Site-Specific BACK & FORTH Will Play Central Park's East Meadow Next Month

Super Secret Arts will present the world premiere site-specific production Back & Forth, a new play written by Richard Hollman, which will be performed in Central Park's East Meadow, hidden among your everyday park-goes. Featuring two actors, two gloves, a baseball, and an audience equipped with headphones to observe and eavesdrop at their leisure, Back & Forth will play its game of catch over three weekends this fall, beginning Thursday, October 7, with an official Opening Night on Sunday, October 10.

It's just a conversation until you catch on. Back & Forth is the story of two old friends reuniting for the first time since a forced period of extended social isolation (yes, that period of social isolation) and discovering that despite having felt basically immobile for the past 18 months, quite a lot has changed.

Audience members will receive an email 24 hours before their performance telling them where to enter the park and how to recognize the house manager, who will advise them on how to tune in to the show and where they may want to sit, though ultimately the audience will decide how they want to observe this particular game of catch.

"I've had the basic idea for this play for years. I'm a former baseball player and I love watching even the simple act of two people playing catch. On a surface level, it's exciting to me as the basis for a play because you can't act it, you just have to do it, and there's bound to be an uncontrollable variation from performance to performance. Even professional baseball players would have difficulty replicating the exact same game of catch twice. And while it's essentially repetitious, there are stakes, namely those that exist between the two players personally," said playwright Richard Hollman.

Hollman continued, "Additionally, I've been interested in the idea of physical distance as emotional distance for a long time. New York City is a place where so many people cross into our visual field daily. There's a forced intimacy with those near you and a fading into the background of those far away. But every individual of course has a complicated and intricate inner life. I'm obsessed with what's happening with the people in apartments across the street and people across a field in Central Park. And now, after having had to be physically far from those we love because of the pandemic, what happens when we come back together? How have we changed? Can physical distance coupled with the emotional intimacy of hearing someone right in your ears help us empathize with strangers across a field? We use technology to communicate with others from afar but what about a chance to use it to hear a conversation we're not part of?"

Directed by Katie Young, the cast of Back & Fourth features Richard Hollman and Chris Roberti. The Production Stage Manager is Helen Thornton.

The show will play the following schedule: Thursday, October 7 - Sunday, October 10, at 5:30pm; Thursday, October 14 - Sunday, October 17, at 5:30pm; and Thursday, October 21 - Sunday, October 24 at 5:00pm.

For tickets, priced at $25, and more information, please visit SuperSecretArts.com.

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