A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM to Play OBERON This Month

OBERON, the American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) Second Stage and club theater venue, presents A Ride on the Irish Cream, written and created by Erin Markey and directed by Jordan Fein. Performances begin on Tuesday, February 28 and run through Saturday, March 4 at OBERON, 2 Arrow St, Cambridge.

In this fresh and surprising new musical, a live band and swath of carpet become the space for the thrills and terrors of a relationship between a vainglorious self-made girl and her family's pontoon boat. They are in love, but when their relationship is tested by dust ruffles, sex for money, severe T-storms, and a secret cellar, the only way to stay together is to remember all the parts of themselves their bodies tried to forget.

Erin Markey and Becca Blackwell return to OBERON after Blackwell's January 2017 run of They, Themself, and Schmerm as part of the I.D. Festival and Markey's There's a New Emergency Contact in Town as part of the February 2016 GLOWBERON lineup.

A Ride on the Irish Cream includes Emily Bate as Cloud/Guitar/Co-composer/Musical Director, Chenda Cope as Kendall Hampton/Bass, Ian Azness on Piano, and Mike Marcinowski on Drums. Choreography is by Chloe Kernaghan, costume design is by Enver Chakartash, scenic design by Adam Rigg, lighting design by Barbara Samuels, audio supervision by Bobby McElver, co-composed by Kenny Mellman, and production stage managed by Avery Trunko.

Performances run February 28 - March 4 at 7:30PM, with press opening slated for Tuesday, February 28 at 7:30PM. Ticket prices from $25. Now on sale by phone at 617.547.8300, in person at the American Repertory Theater Ticket Services (64 Brattle St) or online at americanrepertorytheater.org/RideOnTheIrishCream.

ABOUT THE TEAM:

Erin Markey (Regan/Writer/Creator/Co-composer/Lyricist) is a New York based artist who makes live performance, video, comedy and music. She was named a "magnetic diva" by The New York Times and a Time Out New York Top Ten Cabaret Performer 2013 - 2015. Her work (full-length and short form) has been shown at BAM, Under the Radar Festival (Public Theater), New Museum, PS 122, Bard Spiegeltent, New York Comedy Festival, San Francisco Film Society, and regularly at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. She is the recipient of a 2014 Franklin Furnace Grant and a 2012 NYFA Cutting Edge Artist Award. She won an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in 2012 for her performance in Green Eyes (Company One). In development for A Ride on the Irish Cream, she has been a resident artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Mount Tremper Arts and Baryshnikov Arts Center. She is a company member of Obie Award Winning Half Straddle and is performing and co-composing music for the upcoming Ghost Rings at New York Live Arts in April 2016. She has taught at New York University, University of Michigan, and Sarah Lawrence College.

Jordan Fein (Director) is a Brooklyn-based theater and opera director. Directing credits include War Lesbian (HarunaLee/Dixon Place), The Dixon Family Album (Williamstown Theatre Festival: Boris Sagal Fellow 2014), Le Nozze di Figaro, The Rake's Progress, L'Elisir D'Amore (Curtis Opera Theatre), Dialogues of the Carmelites (Opera Philadelphia), Rags Parkland (Ars Nova Ant Fest/Jack), Edibles Inc. (Incubator Arts Project). Jordan was the Associate Director on Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (Bard Summerscape, dir. Daniel Fish) and The Elephant Man (Broadway/West End). He currently teaches at New York University and Playwrights Horizons Theater School.

Emily Bate (Cloud/Guitar/Co-composer/Musical Director) is a singer, composer and harmony fanatic based in Philadelphia. Her current projects include Going Down Mount Moriah, a theater piece based around an 8-voice women's choir, a series of "zingles" (zine + single), combining writing and music, and acoustic chamber-math duo Jonagold.

Kenny Mellman (Co-Composer) is in The Julie Ruin. Fronted by Kathleen Hanna, of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre fame, they released their critically acclaimed debut album Run Fast in September 2013 and have toured extensively ever since. They will be releasing 2nd album later this year. Mr. Mellman was, for many years, one half (with Justin VivIan Bond) of the Tony nominated and Obie and Bessie winning act Kiki and Herb who have reunited for a limited sold-out run at Joes Pub in April and May of 2016. His show Kenny Mellman Is Grace Jones toured the US, Australia and the UK and his one man musical about gay bashing and homophobia, Say Sea Boy You Sissy Boy? was commissioned by Dixon Place. He co-wrote the musical At Least It's Pink with Michael Patrick King and Bridget Everett at ArsNova. He also, with Everett and Neal Medlyn, co-created Our Hit Parade, a downtown NY deconstruction of the pop charts which ran for 4 sold-out years at Joe's Pub.

Becca Blackwell (Irish Cream) is a NYC based trans actor, performer and writer. Existing between genders, and preferring the pronoun "they," Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expand our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Collaborators include Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, Richard Maxwell, ShaRon Hayes, Theater of the Two Headed Calf and Lisa D'Amour. They are regulars in the web series Jack in a Box, Outtakes, The Impossibilities, and Gays Anatomy. Becca is a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award 2015 and recently wrote a solo show, They, Themself and Schmerm that is touring. They are performing in the upcoming Samara (Richard Maxwell) in Spring 2017.

Chenda Cope (Kendall Hampton/Bass) is a visual artist, musician and performer based in Philadelphia. She plays upright bass, fiddle and guitar in different bands including the Old Fashioneds and the Four Prophet String Band. The Philadelphia City Paper called her last solo album of original music, Clouds, "neatly, sweetly stunning" and she is currently working on a third. In addition to these musical projects, she works with Der Vorführeffekt Theatre, a diy theatre company that tours original work around the country. Recent plays include Three Kinds of Wildness and The Great & Terrible and the Small & Meek: Oz!.

Ian Axness (Piano) is a collaborative pianist, composer, and music director based in New York City, working between forms of concert music, contemporary theater, and improvisation. He writes music for plays, devises semi-improvised variety shows, and plays piano for cabaret, opera, and American musical theatre. Ian has worked with organizations including the New York Philharmonic, New Dramatists, Yale Rep, York Theatre, Atlantic Theater, Shakespeare in the Park, Ars Nova, 92nd Street Y, Brooklyn College, NYU Abu Dhabi, and New York City Opera. Faculty: Playwrights Horizons Theater School.

Mike Marcinowski (Drummer) is a Brooklyn based drummer, percussionist and teacher. Equally at home in rock, folk and jazz realms, he enjoys bringing the subtlety and nuance of free improvisation to tightly arranged pop music. His current projects include the fiddle and drum duo Read; the indie rock inspired Tim Haufe trio; and Golden Medallion, a improvised bass, drum and trumpet trio. He can also be found teaching children how to hold drum sticks and collaborating with like-minded musicians, dancers and singers.

Chloe Kernaghan (Choreographer) is a New York based choreographer and performer. She helps to articulate movement as a language in the mediums of theater, film, and blends of the two. Past works include: On the Rocks Theater's White Stag Quadrilogy & Wolfert (Dixon Place, dir. Dakota Rose), Erin Markey's A Ride on the Irish Cream (Abrons Arts Center, dir. Jordan Fein), Birdshit (VW dome at MoMA's PS 1, dir James Franco), Next Wave's Out Cold/Zippo Songs (BAM Fischer, dir. Emma Griffin), and music videos for Naughty Boy, White Hinterland, Julianna Barwick, and LIPS.

Enver Chakartash (Costume Design) is a company member of The Wooster Group where he has designed costumes for Early Shaker Spirituals, Early Plays (directed by Richard Maxwell), and, most recently, assistant directed and costume supervised The Room. In addition Enver is a frequent collaborator with Tina Satter's Half Straddle. With Half Straddle credits include costume design for Seagull (Thinking of You); House of Dance and Ancient Lives. For Jim Findlay, Enver designed and created costumes for Dream of the Red Chamber. With Young Jean Lee's Theater Company he designed costumes for Straight White Men, presented at The Public, and designed additional costumes for We're Gonna Die, presented at Southbank Centre, London. Enver designed costumes for Tony Oursler's feature film, Imponderable, and, most recently for Tony Oursler's short film, The Volcano. Enver has also collaborated with visual artists Aki Sasamoto, Hunter Reynolds and Sara Greenberger Rafferty in fabricating artworks that have been presented at galleries including MoMA PS1, Participant Inc and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Adam Rigg (Scenic Design) is a designer and artist originally from Southern California. He is a founding member of the interdisciplinary collective I AM A BOYS CHOIR. Adam is a 2015 Princess Grace Award Winner. Upcoming and Recent designs include Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again at Soho Rep, demonstrating the imaginary body or how I became an ice princess by I AM A BOYS CHOIR at Under The Radar at The Public Theater and REDCAT, Water at New Georges, Invisible Hand at Westport Country Playhouse, and Breaking The Waves at Opera Philadelphia. BA UCLA, MFA Yale School of Drama.

Barbara Samuels (Lighting Design) is a New York based lighting designer and producer. Recent design credits include O, Earth (Foundry Theatre) and A Beautiful Day in November on the Greatest of the Great Lakes (New Georges/ Women's Project, Obie Award), as well as collaborations with Katie Pearl, Brian Mertes, Melissa Kievman, Portia Krieger, Lee Sunday Evans, Julia Jarcho, Jessica Chayes, Shannon Gillen Lipinksi and many more dance and theater artists. Barbara has served as General Manager of OBIE Award-winning 13P, is a 2016 Target Margin Institute for Theater Making Fellow, and is currently the Producing Director of Morgan Gould & Friends. Fordham University, BA; NYU, MFA.

OBERON is the American Repertory Theater's Second Stage, a destination for theater and nightlife on the fringe of Harvard Square. In addition to offering work from the A.R.T.'s main season, OBERON is also a thriving incubator for local, emerging and celebrated artists to imagine new projects that could only exist in this exciting club-theater environment. Thousands of artists and performance groups bring work to the space each year. OBERON regularly features local performers including aerialists, beat poets, food artists, tap dancers, gender-bending sketch troupes, comedians, hula-hooping burlesquers, and pop-and-lock human statues to name a few. OBERON is located at 2 Arrow Street at the corner of Mass Ave. in Harvard Square, Cambridge. For tickets, call 617.547.8300, or visit cluboberon.com.

Photo Credit: Maria Barinova