The Brick's Sixth Annual GAME PLAY Fest Begins July 10

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents the sixth annual GAME PLAY from July 10 through August 2 at The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, one block from the L train Lorimer stop / G train Metropolitan stop.

"The most ambitious effort I know of to fuse the techniques and live presentation of theater with the themes, structures and technology of interactive electronic entertainment."-The New York Times

"Explore[s] the intersections of technology, theatre, performance art and video-game culture in delightfully inventive ways." -American Theatre

Tickets (FREE-$20) available at www.bricktheater.com or via OvationTix (212.352.3101)

www.bricktheater.com/gameplay

Special Events:

FREE Game Play Opening Night Preview Cabaret

Join us for the FREE Game Play Opening Night Preview Cabaret, which features free previews of this year's crop of Game Play shows!

Thurs, July 10, 8pm, FREE

Tabletop Role-Playing Night!

Join us for a night of old-school tabletop gaming! Whether you prefer D&D, Call of Cthulhu, or FATE, come and roll 20s with us! We'll have an assortment of tables and DMs for you to choose from-N00bs and Experts both welcome!

Sat, July 19, 10pm, $5

Rock Band Karaoke Night

Say farewell to Game Play with the ever-popular Rock Band Karaoke! Play on our giant screen to help the amazing Child's Play charity, which provides games for sick kids stuck in the hospital. Please purchase an item off our local hospital's wishlist, and bring the receipt to the party for free admission. We will also accept donations at the door.

Sat, 8/2 10pm

Performances:

The Dance and the Dawn

by Warren Tusk

Paracelsus Games' The Dance and the Dawn, a live-action theatrical experience, in which players take on the roles of nobles in a gothic fairy-tale realm who have one night to find love and redemption. Six players become the Ladies of Ash, who have come to the midnight ball in hopes of healing their heartbreak; the other seven become the cold, proud Lords of Ice who are there waiting for them, and who struggle with tragedies of their own. The game is an event that lasts about four hours, which will be taken up with dancing and dueling and courtly intrigue...and, of course, with the eternal hope of romance and joy.

Fri July 11, 7pm

Sun July 13, 6pm *special performance of Dreams of Ice and Ash expansion

Tue July 15, 7pm

$20, advance tickets required

14 Symptoms

by Corinne Nulton

An original play featuring an egotistical hacker, a predetermined serial killer, a cheerleader with an alter ego, and the ghost of an ideal best friend. The characters collide in chat rooms and clash in games as they recreate themselves through text to investigate or conceal a gruesome murder.

Wed July 16, 8pm

Thurs July 24, 8pm

Sat July 26, 9pm

$18

Ghost Engines in the Sky

created by Nick Fortugno

A live-action roleplaying game of existential horror in the old West. It begins as you awaken on a train with no memory of how you got there. The strangely familiar faces around you hint at something horrible you've forgotten. And with each stop, you're more convinced you're the one responsible.

Sat July 12, 8pm

Thurs July 17, 7pm

Mon July 21, 7pm

$18

Grand Theft Ovid 2

Since 2007, EK Theater has been retelling classical stories using video games. In 2010, The New York Times described their performance Grand Theft Ovid as "an impressive feat of engineering, coordination, and storytelling." Having ventured into Shakespeare, Livy, and even Japanese ghost stories, the company is now tackling five more tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Students will be reenacting these stories live using games like Grand Theft Auto, Pokemon, and Mortal Kombat.

Sun July 13, 3pm

Fri July 18, 7pm

Sun July 20, 2pm

Sat July 26, 3:30pm

Sun July 27, 2pm

$18

Long Live the King

created by Kevin M. Karol

Take up your cell phone in a battle against your fellow audience members. Loyalties will be tested as you decide whether to stay loyal to your king and their cause, or to put peace before power. In the end, only one thing matters: who will reign as king?

Sat July 12, 6pm

Sat July 19, 4pm

Friday July 25, 7pm

$18

Online Fighting

by Harrison Young

Online Fighting is an action-comedy about two video gamers rekindling a feud. What starts off as fun and games online quickly becomes a battle of jealousy and redemption offline. Realism, absurdity, and stage-combat blend together for a show designed for hardcore gamers and non-gamers alike.

Fri July 18, 9pm

Sun July 20, 5pm

Wed July 30, 8pm

$18

Tabletop Cabaret: Hedgepig Races

by Greg Moss and Lisa Reinke

Participants will get to experience a unique mash-up of a musical with a tabletop role-playing game. Audience members must race each other in an imaginary mining cart drawn by a giant hedgepig. Story events will be set up in song and audience members as characters will either win or lose.

Sat July 19, 7pm

Sun July 20, 8pm

Tues July 29, 8pm

Sat Aug 2, 7pm

$18

Treason: A Live-Action, Performative Game exploring the ethics of Espionage and Surveillance

created by Sharang Biswas, Pierre Depaz, Adam Jackrel, and Amelia Winger-Bearskin

Treason is an espionage-themed performative experience that uses a cooperative game-like structure: by working together as a group with an unseen agent, players uncover a narrative that explores themes of cyber-security and surveillance. Participants are able to deconstruct and examine their relationships to power and authority through these simulated predicaments.

Sat July 12, 3:30

Sat July 26, 7pm

Monday July 28, 7pm

$18

The Uncanny Valley

written and directed by Francesca Talenti

THE UNCANNY VALLEY is a play for two humans and one robot. Featuring a RoboThespian actor, this new play by Francesca Talenti probes the ethical implications of convergence-the melding of the human mind and artificial intelligence-in a horrifying yet humorous exploration of the fragility of the human soul.

Tues July 22, 8pm

Wed July 23, 8pm

Fri July 25, 9pm

Sat July 26, 11pm

$18

Installation:

Surveillance Phone

by Alyson Ogasian and Vivian Charlesworth

Cave Plexum is an alternate reality in which the object Surveillance Phone is the rabbithole*.

Surveillance Phone consists of a wall-mounted telephone which rings when a person is nearby. Once the receiver is picked up, a pre-recorded voice tells them act natural, youre being watched. The voice then asks them a series of probing yes or no questions that require the participant to dial in their response. This exercise acts as a personality test designed to recruit participants into two different groups; the questions determine the participants' desirability. At the end of the question cycle, the user is told to find a missing cat poster in a hallway nearby. After emailing the address listed on the poster with the subject found, the participant will be invited to join the group and asked to complete a series of tasks. The level and type of access granted to the participant is dependent both upon their curiosity (whether or not they engage with the phone at all) and the group to which they are assigned following the test.

* A rabbithole, or trailhead, marks the first media artifact, be it a website, contact, or puzzle, that draws in players. (Wikipedia entry on Alternate Reality Games)

Winner of THE CAFFE CINO FELLOWSHIP AWARD, The Brick is Williamsburg, Brooklyn's destination for cutting-edge theatrical experience. Home to the critically acclaimed premieres of Bouffon Glass Menajoree (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play), In a Strange Room (Time Out New York's Top Ten Plays), Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War (NY IT Award Winner-Outstanding Play), Suspicious Package (IBTA Award Winner-Best Unique Theatrical Experience), Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Performance Art Production), Greed: A Musical Love $tory (NY IT Award Nominee-Outstanding Musical), The Brick has hosted some of downtown theater's most innovative artists, including Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee, The Debate Society, Banana Bag & Bodice, Thomas Bradshaw, and Jollyship the Whiz-Bang's Nick Jones. The Brick has also hosted The Iranian Theater Festival, The Comic Book Theater Festival, Fight Fest, Game Play: A Celebration of Video Game Theater, the international NY Clown Theatre Festival, Gemini CollisionWorks' August repertory festival (The Collisionworks), The Too Soon Festival, The Antidepressant Festival, Red Cloud Rising, Theatre of the Arcade, You're Welcome, Adventure Quest, The Nosemaker's Apprentice, The Protestants, The Granduncle Quadrilogy, Lord Oxford Presents the Second American Revolution, Live!, Third Lows' 2-year Penny Dreadful serial, Richard Foreman's Harry in Love, The Film Festival: A Theater Festival, Babylon Babylon, Notes from Underground, Bitch Macbeth, A Thought about Raya, World Gone Wrong, The Pretentious Festival (including Every Play Ever Written and Macbeth without Words), Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist/Cleansed, The Death of Griffin Hunter, Untitled Theater Co. #61's Havel Festival, Sexadelic Cemetery, The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest, The $ellout Festival, Adventures of Caveman Robot, The Baby Jesus One-Act Jubilee, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, The Moral Values Festival, Tupperware Orgy, Bizarre Science Fantasy, Who Is Wilford Brimley? The Musical, Jenna is nuts, Habitat, Assurbanipal Babilla's Assyrian Monkey Fantasy and Stanislaw Witkiewicz's The Pragmatists.