2nd Annual Planet Connections Theatre Festivity Presents BOMB SHELTER

BOMB SHELTER will be presented as part of the 2nd Annual Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. The Festivity will take place June 1st through the 26th at Gene Frankel Theatre (24 Bond Street), and The Robert Moss Theater at 440 Studios (440 Lafayette Street) in New York City.

Rachel Blackwell is a visual artist working in video, collage, and installation. Her videos focus on universal human experience--birth, death, consciousness, fear--tapping into currents that are present in all art and spiritual cultures.
Blackwell studied New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute under Sharon Grace. There she filmed improvised shorts with friends, and started creating architectural video installation for bands and theatrical performances. She also began experimenting with re-recording footage to create new visual effects through multiple (de)generations. After school and lacking the resources of a University editing suite, she began re-recording found footage and taping together a new emotional video landscape. She has been developing this video collage technique for the last 10 years. They have been used in Haunted Houses, fashion shows and in independent films. She works on theatrical and commercial productions as a set dresser and prop stylist, and is the designer for an upcoming staging of the play Bomb Shelter by Kimberly Pau. Blackwell also filmed a short entitled Shithead, and will be filming two videos for the band Male Room.
Since meeting her partner Jesse Gelaznik, Blackwell has further evolved to use music to mark the movements in a video collage. The couple alternatively starts from the music or the image and develop landscapes/ themed visions to accompany live performances. They have presented these collaborations at the 92YTribeca, Galapagos, St Cecilia's, and music venues all over the city. Blackwell's videos and other work have shown internationally.

DJ Karl Marx is a Nashville-born music producer living in Brooklyn. Specializing in hip-hop and trained classically in piano, he creates music in many different styles using sampled sounds, synthesizers, and whatever else is lying around. DJ Karl Marx believes that all music is interconnected and capable of being shared. To borrow the words of his German counterpart, "From each according to his own abilities to each according to his own needs." His hip-hop remixes can be found at karlmarxbeats.com; other work can be found at burleius.com. He also writes about other people's music at foundmusic.tumblr.com.

Eric Mercado is a NYC director who recently received a BFA from NYU. Recent projects include assistant directing Sometimes in Prague at The Tank, working as a production assistant on Landscape with the Fall of Icarus at Abrons Arts Center, and assistant directing Susan Mosakowski's new play A World Apart at The Flea Theater. Eric's latest original piece The Ape and the Child opened at the Wings Theater this past fall. He is currently developing an experimental opera based on the 1960 Fellini film La Dolce Vita and working on a multimedia adaptation of the story of Adam and Eve with filmmaker Justin Stanley.

Kimberly Pau's plays have been produced and developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Blue Heron Arts Center, The Stella Adler Conservatory for Acting, Tisch School of the Arts: Department of Dramatic Writing and Experimental Theatre Wing and The Green Building. Kimberly also makes videos, most recently the shorts Installation (with Miguel Drake-McLaughlin and Rufus Lusk) and Shithead (with Rachel R. Blackwell). Kimberly studied Dramatic Writing and Drama at Tisch School for the Arts at NYU and has developed work at the International Experimental Theater Workshops in Amsterdam, the International Film & Television Workshops in Rockport, ME and the Play Development Collective in NYC. She is Artist in Residence at The Green Building in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Acknowledgements include: Fredrick & Imanuel, finalist for the SPF Festival, Shithead, semi-finalist for Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Conference, Bomb Shelter, finalist for the TrapDoor Ensemble Playwright Competition. Kimberly is also the Artistic & Producing Associate at Aquila Theatre. www.kimberlypau.com

Jay Painter is very excited to be a part of Bomb Shelter. He has performed in numerous Off-Broadway plays and national tours. His extensive work with the Aquila Theatre Company includes Agamemnon (with Olympia Dukakis) and their celebrated productions of Comedy of Errors and The Iliad among a half dozen other shows. Other notable theatre credits include The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) national tour, Shakespeare Santa Barbara and work with various NYC theatre companies. He has made numerous appearances in television and film, as well as several independent films, commercials and web series. Jay is the co-owner and artistic director of Face Off Unlimited, creators of the live improvised Japanese game-show BATSU!, Friday Night Face Off (Long Island's longest running improv comedy show), and their three man rockin' long-form improv show A Whole 'Nother Level (currently touring nationally to colleges). www.faceoffunlimited.com Jay hails from the mountains of West Virginia where he attended Shepherd University, Davis & Elkins College and studied with mime master Reid Gilbert. He is a proud member of Equity and SAG.

THE PLANET CONNECTIONS THEATRE FESTIVITY is New York's premiere eco-friendly theatre festival. Fostering a diverse cross-section of performances, the festival seeks to inspire artists and audiences both creatively and fundamentally, in a festive atmosphere. At the heart of the festivity are like-minded individuals striving to create professional, meaningful theatre, while supporting organizations, which give back to the community at large.

The performance schedule is as follows:
5PM Thursday June 2nd 2011
8:30PM Friday June 3rd 2011
11AM Sunday June 5th 2011
9PM Monday June 6th 2011
1PM Saturday June 11th 2011
9PM Sunday June 12th 2011

Planet Connections Theatre Festivity
June 1st-26th
Gene Frankel Theatre and The Robert Moss Theater
Tickets $18. For tickets visit http://www.planetconnectionsfestivity.com
A portion of ticket sales will be donated to support The Brooklyn Public Library.

 

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