Farm Theatre to Present Padraic Lillis' HOPE YOU GET TO ELEVEN, 6/23-7/3

This summer The Farm Theater is pleased to present Padraic Lillis' solo show, Hope You Get to Eleven, or What Are We Going to Do About Sally?, directed byScott Illingworth and presented as part of the 8th Annual Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Performances will be on June 23 at 7:30pm, June 25 at 5pm, June 29 at 7:30pm, and July 3 at 4:30pm at The Paradise Factory (64 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery). Tickets ($18) are available online atwww.planetconnections.org or by calling 866-811-4111. Proceeds from the show will benefit the National Suicide Prevention Network.

This past fall Padraic Lillis was a guest artist at a university where a student that was charming, bright, witty, and warm, a person that no one could say a negative word about, committed suicide. It was a shock to everyone. 105 people die from suicide each day in the United States and that rate is rising. One reason is because we don't talk about it. This event inspired Padraic to create this play as an honest, intimate, slightly humorous sharing of his experiences in the hopes of opening up the conversation on the topic of suicide.

Padraic Lillis (Writer/Performer) is the founding Artistic Director of The Farm Theater. He has been awarded the NYIT Award for Outstanding Director for his production of Lindsay Joy's Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyber Queen, Overall Excellence Award from NY International Fringe Festival for his production of Lee Kaplan's Bully, and inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame. Other solo shows he has directed are Adina Taubman's award winning show A Line In The Sand (a documentary show about Columbine), Kelly Kinsella's When Thoughts Attack, he also co-wrote with Kelly Kinsella How To Do A One Person Show, and he wrote and performs his own solo show How To Survive Crack Addiction. He is also a published playwright with Dramatist Play Services and Indie Theater Now. His film Hand Over Hand, which he wrote and directed, was awarded Best Short Film at the Milan International Film Festival. Padraic was awarded the Dayton Hudson Distinguished Artist Fellowship. He is a member of Labyrinth Theater Company and a life long Yankee fan.

Scott Illingworth (Director) is a freelance director based in New York City. He is a Member of the Playwrights/Directors Unit at The Actors Studio, serves as Associate Director at Barefoot Theatre Company, and is an Artistic Advisor for The Farm Theater. Recent directing credits include the Off-Broadway World Premiere and ongoing tour of Beyond Words with Bill Bowers (Urban Stages, All for One Theatre Festival, etc), the premiere of Girl on Girl by Lucas Hnath (NYU), Deadpan Melodrama by Bob Glaudini (Collaboraction, Chicago), the premieres of The Bridgette Hobbs Connection by Christina Anderson and Across the Water by Mona Mansour (NYU), Termination of Species by Ken Urban (Collaboraction), Leaving Iowa (Adirondack Theatre Festival), and Refugee Girls Revue. Focused on developing new work, Scott has worked on readings and workshops of dozens of new plays by playwrights including Israel Horovitz, Andrea Ciannavei, José Rivera, Ken Urban, Keith Reddin, and Padraic Lillis. He served as Associate Director to Mark Wing-Davey on the Off-Broadway productions of Passion Play (EPIC), UNCONDITIONAL (LAByrinth), The Singing Forest (The Public), and Ninth and Joanie (LAByrinth), and the workshop of Jean Genet's The Screens (The Public) in a new translation by Caryl Churchill. Regionally Scott worked with Mr. Wing-Davey on Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl (Goodman and Yale Rep) and served as Assistant Director to Philip Seymour Hoffman on The Long Red Road(Goodman). Scott is an Assistant Arts Professor and Head of Special Projects at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts' Graduate Acting Program and is a regular teacher of Masterclasses for LAByrinth Theater Co. He holds an MFA in Directing and a BFA in Acting from The Theatre School, DePaul University and is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

The Farm Theater The name is inspired by the "farm" system of baseball whose role is to provide experience and training for developing players. The Farm Theater develops early career artists that may not have the support system afforded others, through workshops, productions, and mentoring. The centerpiece of our programming is the College Collaboration. This program in our first year developed a play that will be produced Off-Broadway in the fall of 2016, was published in Indie Theater Now, and the project was featured in an article on HowlRound. The Farm Theater since its inception has hosted Bullpen Sessions, which are free bi-monthly conversations between special guests and early career artists. Special Guests for the Bullpen Sessions have included Rajiv Joseph, Lucas Hnath, Anne Washburn, Paul Schnee, and Halley Feiffer. The Farm Theater also offers skill-building workshops throughout the year. The Farm Theater was inspired from Founding Artistic Director Padraic Lillis' twenty-five years of experience working directly with over 2,000 early career artists, developing multiple award winning new plays, and collaborating with artists working at the highest level in their field. www.thefarmtheater.org

The Planet Connections Theatre Festivity is New York's premiere eco-friendly/socially conscious not-for- profit arts festival. Fostering a diverse cross-section of performances and events, the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity seeks to inspire artists and audiences both creatively and fundamentally, in a festive atmosphere forming a community of like-minded artists. At the heart of the Festivity are like-minded individuals striving to create professional, meaningful theatre, music and film, while supporting organizations, which give back to the community at large. www.planetconnections.org