Photo Flash: Railroad Playhouse Presents IDENTITY CRISIS

THE RAILROAD PLAYHOUSE in conjunction with Beacon theater group, cabot | andcompany, will present IDENTITY CRISIS, an evening of intense psychological dramas about finding out you are not who you think you are. One of Britain's most prolific living playwrights, Caryl Churchill, kicks off the evening with A Number, followed by recently deceased American master Lanford Wilson's The Madness of Lady Bright. The production will run August 11 - 20, with performances on Thursday and Friday evenings at 8 and on Saturdays at both 3 and 8, at the Railroad Playhouse, 27 Water Street in Newburgh. Tickets are $20 and are available online through www.rrplayhouse.org or at the door.

Churchills A Number concerns itself with the psychological ramifications of human cloning. A young man is contacted by a hospital and told that as a boy his genetic material was taken and used to make a number of copies of himself. Confronting his father, who may or may not have been a part of this secret procedure, he finds his own rapidly unraveling mental state compounded by the arrival of one of the others. What happens to notions of identity and individuality if there are several versions of you out there living very different lives This taut play takes us into the literal DNA of these ideas, as a family is destroyed in the process. JJ Condon plays the various young copies in rapid succession, helped and/or foiled by their father, played by andcompany artistic director Cabot Parsons.

Wilson?s The Madness of Lady Bright is a searing portrait of lust and loneliness, and holds a place in American theater history as being one of the first truly realistic portraits of a gay character on the stage. Leslie Bright, a nightclub performer in his evening persona, has a literal melt down on a hot August Sunday in his un-air conditioned New York City apartment. Parsons here takes the title roll, with Mr. Condon joined by Jeff Foley, who andcompany audiences will remember as the constable from last years Christie in Love. In this play the two young actors play the voices inside Lady Bright's head as she struggles to keep it together, becoming her mother, herself, her lovers, and her other shards of identity, pulling her apart in a psychological tug-of-war. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with his 1979 play Talley's Folley.

This production at the Railroad Playhouse continues cabot | andcompany's young company project, a performance mentoring program that pairs older more established artists (actors, directors, writers and designers) with local young adult artists. Says Parsons, We're especially lucky for this show to have two talented alumni return to our stage, as these young men are both now in NYC pursuing conservatory degrees and professional work. JJ and Jeff both came of age in this program, so audiences will see extremely deep and mature performances. While I normally stay on the directing side of things, these two great plays give me a chance to put my money where my mouth is and share my personal acting process with the performers. I want to show them I demand the same risk taking of myself onstage as I require of them. Also, with Lady Bright we have the special challenge of working together to show the audience inside the mind of madness as all three of us play one character, essentially. That's a great exercise for any performance artist and one of those things that only live theater can do.

CRAZY LADIES plays the following regular schedule through Saturday, August, 20:

Thursdays at 8 p.m.
Fridays at 8 p.m.
Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Tickets are $20 and are now available online at www.rrplayhouse.org or by calling 1-800-838-3006. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at the theatre ½ hour prior to the show. Group discounts are available.

Running Time: approximately 2 hours
Website: rrplayhouse.org

BIOGRAPHIES

CABOT PARSONS (Director) is a multi-disciplinary performance artist, master puppeteer, and artistic director of cabot | andcompany. He has acted in and directed over 200 productions regionally and in New York City, and several years ago danced at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Next Wave Festival. Locally, in addition to his own artistic activities, he has designed sets and costumes for SUNY Orange, most recently Our Town, which won two TANYS design awards, The Diary of Anne Frank, and is an adjunct professor there of puppetry and object theater. He also chairs Beacon CityArts, the City of Beacons arts and cultural development committee.

cabot | andcompany performance collective is a 12 year old performance group based in Beacon, NY that focuses on original performance, often with a strong visual elements and/or puppetry. This past year their production of Howard Brentons sinister look at serial killers Christie in Love,called striking visual theater by Free Scene magazine, successfully toured the valley with performances in Beacon, Kingston and Newburgh, and their current project, a short puppet film Souris et Chatwill have its world premiere in the Spring of 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

Not only is cabot | andcompany one of our best allies here in the valley, delivering serious bold theater at the highest quality, says Railroad Playhouse Artistic Director Seth Soloway. ?their program with these performers is building the next generation of theater artists right here in the Hudson Valley, a central part of our own playhouse mission. We've been able already to make use of this pool of young talent in some of our own projects. Many of our supporters have come on board as a result of seeing their incredible performances.

THE RAILROAD PLAYHOUSE is dedicated to the revitalization of Newburgh and the preservation of Newburghs historic West Shore Railroad Station by providing a space for high-quality, artistically creative performing arts experiences.

The Railroad Playhouse will strive to provide a home for playwrights to workshop and showcase new plays; present local, national, and International Artists of all genres; create partnerships with local businesses and organizations to continue revitalizing the area; implement after school programming and a summer arts camp for local children; and create teaching-artists residences in local schools.

Website: http://www.rrplayhouse.org

Photo credit: Katie Rosen