A COUPLE OF POOR, POLISH SPEAKING ROMANIANS Makes US Premiere At Trap Door 5/21

The TRAP DOOR THEATRE presents: The U.S. Premiere of.... A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians. Written by: Dorota Maslowska, Directed by: Max Truax

Cast: Tiffany Bedwell , Marzena Bukowska, Kevin Cox, Marco Garcia, Kinga Modjeska, and David Steiger

A Couple of Poor, Polish Speaking Romanians is an hilarious and scathing critique of the relationship between class stratification and national identity. High on drugs, two young Poles set off on a road trip, holding up passing motorists and pretending to be a couple of poor, Polish-speaking Romanians. Told in part from their perspective and that of their xenophobic victims, what exactly happened on their two-day journey is as uncertain as the duo's true identities. Having assumed the guise of poverty-stricken aliens, the pair become the victims of their own fiction as they emerge from their drug high into a cold and uncooperative reality.

Dorota Mas?owska is a Polish writer and journalist. At 19, she wrote the internationally acclaimed, award-winning novel, Wojna polsko-ruska pod flag? bia?o-czerwon? (translated to English as either White and Red or Snow White and Russian Red) a depiction of unbalanced, sexually aggressive, amphetamine-scarred youth both feted for its originality and condemned for its brutal vulgarity. A notable example of post-modernist literature, her book became a best-seller in Poland and was almost immediately translated into several languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Russian, English, Hungarian and Czech. Her second novel is Paw królowej (The Queen's Peacock). Currently Dorota Mas?owska lives in Cracow, collaborating with a number of magazines, most notably the Przekrój and Wysokie Obcasy weeklies, as well as Lampa monthly and the quarterly BEAT magazine. At 24 she wrote her first play; A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians. The play ran for 2 years in Warsaw, before being produced by the Soho Theatre in London; this is its U.S. premiere.

Lighting Designer Richard Norwood / Costume Designer Beata Pilch / Graphic Designer Michal Janicki / Set Designer Ewelina Dobiesz / Video Designer Aaron Covich / Sound Designer Aaron DeYoung

Opens: Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 8 PM.

Closes: Saturday June 27, 2009 at 8 PM.

Runs: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM.

Admission: $20 (2-for-1 on Thursdays)

Where: TRAP DOOR THEATRE, 1655 W. Cortland Ave., Chicago, IL 60622

Info/Reservations: 773-384-0494

To purchase tickets online: www.trapdoortheatre.com