Passage Theatre Company Opens SLIPPERY AS SIN, 5/17

Passage Theatre Company, Trenton's only professional theater company, will wrap up its 2011-2012 season with Slippery as Sin, running from May 17 to June 3. David Lee White's comic thriller will be directed by Adam Immerwahr – the same team that delivered the 2010 smash hit, Blood: A Comedy. 

The cast will feature local actors, June Ballinger, artistic director of Passage Theatre, and Trent Blanton, a theater professor at Rider University, plus Philadelphia talent including  Joniece Abbott-Pratt , Justin Jain, Brian Anthony Wilson, and Barrymore Award winner Greg Wood.

 Jump on this roller coaster ride of comedic thrills as we look at the political paranoia and cultural hysteria in the "Dirty Thirties." America's most brilliant detective is on the verge of apprehending the world's most devious master criminal...Diabolicus! It's 1932 and a group of formerly well-to-do socialites are stranded on a former resort island gone-to-seed. The sinister and calculating Diabolicus has threatened to murder everyone in the house before daybreak…but is the master criminal lurking in The Shadows of reality or in the recesses of paranoid minds? The truth is often "Slippery as Sin."

"David White is becoming known for writing delicious smart comedies that both resonate and illuminate our times," says Passage Theatre Artistic Director June Ballinger. 

Mystery writer Kathryn Miller Haines states "Slippery as Sin masterfully integrates the tropes of early twentieth-century pulp detective fiction in a play that is scary, thrilling, clever and very, very funny." 

June Ballinger is in her 15th season as Executive Artistic Director at Passage Theatre. Most recently, she appeared onstage in David Lee White's Blood: A Comedy, and Trenton Lights, for which she was also a co-creator.  Prior to becoming a producer, she performed in many new works at theatres nationwide such as Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Primary Stages, The Chelsea Theatre Center, and The Kennedy Center. Ms. Ballinger was a founding ensemble member of the Magic Carpet Play Company in San Francisco for ten years, and was also in the original Broadway cast of Pack of Lies starring RoseMary Harris. 

Trent Blanton's credits include Les Miserables (Actors' Playhouse), A Christmas Carol (Actors Theatre of Louisville),1776 (Ford's Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera); Fiddler on the Roof (Starlight Musicals of Kansas City & The MUNY of St. Louis); A Christmas Carol, Romeo & Juliet (ALLIANCE THEATRE); A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew (Georgia Shakespeare); Masada (York Theatre (NYC)). Trent played virtually every major city in North America in the Broadway National Tour of Les Miserables. He was also in the Chinese premiere of Les Miz in 2002 with Colm Wilkinson at the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Trent is an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Westminster College of the Arts at Rider University and a resident teaching artist for the McCarter Theatre.

Justin Jain is a founding member of The Berserker Residents; whose original comedic work includes 2011 NYC hit The Annihilation Point, The Lapsburgh Layover at Ars Nova, and Philly favorite The Giant Squid (being remounted fall 2012). Other regional credits include: Arden Theatre Company, People's Light and Theatre Company, Theatre Horizon, Shakespeare in Clark Park, Milwaukee Rep, and Teatro Delle Due, among others.  

Brian Anthony Wilson began his film career with the supporting Lead role of 'Woody', opposite Kevin Costner and Giovanni Ribisi inThe Postman. Since then he has been fortunate to have appeared in over 75 Film. His television credits include all five seasons of the critically acclaimed HBO Series, The Wire, Keeping The Faith with Ben Stiller, Rounders with Edward Norton, Outlaw with Jimmy Smits, Hack with David Morse, The Fields with Cloris Leachman and most recently, Limitless opposite Bradley Cooper. Brian's theatrical journey began 25 years ago at Freedom Theater in Philadelphia. Since then he has performed with many local theaters including Act II Playhouse, Bushfire, InterAct, Lantern, People's Light and Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, and the Arden Theatre Company.

Greg Wood was most recently seen as Alan in the Walnut St. Theatre's production of God of Carnage.  Other credits include:  Dividing the Estate and Legacy of Light with The People's Light and Theatre Co., Amadeus at the Walnut, andThe Seafarer for the Arden Theatre Company.  Greg has also been a company member with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival for the past 18 seasons.  Credits there include the title roles of Hamlet and Richard III, Antony in Antony & Cleopatra, Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac, and this summer as Prospero in The Tempest and King John in King John.  Film & TV credits include The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Happening, The Killing of Emmett Young, A Gentlemen's Game, several seasons with Law & Order, Ed, Hack, and Homicide.  

Joniece Abbott-Pratt performed off Broadway in The Good Negro and appeared in regional productions of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at Huntington Theatre Company, Gem of the Ocean at Hartford Stage, The Piano Lesson at Yale Repertory Theatre and Delaware Theater Company, The Good Negro at Dallas Theater Center, Mama's Gonna Buy You at William Inge Theatre Festival, Dirt Rich at New York's SummerStage, Stick Fly and The Overwhelming at Contemporary American Theatre Festival, False Creeds at ALLIANCE THEATRE Company, Breath, Boom at Synchronicity Performance Group, and The Doll Play's at Actor's Express Theatre.

David Lee White is the Associate Artistic Director of Passage Theatre and the author of several plays that have appeared on the Passage stage. His collaborations with director Adam Immerwahr include Random Horrible Thoughts About Love (2007), and his playBackfire, which was included in the 2008 Play Lab production, The Gallery Plays. David has also written three plays for the State Street Project: If I Could, In My Hood, I Would..., Fire Girls and Urban Central. Recently, his plays White Baby and Fast Food were produced by the Combustible Radio Theatre in Philadelphia. Fast Food has also been staged at the ArtSpace in Chang Mei, Thailand.If I Could..., was given a third production by the South Carolina Children's Theatre and another production is currently being planned in Newark as a partnership between Passage Theatre and Playwright's Theatre of New Jersey. White Baby will be produced by Emerging Artists Theatre's annual EAT fest in the Spring of 2010.

Director Adam Immerwahr Off-Broadway: The Chimes (SPF-The Public Theater) Missing Celia Rose (SPF-Theater Row). Other world premieres: Hannah (Premiere Stages); The Thing About Air Travel (Hangar Theatre); Spirit Sex(Ensemble Studio Theatre-Going to the River Festival); Trenton Lights, Love and Communication, and Blood: A Comedy (Passage Theatre Company).  Additionally, he has directed productions and workshops for McCarter Theatre's Youth Ink! and First Stage Festivals, Philadelphia Artists' Collective, Luna Stage, PlayPenn, Passage Theatre's State Street Project and Playwrights Lab, Westminster Choir College, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and Brown University.  Adam serves on the artistic staff of McCarter Theatre as the Associate Producer.  He is the Resident Director at Passage Theatre and the Artistic Director of CWW On Stage, an ensemble of senior citizens who collect and perform the stories of their community.  Adam is an alumnus of Luna Stage Directors' Lab, and the recipient of a 2005 Weston Award for Directing, a 2008 Drama League Directing Fellowship, and a 2010 NJ Theatre Alliance "Applause Award."

Passage Theatre performs in the historic Mill Hill Playhouse, an intimate 100-seat theater in the heart of downtown Trenton adjacent to the beautiful Mill Hill district. Security-guarded on-street parking is available on S. Montgomery St., Ernie Kovacs St., E. Front Street and in the Artworks parking lot.   Slippery as Sin will play Thursday through Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 3 pm. Tickets, priced at $25 and $30 (Saturdays), are available by calling (609) 392-0766 or on-line at www.passagetheatre.org. Tickets are $15 for groups of 10 or more, seniors receive 10% off and students tickets are $10 with valid ID.

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