'Slap&Tickle' Prepares for Off-Broadway Run

Slap&Tickle, written by David Parr and directed by David Drake, is preparing for an off-Broadway opening this summer 2008 (venue to be announced).

"Slap&Tickle is a generational portrait about how drugs, politics and HIV have changed the landscape for gay men in America from the early 80's to the present.  Set in a contemporary bathhouse and told through the kaleidoscopic view of 26 characters, many of them recurring, the stories told range from first kisses to last loves; from station wagons to saunas; from sleeping bag seductions to bathroom rapes.  What emerges is a universal play not just about sex, but about the intimacy and urgency of storytelling itself," press notes state.

The producers, Robert Driemeyer, Mark Marques, Vic DiMonda and Michael DiFonzo, are hosting a meet and greet with the playwright and director and offering a sneak peek of the play at a reception for industry and press on Monday, April 28, 2008, 6:30 pm at Pearson, 1330 Avenue of the America (between 53 & 54th St.), 7th Floor Lobby, New York, NY 10019.  RSVPs are required and all interested parties should contact Robert Driemeyer at robert.driemeyer@gmail.com or 212.956.2860.

Novelist and playwright David Parr graduated from The Ohio State University's creative writing program.  His first script, Zack & Jill, was presented as part of Bailiwick Theatre's 1994 Directors Festival in Chicago, where it was chosen as Best of the Fest.  In 2000, it was selected by New York's LICAP for its Best New Plays Series.  Mr. Parr has had his short fiction published in Blithe Quarterly (www.blithe.com), Mosaic and The Journal.  His short story "To Make A Short Story Long" won The Journal's 2006 Flash Prose prize.

David Parr's play Eleanor Rigby is Waiting premiered at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival.  It also enjoyed a successful run with Gypsy. Productions at the Suncoast Resort in St. Petersburg, FL and was produced as part of Chicago's Collaboraction Festival alongside works by Beth Henley and Wendy MacLeod.  His work has also been produced by Dixon Place, Broken Watch and Live Bait.  Slap&Tickle will mark Mr. Parr's commercial off-Broadway debut.

David Drake is a New York-based actor, writer and director. His most recent work as a director includes the solo shows of Matthew Francis (The Gospel According to Matthew) in the 2007 NY International Fringe Festival at the Soho Playhouse, Sherie Rene Scott (A Work-in-Progress) at the Zipper last spring and Taylor Mac (The Beast of Taylor Mac) in the 2007 Under-the-Radar Festival at the Public Theater, which later transferred to London's Soho Theatre.

Mr. Drake directed a revival of James Edwin Parker's 2 Boys in Bed on a Cold Winter's Night at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco and the production received terrific reviews. Other directing projects include Edmund White's Terre Haute at the Sundance Theater Lab, Carl Rollyson, Helen MacLeod and Anne Bobby's That Woman: Rebecca West Remembers at Manhattan Theatre Source, Eric Bernat and Robin Carrigan's Jesus & Mandy at New York City's Theatre for the New City and Eric Bernat's Starstruck at Rattlestick Theatre.  Regionally he has directed at Provincetown Rep, Baltimore Theatre Project and Out North Contemporary Art House in Anchorage, AK.

On stage, David is most widely known as the playwright/performer of one of the longest-running solo shows in New York theater history, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, for which he won an Obie Award and two Dramalogue Awards. The published edition by Doubleday garnered a Lambda Literary Award nomination for Best New Play.  His latest autobiographical monologue, Son of Drakula, premiered at Dance Theater Workshop. Other New York stage credits include originating the role of Miss Deep South in the off-Broadway hit Pageant, succeeding Charles Busch in Vampire Lessons in Sodom and starring in the revival of The Boys in the Band at the Lucille Lortel.  His numerous TV and movie appearances include his critically acclaimed work in the performance film of Larry Kramer and co-starring in Roland Tec's upcoming feature We Pedal Uphill.

Slap&Tickle has played sold-out runs in Provincetown, St. Petersburg and Fire Island and has received much critical acclaim.

Additional information can be found at www.myspace.com/slapandtickletheplay and the official website, www.slapandtickletheplay.com (currently under construction). 

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