RELEASE POINT Makes World Premiere at New Jersey Rep Tonight, 8/18

New Jersey Repertory Company (Suzanne Barabas, Artistic Director; Gabor Barabas, Executive Producer) presents the world premiere production of Release Point by Gino DiIorio, directed by Joel Stone. Release Point will celebrate its opening night tonight, August 18 at New Jersey Repertory Company (179 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ), running through Sunday, September 23.

Tickets are $40 ($35 during previews and $60 on opening night – with reception) and can be purchased by calling 732-229-3166 or visiting www.njrep.org.

What happens when the Great American Pastime is no longer merely a game but the only way an estranged father and daughter can bridge a void? On the surface, Release Point may appear to be a play about baseball, but it turns out to be a powerful exploration of the tortured relationship between two lost souls trying to heal deeply profound and destructive psychic wounds. The love of baseball is the only thing that remains to connect them as they try desperately to salvage what little remains of their relationship. Release Point joins a time-honored tradition of using the game to highlight the daunting conflicts and human struggles that are enacted every day in our society and follows one family’s painful journey to heal and to find salvation through the unbreakable bonds that connect parent to child.

The talented cast of Release Point includes NJ Rep regulars – Michael Irvin Pollard (Theatre: Night Train, Yankee Tavern), and Jenny Vallancourt (Theatre: Bookends, October 1962) and newcomers Gillian Andresen, Felicia Aschettino, Emily Capriotti, Laura Diorio, Tina Siciliano, and Isabel Wallace will be performing on alternate days. The production design team includes Jessica Parks (Set Design & Props), Jill Nagle (Lighting Design), John Emmett O’Brien (Sound Design), Patricia E. Doherty (Costume Design), and Jennifer Tardibuono (Stage Manager).

Release Point, written by Gino DiIorio and directed by Joel Stone, plays New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ, in previews August 16-18, Thursday, Friday 2pm & 8PM, Saturday 3PM. The show officially opens on Saturday, August 18 8PM, and follows the regular performance schedule through September 23: Thursday – Friday 8PM; Saturday 3PM & 8PM, Sunday 2PM.

Tickets are $40 ($35 during previews, $60 opening night with reception). Discounts are available to seniors (65+), students (full-time 13-25) and groups of 10+. Tickets are available at www.njrep.org or by calling 732-229-3166. Discounts and coupons not valid on Saturday nights

For more information about New Jersey Repertory Company, visit www.njrep.org.

GINO DIIORIO (Playwright) Gino DiIorio's play Darwin at Down won 2nd place in the 2007 Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. The play has been given staged readings at NJ Rep, Urban Stages, and the InterNational Theatre Festival in Timisoara, Romania. Dead Ringer won 1st place in the BBC's 2005 International Playwriting Competition. The play was performed on BBC Radio in the Fall of 2005 and received its world premiere at NJ Rep in 2009. Centennial Casting, co-written with Nancy Bleemer was produced at Penguin Rep in 2006, as well as the Virginia Stage Co. in 2008. Apostasy was given its world premiere at NJ Rep in 2006. The play received its New York premiere at Urban Stages in 2007 and was subsequently published by Samuel French. Are You the Wife of Michael Cleary? received its NY premiere in 2008 at the Irish Arts Center. The play was also produced at various venues throughout Ireland. Reparation won a development grant througH Clark University and received its premiere at Luna Stage, NJ. Gino has also written The Key, a one man show addressing teen depression that was developed through Educational Theatre of New England and Boston Children's Hospital, and toured high schools in 2009-10. Gino was the winner of the 2007 Urban Stages Emerging Playwrights Award. He also has won a Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award (2003) and a Higgins School Grant (2001). His plays have been finalists at the O'Neill Center, the Humana Festival and New Dramatists. Winterizing the Summer House was chosen as one of the top ten plays in the 2002 Writer Digest's national play competition. The play received its world premiere in 2003 at NJ Rep. His play, White Noise, received second prize in Delaware Theater Company's Connections Contest for plays dealing with racial themes and received its first public reading starring Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham. White Noise also received a Pilgrim Project Grant for Development and Production. The play has been given readings by 12 Miles West (NJ) as well as at Chicago Dramatists. White Noise was given a main stage production by the Turnip Theatre in NYC. His play, The Pigeon Tree, was produced by the Metropolitan Playhouse as part of its East Village Chronicles Series in 2005. His short play, Green Waits on Blue, was published in “Near South”, a poetry journal. His play, Sleeping Dogs, was given a public reading at the 78th Street Theatre Lab. featuring Arthur Nascerella and Frank Vincent. Gino has written a number of screenplays, including Fatboy and Morally Straight, a 2002 Austin Film Festival Semi-finalist. Morally Straight was given a reading by The Actor's Playground in NYC, featuring Norbert Leo Butz in the lead role. Gino is Associate Professor of Theatre at Clark University in Worcester, MA. He has won a number of awards for his teaching including a Logan Faculty Fellowship and a Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship. He has also taught at The New School for Social Research, NYU, the Weist Barron School, and Rockland Community College. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

JOEL STONE (Director) was a founding member and artistic director of Off-Off Broadway's The Theatre Asylum, which produced Sophocles' Electra, Horrors of Doctor Moreau and Babel-Babble. On May 17, 1998, his play Horrors of Doctor Moreau (published by Samuel French, Inc.) was the first Script-in-Hand reading presented by the newly-formed New Jersey Repertory Company. The following year, his short play The Age of Miracles was given its premiere at NJ Rep and went on to be a finalist at the Samuel French Short Play Festival. Also in 1999, NJ Rep presented Written in Stone, an evening of his short plays, including On the Subject of Black Widow Spider Venom, Groping for Faith, and The Speck of Dust in Bugsy's Eye (featuring Kim Hunter). In 2001, he co-wrote and co-produced One Night With You, a collection of six short plays about Elvis, created exclusively by NJ Rep playwrights. Over the years, he has directed Script-in-Hand readings of Mark Dunn's Oh Revoir, Mirabeau, Mario Fratti's Candida and Her Friends, Juan Mayorca's Way to Heaven (Himmelweg), Dorothy Fortenberry's Large as Life and Twice as Natural, Robert King's Destination Alaska, Tom Sime's Bloodletters, and Gino DiIorio's Release Point. He has written and directed plays for all four NJ Rep Theatre Brut Festivals, including Prairie Dogs (2004), Abilene (2004),Trouble on the PATH (2005), Seven4Seven (2006), and The Purgatory of Charlie Hustle (2008). From 2000-2002, he was in charge of theatre education for the New York City Board/Department of Education. In 2012, he completed his first book of non-fiction,The Master Craps Shooter.

Pictured: Michael Irvin Pollard and Jenny Vallancourt. Photo credit: Suzanne Barabas.