Annabella Sciorra Leads DOWNTOWN RACE RIOT at Powerhouse Theater, Beg. Tonight

Annabella Sciorra heads the cast of Downtown Race Riot, a portrait of a city and a boy in crisis written by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, tonight, June 26-July 7, 2013.

The first Vassar & New York Stage and Film Powerhouse Theater mainstage production, Downtown Race Riot, begins performances tonight, June 26 at 8pm. The new play by Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, directed by Scott Elliott, and featuring Annabella Sciorra, will run for thirteen performances, June 26-July 7 (no performance July 4).

Tickets are $40 and may be purchased online (http://powerhouse.vassar.edu/boxoffice) or through the Powerhouse box office (845-437-5599). The box office is located at Vassar in the Powerhouse Theater building, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY. General season information is available online at powerhouse.vassar.edu.

There's a riot on in Washington Square Park and a motley band of feckless, funny young men are spoiling for a fight. Against this backdrop of tribal loyalties and petty beefs, 18-year old Pnut McPartland (Miles Chandler, HBO's Empire Falls) has to pick sides and hustle his family and his friends just to stay alive. Actress Annabella Sciorra (HBO's The Sopranos, The Motherf*cker with the Hat, Jungle Fever) joins writer Seth Zvi Rosenfeld (The Flatted Fifth, Servy-n-Bernice 4ever; HBO's How To Make it in America) and director Scott Elliott (Hurlyburly, Mike Leigh's Ecstacy) to bring us this electric portrait of a city and a boy in crisis.

The production team for Downtown Race Riot includes Tony Award-winning set designer Derek McLane (33 Variations, Ragtime, Anything Goes, I Am My Own Wife); costume designer Emily Rebholz (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson); lighting designer Russell H. Champa (In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)) and sound designer Bart Fasbender (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, and Lonely I'm Not).

New York Stage and Film's Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer says "I am thrilled to welcome Seth back to the Powerhouse with this vibrant play that plunges us deeply into a specific moment in New York City's history. And I can't wait for our audiences to discover this amazing, dynamic cast that Seth and Scott have put together."

Powerhouse Theater is a collaboration between Vassar College and New York Stage and Film dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works for theater and film. The Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 40 apprentices live and work together to create new theater works. Many shows from past seasons have found their way to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and theaters nationwide, including Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet(Roundabout Theater); Seminar by Theresa Rebeck (Golden Theater); Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash's Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club, Union Square Theater); Pulitzer finalist Nathan Englander's The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public Theater); and Storefront Church, John Patrick Shanley's final installment to his "Church and State" trilogy that began with Doubt (Atlantic Theatre Company). Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt; the groundbreaking Broadway musical American Idiot, and A Steady Rain, produced on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.

Each summer Vassar and New York Stage and Film also collaborate on the Powerhouse Theater Training Program, one of the country's leading theater immersion programs for young artists. The program brings together 40-50 participants from across the country to form the Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Company. They are current college and high school students and recent graduates, who over six weeks on the Vassar campus study a discipline (acting, directing, or writing), create their own work, and assist the professional productions of the Powerhouse season.

New York Stage and Film is a not-for-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development of new works for theater and film. Since 1985 New York Stage and Film has played a significant role in the development of new plays, provided a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures and established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the Hudson Valley and the New York metropolitan region.

Pictured: Annabella Sciorra, Molly Carden © Vassar & New York Stage and Film / Buck Lewis.