'Bridge Over Land' Opens at the Interart 4/18

The Interart Theatre Development Series will present Bridge Over Land, a play by Gilbert Girion, directed by the author. Performances will be at the Interart Theatre Annex, 500 W 52nd Street. Performances will begin on Friday, April 18th, continuing through Saturday, May 10th. The Annex is currently facing eviction; see below for details.

"Bridge Over Land is made up of three short plays: In Dark Land a son tends to his father who, embarrassed by his own grief over the death of his wife, steps away from the other mourners. In Tableland, a young man contends with his mother who is becoming unhinged -- but not without her own brand of grace and humor.  And in Number Land, a math professor finds himself at the door of one of his former students. As this unlikely pair negotiate this humorous and awkward visit, deeper issues of loss and mourning are revealed.  In the end, some deeper feelings surface, putting into question the possibilities between two people who have found an emotional bridge across a distance of years. Though not related by character, the three one-acts are meant to give the feeling of a cohesive whole; themes from one play are picked up and expanded upon in the next. Issues of loss, longing and hope are woven through the lives of the various characters, to the point where they almost connect, but finally don't. Overall, the three works are about bridges between people and across time," press notes state. The cast includes Lisa Chess (Cherry Lane Theatre), David Gelles-Hurwitz (Ensemble Studio Theatre), producer Josh Liveright, recent Tisch School of Drama graduate Kati Rediger, and Ed Setrakian, who has appeared in numerous roles on and off-Broadway (Salome with Al Pacino) and is also a popular character actor on film (Zodiac). The design team will be Arnulfo Maldonado (Sets), Lucrecia Briceno (Lighting), Jeffrey Yoshi Lee (Sound) and Naomi Wolff (Costumes).  Amanda Michaels will serve as Stage Manager.

Author and director Gilbert Girion is a playwright and screenwriter. Produced plays include Faith's Body, Floating With Jane, Broken English, Bad Country, The Last Word, Fizzle, and Murder In Santa Cruz. His plays Juice, Glue and Palm 90 (co-written) were produced at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, where he served as Playwright-in-Residence. Word Crimes received LA's DramaLogue award for outstanding play. Girion has been commissioned to write plays by New Writers, Overtones Theatre and New York Shakespeare Festival. Girion wrote the film American Blue Note, produced in 1992. He worked with Joseph Chaikin and Bill Hart at Atlantic Center for the Arts where they developed Bodies, a piece about disability. Bridge Over Land was initially written for a Playwriting Commission from Playwrights Horizons. Currently, he teaches Screenwriting and Storytelling at School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Producer Josh Liveright is a writer, producer, and actor with over twenty years of experience and myriad projects under his belt.  In 1990 he produced Momentary Lapses, a collection of short plays, featuring writers such as Steven Dietz, Neal Bell, and John Glore.  The production garnered praise from both the New York Times and the Village Voice.  In 1991 he co-founded Zena Group, a not-for-profit theater and film collective based in TriBeCa. As Zena Group's artistic director Josh produced New York premieres of plays by Mark O'Donnell, Jose Rivera, Neena Beber, Richard Strand, and Gilbert Girion; several broadcast quality videos including Positive Voices, a documentary featuring interviews with long-term survivors of HIV and AIDS; and original projects such as the Thoughts Modern Festival of New Works and Timsloft, an ongoing late-night series of multi-media performance.  Currently Josh is the director of the Interart Theatre Development Series.

About the Interart Theatre
The Interart Theatre, founded in 1970 as a program of the Women's Interart Center, Inc., has worked with such notable artists as Joanne Akalaitis and Estelle Parsons. Under Artistic Director Margot Lewitin, Interart's productions have won ten Obies, as well as a special Obie grant in recognition of its theatrical achievements, and a Drama Desk award for its "contribution to the development of contemporary women theatre artists and exploration of women's issues". A second Drama Desk was awarded for Unique Theatrical Experience for Franz Xaver Kroetz's Request Concert. The Interart Theatre Development Series has been developing and producing new material from the ground up since 1996. By engaging with a diversity of theatre artists and offering them much needed support, the series strives to improve the vitality of theatre within today's cultural landscape.  The overall goal of the series is to allow artists to work to their fullest potential by providing an environment of creative freedom and building a strong sense of community.  With this in mind, the process is just as important as the end result.

About the Threat of Eviction
The venue, the Interart Annex, is the home of the Interart Theatre Development Series, a program of the Interart Theatre and the Women's Interart Center.  The Annex, at 500 W. 52nd Street is currently under threat of eviction by the Clinton Housing Development Company (CHDC), which purports to hold a net lease from the City of New York.  As a tenant in good standing at 500, Interart is the only arts tenant at the 500 location who has not been promised relocation options within the Clinton Urban Renewal Area (CURA). Margot Lewitin, Artistic Director, believes that there may be a reason.

Bridge Over Land will be performed on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8:00pm. Tickets will be $18.00 for all performances.  Tickets may be purchased by calling Smarttix.com at 212-868-4444.
 

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