Gorilla Rep Finds A New Home in NYC

Christopher Carter Sanderson is at it again. The founder and director of Gorilla Repertory Theatre announced it has taken up residence for the 2012 season at the Roy Arias Theaters in NYC.

Best known for its perennial production of A Midsummer Nights Dream in Washington Square Park and Hamlet at The Cloisters, Gorilla Repertory primarily brings free-to-the-public, the work of William Shakespeare and other classic playwrights to venues all over the city.

Gorilla Rep will begin its jam-packed 2012-year with its productions of Broken and Woyzeck Musical Deathmetal both of which will premier at the Times Square International Theatre Festival which runs January 16-22. The original stage production of, Miss Julie, commences in February, and will kick off The Roy Arias Theater residency. Throughout its association with The Roy Arias Theaters, Gorilla Rep will be revolving its theatrical line-up on a monthly basis – many with short turn-around time. Some of its productions will be re-mounts of its fans’ favorites, and the company will also prepare for free summer shows with theatrical workshops.

Co-producing with the illustrious Kentucky Repertory Theatre, Broken is a play by Walter May, which shows just how the past crashes down on the minds of two diverse people whose paths accidentally cross. When the unstable, yet unusually compelling, homeless woman confronts a lonely man at a city waterfront, they reveal to one another the road that led them on their journey and together search for a reason to hope for the future.

Woyzeck Musical Deathmetal under the direction by Christopher Carter Sanderson was originally created in early 2011 with the help f a Fulbright grant and was then given a workshop production at Kentucky Rep in November of 2011. The next step of the workshop will appear in the Times Square International Theatre Festival, January 2012. The show is a musical retelling of the story of Buchner's classic tale of repression and angst for the OWS generation. Woyzeck Musical Deathmetal adds Weimar-era panache and humor to this wild and whirling tale, using masks, puppets, folk, acapella and death metal music to track the main character's descent into madness and murder.

Miss Julie is Strindberg's classic story of the oppressed, young and beautiful noblewoman who has an affair with her father's servant, leading to passion, revelation, abandon and suicide. Exclusively commissioned for Gorilla Rep, Miss Julie is a sharply drawn masterwork of tasteful updating by Chicago playwright Penny Penniston. Miss Julie will mark the official launch the 2012 residency of Gorilla Rep at Roy Arias Studios and Theatres.