the project off with- in part because is was written for a space just like this, and in part because it's so electric-so fast and funny and strange." Reisman lays a contemporary story of three siblings cleaning out their father's house against gorgeous and mostly fabricated Shakespearean language. Krieger says, "In the hands of these sister characters, King Lear becomes a parable for the ways we grow distant from family and the parent/child role reversals that often happen as we age." She adds, "Plus everyone in the audience drinks rum and eats potato chips together at one point. It's ludicrous and totally lovely."

STORM, STILL is written by Gabrielle Reisman, directed by Portia Krieger (asst. dir. Fun Home) and features Doris Duke Impact Awardee Becca Blackwell (Young Jean Lee's Untitled Feminist Show), Crystal Lucas-Perry (Little Children Dream of God, Roundabout Theatre) and Claire Siebers (Tribes, Actors Theatre of Louisville) with lighting design by Barbara Samuels (A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of Great Lakes, New Georges/The Women's Project) and costume and set design by Tilly Grimes (Small Mouth Sounds, Ars Nova).

Performance Schedule:
Fri Sept 11 at 8pm
Sat Sept 12 at 8pm
Sun Sept 13 at 8pm
Mon Sept 14 at 8pm
Wed Sept 16 at 8pm
Thurs Sept 16 at 8pm
Fri Sept 17 at 8pm
Sat Sept 18 at 8pm

Performances are slated as a Brooklyn Yard pop-up in south Bushwick. Closest subway stop: J train, Halsey. *Exact address will be provided after tickets are confirmed. **This is a backyard venue with stairs and is not easily wheelchair accessible. Tickets: $18; visit brooklynyard.org for tickets and information.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Gabrielle Reisman is a member of Page 73's Interstate73 writers group and a New Georges associated artist. Her work has been seen in Chicago, Austin, and New Orleans, and has been developed at the LARK, the Orchard Project, and the Sundance Summer Theatre Lab. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a former NNPN Playwright in Residence at Southern Rep in New Orleans. On co-founding Brooklyn Yard she notes, "We want to get people out of the places where we usually see theatre. Not just out of Manhattan, but out of any traditional theatre space. After working on these plays like they're a backyard party or something in somebody's living room, we want to push this energized work back into those theatres, in New York City and beyond."

Portia Krieger is a New York based director whose recent work includes asst. directing Fun Home on Broadway, directing Peggy Stafford's 16 Words or Less and Clare Barron's Baby Screams Miracle for Clubbed Thumb, and Eager to Lose, a burlesque farce Portia co-created with Matthew-Lee Erlbach, Wes Grantom, and burlesque performer Tansy for Ars Nova. Portia has workshopped new plays with Second Stage, Roundabout Underground, New York Stage & Film, Rattlestick, Page 73, Ars Nova, the Lark, among others. She's an inaugural National Directing Fellow, a member of the Actors Studio Playwright Directors Unit, an alumna of the Drama League Directors Project and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, a former Ars Nova Director-in-Residence, and a co-founder of the New Georges Jam.

Brooklyn Yard is both an arts incubator and a traveling pop-up venue, committed to staging simple, well-executed workshop productions of new plays by emerging Brooklyn playwrights. Brooklyn Yard will present its second incubator project, a piece by director/performer Will Davis (Men on Boats, Clubbed Thumb) about William Inge and Picnic, dance and model houses in the summer of 2016.

Pictured: Becca Blackwell, Cyrstal Lucas-Perry, and Claire Siebers. Photo by Gabrielle Reisman.