Labyrinth Theater Company to Present Lucy Thurber's THE INSURGENTS; Performances Begin in February

Labyrinth Theater Company presents the New York premiere of Lucy Thurber's The Insurgents, an explosive new play the Obie Award-winning playwright and Labyrinth Theater Company member. Directed by Jackson Gay, The Insurgents follows Thurber's The Hill Town Plays, the wildly ambitious 2013 five-play cycle, and finds the playwright incorporating historical figures-Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown and Timothy McVeigh-into her work for the first time.

The play follows Sally Wright, an American wanderer, who returns to her dead-end rural northeast town after losing her athletic scholarship. At home, she's forced to face her beer guzzling father, wayward brother and the dearth of hope in her impoverished town. Sally soon starts carrying her shotgun wherever she goes and buries herself in books about Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown and Timothy McVeigh. She begins escaping into an interior world where their spirits talk to her, telling stories of their resistance to injustice. Yet even as she immerses herself in the lives of insurgents and clutches her shotgun to her chest, the bleak oppression of a life without opportunity threatens to poison her spirit.

"With The Insurgents, I didn't want to write about the people who wanted to get away," says Thurber. "I wanted to write about the people who actually wanted to stay where they came from and who are having an impossible time doing that." Inspired by the lives of some of the most dynamic and controversial figures in American history, The Insurgents examines the lies and injustice that history has handed down to us and the actions people take when they finally decide that enough is enough.

Performances of The Insurgents will take place February 5-March 8 (see schedule above) at Bank Street Theater, located at 155 Bank Street in Manhattan. General admission tickets are $25 with no service fees and will go on sale on early January. They can be purchased by visiting labtheater.org or by calling 212.513.1080.

Casting and the creative team for The Insurgents will be announced at a later date.

An intimate Conversation Series will accompany select performances of The Insurgents. Participants include journalist Chris Hedges; activist, writer and public speaker Kevin Powell; playwright Dominique Morisseau; John Brown scholar and author Lou DeCaro Jr., among others, who will join the creative team and Labyrinth Theater Company staff for select pre and post show talks. A full schedule will be announced at a later date. The Conversation Series includes a complimentary beer with each ticket purchased and is sponsored by Lagunitas Brewing Company.

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