THE DANGERS OF TOBACCO to Open Theater 86's New West 39th Street Home

Theater 86 will launch its next chapter with Anton Chekhov's The Dangers of Tobacco, the first production to premiere in the company's new home on West 39th Street in the heart of the Garment District. Performances run August 28-30, kicking off a fundraising series to support the company's official opening in October.

Chekhov's The Dangers of Tobacco is traditionally staged as a monologue: a single hapless lecturer, supposedly there to warn audiences about smoking, who instead unravels into a confession of a stifled, henpecked life. Director Aleksey Burago's production keeps that lone speaker - played by Tom Schubert - but breaks the play wide open around him. Soprano Elena Mindlina appears as nearly everyone and everything haunting his head: his overbearing wife, a buzzing bee, a biting bedbug, the nightmares and daydreams he can't quite escape. The result turns a short comic monologue into a full theatrical world, driven by live opera singing and violin.

"Chekhov's real target in this play is hypocrisy - the gap between what we say and what we actually feel," said Burago. "He uses humor to expose that gap, but underneath the comedy is something deeply compassionate: a wish for people to be honest with each other and with themselves. That's what we're chasing with all this music and mayhem - not just jokes, but a way toward tenderness. For an independent theater, losing a longtime home can feel like losing part of your identity. But theater has always turned necessity into imagination, and this production is our first step into a new space and a new future. We want audiences there at the beginning."

Theater 86's former home at West Park Presbyterian Church was a vital gathering place for the company's artists and audiences. Rather than let that loss end the story, the company is treating it as the opening scene of the next one.

Tickets to The Dangers of Tobacco are $40 for a 90-minute performance. Audiences won't just be watching the first show in a new space - they'll be helping bring that space to life.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Aleksey Burago is the artistic director of Theater 86 and the director of The Dangers of Tobacco. A graduate of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS), he studied under the renowned director Pyotr Fomenko, and The New York Times has praised the visual precision of his work, once likening its simplicity to "a tiny, finely honed blade." Burago emigrated from Russia to New York in the early 1990s and founded Theater 86 - originally known as the Russian Arts Theater and Studio - going on to direct more than sixty New York productions, including an Obie-nominated On the Eveand a Time Out New York Critic's Pick staging of Ah, My Dear Anderson. His recent production of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ran for four sold-out engagements and was called "maliciously inventive" by the Wall Street Journal.

Tom Schubert is an acclaimed Brazilian-American, New York-based actor and singer whose international career spans theater, television, film, voiceover, and commercial work. He began professionally in São Paulo, performing Brazilian and world classics - including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet - before joining the cast of the popular national television series Sandy & Junior.

After moving to New York, Schubert trained at HB Studio with Tony Award-winning Helen Gallagher and Tony-nominated director Austin Pendleton, who later directed him in Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk for the HB Playwrights Foundation. His New York credits include bilingual productions with the Society of the Educational Arts and an enduring collaboration with Aleksey Burago, begun in 2008 and continued at Theater 86. A magnetic multilingual performer with a resonant baritone and extensive screen and voice experience, Schubert brings charisma, precision, wit, and emotional danger to Chekhov's unraveling lecturer.

Elena Mindlina brings live opera singing to the production, appearing in a shifting array of roles conjured from the lecturer's own mind. Before transitioning into soprano repertoire in 2012, Mindlina performed a number of mezzo-soprano roles, including Alessandro in the New York premiere of Cavalli's Eliogabalo at Stony Brook Opera and roles in Boris Godunov, South Pacific, and The Merry Widow. She began piano at age two and violin training at five in Russia, earning a Master's degree in violin from the Saratov State Conservatoire before coming to New York to study musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She has recorded a world-premiere album of Nikolai Tcherepnin songs that received a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine, and has performed at Lincoln Center's Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall, The Town Hall, and Symphony Space.

ABOUT THEATER 86

Theater 86 is an independent New York theater company dedicated to intimate, artist-centered productions that bring classic and contemporary writing into immediate conversation with audiences. Following the loss of its former home at West Park Presbyterian Church, the company is building a new performance space and beginning a new chapter in its artistic life. Its fundraising series will lead to the company's official opening in October.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

The Dangers of Tobacco
By Anton Chekhov
Directed by Aleksey Burago
Featuring Tom Schubert and Elena Mindlina
With live opera singing and violin performance
90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $40

September 28 at 7:30 p.m.
September 29 at 7:30 p.m.
September 30 at 3:00 p.m.

Need more Off-Off-Broadway Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...