American Repertory Theater of WNY to Present MERCY SEAT Beginning in February

Post-Punk musician Nick Cave is celebrated through theater works based on his lyrical music in American Repertory Theater of WNY's showcase MERCY SEAT. Featuring 716 writers and creative designers, separate narratives are woven into one-acts and a choreographed work to create an overall arch while framed in the background of a old-time tent revival gathering. MERCY SEAT opens February 16th and runs until March 11th. Showdates and times are Thurs & Fridays @ 7:30 pm and Saturday @ 5:00 pm. Ticket prices are $15 students and military veterans, $20 General Admission.

In describing his extensive career (and music portfolio) as the front-man for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the band, with Cave as their leader and frontman, has released seventeen studio albums. Pitchfork Media deemed the group one of rock's "most enduring, redoubtable" bands, with an "accomplished discography". Though their sound tends to change considerably from one album to another, the one constant of the band is an unpolished blending of disparate genres and song structures which provide a vehicle for Cave's virtuosic, frequently histrionic theatrics. Music critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Steve Huey wrote: "With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk."

Featuring 716 playwrights, MERCY SEAT is an evening of theatrical presentations inspired by this prolific musician. One-acts include j. Snodgrass' "What You Done", Ellen Catherine Falank's "Go Tell the Men (We're Leaving)", "Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?" by Samantha Marchant,"The Church of the Noninterventionism" by Michael Fanelli, Justin Pope's "The Anti Curse", with monologues by Matthew Boyle ("Weighing of Truth") and Matthew LaChiusa ("People Ain't No Good"), and a featured dance piece by ART/WNY's resident choreographer Suzanne Hibbard entitled "To Be By Your Side".

Music Director Susan King leads the Mercy Singers Choir with Lanie Shannon, Ian Michalski, Ashleigh Chrisena Recci, Danette Pawlowski, complemented by actors Andrew Zuccari, Paige Batt, Adam Batt, Alyssa Grace Adams, Quentin Gray, Cassidy Granchelli, and all under the direction of Michael Breen, Catherine Burkhart, Mariangela Mecurio, Justin Pope, Suzanne Hibbard, and Matthew LaChiusa.

MERCY SEAT opens on Feb 16th and runs until March 11th, Thurs & Friday evenings at 7:30 pm and Saturday's at 5 pm. Ticket prices are $15 to $20 with a Thursday one-set price evenings at $15.