Rapp's New Play At Vineyard Echoes Real Life.

 The phrase "real life is stranger than fiction" gained extra meaning in recent days when the headlines about an alleged "pregnancy pact" between teenage girls in a high school in Gloucester, Massachusetts hewed closely to the plot of Adam Rapp's new play THE METAL CHILDREN, being given a lab production now through Sunday, June 29 at the Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre (108 E. 15 St.) in New York.

Like the furor that's resulted in Gloucester when an unseemly number of teenage girls have become pregnant, Mr. Rapp's play THE METAL CHILDREN depicts the controversy that ensues in a small American town when a Young Adult novel about teenage pregnancy ignites heated emotions over abortion, religious beliefs and modern feminism. In a show of passion for the book, a group of teenage girls also engages in a pregnancy pact.

Rapp's play, in fact, reflects his own "stranger than fiction" experience in 2005 when his Young Adult novel "The Buffalo Tree" landed surprisingly in national headlines when the book was censored by the Muhlenberg School Board in Reading, Pennsylvania, which deemed its themes, graphic language and sexual content of questionable taste for its school's students.

The first public performance last week of this play happened on the same night that the 'pregnancy pact' story broke nationwide, creating a firestorm across the country. Both the creative team and audiences at THE METAL CHILDREN have been startled by the timing and coincidence, as this very issue plays such an integral role in the play.

All seats to THE METAL CHILDREN are $20 and are available 30 minutes prior to each performance. THE METAL CHILDREN performs Tues-Sat at 8 pm and Sat and Sun at 3 pm.

With a cast featuring Betsy Aidem, Connor Barrett, Kerry Bishe, Guy Boyd, Mia Dillon, David Greenspan, Halley Wegryn Gross,Michael Shannon and Katherine Waterston, THE METAL CHILDREN is being given a lab production by Vineyard Theatre -- the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning theatre company in New York.  Vineyard labs are small-scale productions that allow playwrights and directors to make changes to the play and staging on a nightly basis, providing artists with the opportunity to develop new work in front of an audience.

A novelist and playwright, Adam Rapp is the Obie Award-winning author of such plays as RED LIGHT WINTER, NOCTURNE, FINER NOBLE GASES, STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS, and others.

For more information about The Vineyard Theatre and THE METAL CHILDREN, log on to www.vineyardtheatre.org or call the box office at 212-353-0303.