The Basement Mounts Premiere of Jeff Swearingen's THE CAVEMAN PLAY

By: Jun. 14, 2017
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The Basement hits the stage with their second production, following up their debut earlier this year, with a brand new comedy from Jeff Swearingen, The Caveman Play. Knowing how to pick a venue, this emerging theatre group embarks on their first appearance at The Festival of Independent Theatres, one of the city's most time honored theatrical traditions, now in it's 19th year and known for launching the careers of many professional actors and exposing wide ranging audiences to new companies.

Produced by Chris Rodenbaugh and Directed by Doak Rapp (The Basement's Co-Artistic Directors), the two also star in the show, created by their teacher and mentor, Jeff Swearingen, and have cast it with other company members and a Fun House Theatre and Film favorite on loan. This subtly subversive and socially satirical work examines society's reluctance to change and its all too slow development of human empathy unraveled through the use of comedy as only Swearingen can implement. The production plays the FIT July 21-August 5.

The Story: Jeff Swearingen takes aim at modern society through dissecting history's least modern archetype, the caveman, with The Caveman Play. An allegory of human progress and our current political climate, the play follows a freethinking cave couple as they navigate the brutish society around them where fear and toxic masculinity overthrow reason in a comedy that imagines what happens when modern populism goes even more primal.

Production Information: The Caveman PlayWritten by Jeff SwearingenProduced by Chris Rodenbaugh. Directed by Doak Rapp. Featuring:Chris Rodenbaugh as UghAshleigh Smith as Gorga. Doak Rapp as Scrock Joe Nativi as Frukin Laney Neumann as Ugrin Taylor Donnelson as Gnarlin

Show Dates and Time at The Festival of Independent Theatres: 8:00pm Friday, July 212:00pm Saturday, July 22, 5:00pm Sunday, July 23 5:00pm Saturday, July 29, 2:00pm Sunday, July 30, 8:00pm Saturday, August 5. All performances take place at The Festival of Independent Theatres, at The Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Drive, White Rock Lake, DallasA full schedule of the plays and groups performing, festival passes and single block tickets available at www.festivalofindependenttheatres.com or by phone at 1-800-617-6904

Some of the most critically acclaimed and awarded young actors the D-FW area has ever embraced formed their own theatrical Production Company earlier this year and in March launched with a successful production of Kenneth Lonergan's This is Our Youth, a first time out in which they broke even, attracted many industry professionals and critics and most importantly drew a younger demographic than usual for live theatre (18-25). The Basement is an offshoot of Fun House Theatre and Film and was started by a group of young adult artists with the shared goal of not only continuing but taking charge of their own artistic development while honoring their previous training.

The company is guided by 4 tenets: serve the story, serve the performance, serve the audience and the actor is invisible. Although operating and producing work as an independent entity, the philosophy and artistic mindset of The Basement is solidly steeped in the teachings of Jeff Swearingen, Fun House's founder and artistic director.

 

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