GROUNDWORK Makes New York Premiere at United Solo Theatre Festival Tonight

"Grow a garden." The idea hits Paul like a meteor hitting the planet, and he's off. He reads the books, sows the seeds, and before his first tomatoes ripen, departs on a crusade to save the planet one precious seedling at a time. Saving himself, however, will prove a much harder battle.

The New York premiere of Groundwork, a one-man show written by Mike Ostroski and Derek Davidson, is tonight, September 19th with an additional performance on the 25th, both a part of The United Solo Theatre Festival. "I'd never thought about gardening before, but one day, out of the blue, the idea struck me with a ferocity. I just had to get my hands in the dirt. And it was this need that really piqued my curiosity," says Ostroski, describing the impulse behind this new play. While growing his first vegetables, he realized that this journey of cultivation had all the ingredients for a great solo show. "The context is backyard gardening, but the focus of the play is the struggle to find inner-sustainability within a world of melting ice caps and rising tides."

The United Solo Festival, with its Manhattan backdrop, is a fitting host for Groundwork. Ostroski and Davidson decided to co-write the play while working together on Bumbershoot, written and directed by Davidson, during the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival. Ostroski remembers, "We were walking in the Village after a performance and I told him of my idea for Groundwork. We stopped and brainstormed the play for at least an hour right there on the sidewalk. It was one of those electric conversations where you know you're on to something truly exciting."

Last summer Ostroski performed Groundwork, with Davidson directing, for In/Visible Theatre in Boone, North Carolina and they are both thrilled to bring the show to New York this fall. Says Ostroski, "United Solo is such an amazing theatre festival with artists and stories from all over the world. We're honored to be a part of it."

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