Mortar Theatre Company Premieres BOMBS, BABES AND BINGO, 5/20

Mortar Theatre Company will present the world premiere of Bombs, Babes and Bingo by Merri Biechler. The experimental production, directed by Rachel Edwards Harvith, is performed at the mainstage of the newly renamed Luna Central, formerly Live Bait Theatre, 3914 NortH Clark Street, May 20 – June 17.

 

Previews are Sunday, May 20 at 3 p.m. and Wednesday, May 23 at

7:30 p.m. Opening/Press night is Thursday, May 24 at 7:30 p.m. The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, May 1. Ticket prices are $15 for previews and $20 for the regular performance run and may be purchased at MortarTheatreCompany.org or at the Luna Central box office at 773.819.5862.

 

Bombs, Babes and Bingo is a play that deals with a war, the fallibility of memory, the division of family and the struggle by a scientist to make sense of his life and work after a traumatic brain injury. Dennis (Richard Perez) is the scientist, father and bomb maker. His wife (Stephanie Stroud*) keeps busy enrolled in Clown College and his daughter (Cruz Gonzalez) walks among the destruction her father's designs have caused searching for meaning. Bookended by two fixed scenes, the additional scenes' order is determined by a random pull of a bingo ball from the Bingo Girl (Megan Tabaque), creating a myriad of possibilities of story, character and comedy that plays out differently each performance. As Dennis' broken synapses fire and misfire in hope of making any connection, the pull of the bingo ball randomly summons forth his memories. Neither the audience nor the cast knows the order until the moment the bingo ball number is called. As a result, each performance of Bombs, Babes and Bingo is unique to that audience with 3,628,800 possible outcomes.

 

Bombs, Babes and Bingo was previously workshopped with the Artist's Laboratory Theatre in Fayetteville, AR, where it traveled to the New Orleans Fringe Festival. The script was also a Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission finalist and a P73 Playwriting Fellowship semi­finalist.

 

Additional cast, production and artistic team includes Erica Hernandez (understudy), Tracy Atteberry (magic consultant); Henry Behel (co-technical director); Dana Lynn Formby* (dramaturg); Derek Garza* (co-technical director); Rachel Haile (dialect coach); Heath Hays (original music and sound design); John Kelly (lighting design); Robert S. Kuhn* (co-scenic/costume design); Kate Masiak (stage manager); Jeff Shields (properties design); Michelle Underwood* (co-scenic/projection design).

*Indicates Mortar Theatre Company member.