The New Theatre Project Opens EDWARD THE SECOND Tonight

The New Theatre Project continues its successful third season with a return to contemporary reworkings from the classical theater canon. "We spent many months last year searching through anthologies and old books looking for just the right play to take on," says Artistic Director Keith Paul Medelis. "Eventually we came to look at Edward II published in 1593. It is not frequently produced but there is magic in it." Edward the Second will play tonight, March 1-31.

The adaptation imagines what a naive, young lust would look like on an epic scale. What if an eroticized love affair could destroy an entire nation? What if a break up could strand you, banished in a foreign world?

A party boy, a loser, a pothead, a wastoid, now a king, Edward: not ready for the call of adulthood, crashing in his dad's basement with his disreputable boyfriend, Pierce. His brother Kent lives under the burden of his beloved father, and his wife Isabel will only put up with it for so long before her ambitions get the best of her. Edward the Second, The New Theatre Project's first history play adaptation, exists in the tensions between power and desire, pain and pleasure, and past and present. The classic love story--with its unforgettable, explosive ending--is about the impossibility of young love and the casualties of adulthood.

Edward the Second contains violence, strong language, sexual simulations, and nudity. Audience members under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

The cast features John Denyer, Chris Jakob, Artun Kircali, and Andrew Papa under the direction of TNTP's Artistic Director Keith Paul Medelis. Designs are also by Medelis with assistance from Eben Mannes on sound design, Steve Xander Carson as fight choreographer, and Michael Hartung as movement director.

The New Theatre Project will offer three pay-what-you-can previews of Edward the Second on March 1-3 at 8 pm with an official opening date of March 8. Regular performances will continue through March 31, Fridays-Sundays at 8 pm.

Further details are available online at www.thenewtheatreproject.org.

Have dinner at Bona Sera Cafe across the street and receive $1 off your ticket price. Just bring over your receipt.

All performances take place at the Mix Studio Theater, 130 W. Michigan Ave. in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ticket prices are $15, $10 for students and industry. Tickets are available for purchase online via the Brown Paper Tickets link on TNTP's website. TNTP no longer uses its old box office phone number, but the Mix can be reached at (734) 961-8704. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.