Shift Change has its debut

By: Jan. 11, 2005
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Producer Jody Kuh is proud to present the world premiere of the eerie two-fister Shift Change, written by Ben Carlin and directed by Shawn Rozsa at the Producers Club II (616 Ninth Avenue).  Performances begin Friday, February 4th and end Sunday, February 20th, running Thursdays – Saturdays and Mondays at 8 PM, Sundays at 3 PM.  Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by calling 212-496-4571.
 
In Shift Change, what appears to be a hard-hitting melodrama about a young thief and the elder warehouse foreman he encounters while hiding out turns into a thrilling cat and mouse game spiraling into a haunting moral conclusion worthy of the best episodes of the Twilight Zone!  Written with a deft ear for banter and the rhetorical, the troubled felon, ANGUS, at first binds the old man, SEAMUS, keeping him hostage so that he can concoct an exit strategy.  The wily foreman manages to dupe Angus into freeing his bonds, only to continue to outsmart him every step of the way as the lines between aggressor and victim begin to blur.
 
"The play is an absurdist rite of passage," says director Shawn Rozsa.  "By bursting the limits of logic and language Seamus exposes the stupidity of Angus' behavior through nonsensical folly and vernacular.  This logical, but time and again purposefully illogical dialogue, often funny, will be used to project the feeling of human isolation and impending doom in the play."
 
As an actor, playwright Ben Carlin co-starred opposite Al Pacino in Author! Author!  Later he quit acting full-time to pursue a writing career.  He's a contributing editor for the Brooklyn-based literary journal Lurch Magazine, and co-wrote the film The Other Side with Dave Rodriguez.  Director Shawn Rozsa recently directed the NY Times critically acclaimed production of Summer and Smoke, and PUCK'd, an original Punk Rock Musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is the founder of Third Eye Repertory where he directed many shows, including a critically acclaimed production of Hair, the subsequent European tour of the same, and the Off-Broadway revival of Godspell in 2000. The rest of the artistic team includes Keven Lock (set designer – The Blacks for the National Black Theater Festival, Godspell at the York, Speed of Darkness – NAACP Positive Image Award for Best Stage Design in Hollywood - and he is the art director for "Good Morning America" on ABC), Sean Linehan (lighting designer) and Tony Angelini (sound designer).
 
The play stars Chet Carlin as SEAMUS (the national tour of As You Like It directed by Sir Peter Hall, George Booth in the Mint Theatre production of The Voysey Inheritance, and on Broadway: Gore Vidal's An Evening with Richard Nixon and First Monday in October, opposite Henry Fonda.  He is also the playwright's father) and Eric Petersen as ANGUS.


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