dog & pony dc's BEERTOWN to Make NYC Premiere at 59E59 Theaters, 1/29-2/16

59E59 Theaters will introduce dog & pony dc to New York with the NYC premiere of BEERTOWN, devised by dog & pony dc and directed by Rachel Grossman. BEERTOWN begins performances on Wednesday, January 29 for a limited engagement through Sunday, February 16.

Press opening is Sunday, February 2 at 7:30 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:30 PM; Friday - Saturday at 8:30 PM; and Sunday at 3:30 PM. Please note there is an added performance on Saturday, February 1 at 2:30 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

Welcome to BEERTOWN, an interactive exploration of history, civic ritual, identity, community, and memory that incorporates live music, dance, group song... and a dessert potluck. Part-civic ceremony, part-theatrical pageant, the show welcomes audiences into the 20th Beertown Time Capsule Day celebration, where every five years the imagined small American town unearths its beloved Time Capsule and ritualistically reviews its contents.

In the spirit of community, audience members are encouraged to bring an item to the dessert potluck that launches the evening.

Recognized as an upstart company blazing a new path for audience engagement in
performance, dog & pony dc integrates audiences into the action of the play, engaging them as town citizens, leading the debate and voting on the contents of the time capsule.

BEERTOWN includes a number of social media components to allow for audience integration outside the theatre walls, leading with the town's website: visit beertown.com.

BEERTOWN premiered in November 2011 to a charmed Washington, DC audience and its 2012 remount made the Washington Post's Top 10 shows list. The original production garnered critical acclaim and a 2011 Helen Hayes award nomination for the Charles McArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical. It is the first ever ensemble-devised show to receive this nomination. The 59E59 Theatres production will be the first appearance of BEERTOWN outside the Washington, DC area.

The cast of BEERTOWN features Wyckham Avery, Max Freedman, Rachel Grossman, Melanie Harker, Colin Hovde, J. Argyl Plath, Elaine Yuko Qualter, Jon Reynolds, and Yasmin Tuazon.

The design team includes Colin K. Bills (set and lighting design) and Ivania Stack (costume design). The Production Stage Manager is Melanie Harker.

dog & pony dc is an ensemble-based devised theatre company focused on providing audiences new ways to experience theatre. The company creates ("devises") new plays as a collective ("ensemble") which playfully explore the elastic relationship between artist and audience. dog & pony dc has been recognized as the "upstart company" blazing a new path for audience engagement in performance. The company was highlighted in Washington Post as one of the local companies working on "broadening playgoers' understanding of the riddles theater can unravel." Since its founding in 2008, d&pdc has devised and mounted seven theatrical productions, including four world premieres and two original adaptations, all created collaboratively by the ensemble. The most recent productions, Beertown and A Killing Game, have received widespread critical acclaim. Beertown was nominated for a 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play (the first ensemble-based devised play to receive this nomination), before making The Washington Post's top-10 shows list for 2012. A Killing Game (AKG) won "Producer's Pick of the Fringe" and League of Cincinnati Theatre's "Best use of Improvisation/Audience Participation" at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in June 2013. dog & pony dc has presented about it's work locally (Shakespeare Theatre, Capital Fringe) and nationally (Theatre Communications Group, Animating Democracy, Assoc. for Theater in Higher Education) and was included in American Theatre magazine's July 2013 cover-story on immersive theatre. dogandponydc.com.

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