CHALK (A SILENT COMEDY) Begins Today at The Kraine Theater

"If everything you drew became real, where would your imagination take you?" A playful and poignant homage to classic silent-film era comedians, Chalk invites audiences into a hand-drawn world where imagination is made real and anything can happen. Charlie Chaplin meets Harold and the Purple Crayon in this family-friendly physical comedy guaranteed to "Draw You In."

Featuring Choreography by Mike Kirsch, Lighting Design by Helen Blash, Costume Design by Alex Curtis, Coat Rack Design by Alex Haynes, Sound Design by Alex Curtis, and Taps by Bryan Langlitz.

CHALK is presented at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery) every Second Saturday of the month at 2:30pm. Tickets ($15; $12 for parents accompanied by a child; $5 for kids under $12) are available online at www.horseTRADE.info. The show will run approximately 45 minutes, with no intermission. Remaining performances for 2017 will be today, October 14 at 2:30pm, Saturday, November 11 at 2:30pm, and Saturday, December 9 at 2:30pm.

Alex Curtis (Creator/Performer) is a professional actor working in theater, film and television. Alex moved to New York in 2014, after graduating with his MFA in acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep. Since then, career highlights include playing a house-hunter on a reality TV show (which wasn't real, btw), and saying a few lines in an episode of "FOREVER," a prime-time drama on ABC which has since been cancelled. He is very excited to perform "CHALK" and not say anything. Alex has recently been seen clowning in the New York Clown Theatre Festival and The 10-Foot Rat Cabaret. He is the artistic director of Playpen Theater, and has produced raucous, irreverent work in San Francisco and New York. To learn more or join his update list, visit www.AlexMCurtis.com.

Caitlin Ryan O'Connell (Director) is a theatre director and teaching artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is recently assisted Will Eno on his new play Wakey, Wakey at Signature Theatre. She has worked with Ars Nova, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, LCT3, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Trinity Repertory Company, and Clubbed Thumb. In 2010, she conceived and directed A World of Girls, an original play based on interviews with teenage girls from twenty-two countries worldwide. At Brown/Trinity Rep Caitlin directed Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Love of the Nightingale, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, William Shakespeare's Cymbeline and Will Eno's GNIT. Caitlin is a former directing intern at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has trained with the National Theater Institute, St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Simon McBurney's Complicite and the NY Neofuturists. She is a teaching artist with The International Theatre and Literacy Project and works in Rwanda to devise theatre with Rwandan youth. Caitlin is an alumna of Wellesley College and a graduate of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Directing class of 2016.

Mike Kirsch (Choreographer) is a NYC based producer, director and choreographer. His film and video productions, which he produces, directs and choreographs, have been seen by millions across the globe. He has directed and choreographed productions for MTV, ABC, SeaWorld, Bloomingdale's, L'Oréal, Sabra Hummus, and for Shellac in Times Square during New York Fashion Week. Most recently his dance film "Public Displays" was selected and featured at the prestigious Lincoln Center for the Arts' Dance on Film Festival. His work has also been featured numerous times on The Today's Show, in The New York Times and The Huffington Post. His theatre director/choreography credits include Assistant Choreographer for Death Takes a Holiday (a new musical by Maury Yeston produced by Roundabout Theatre Company starring Rebecca Luker), Director/Choreographer for Oliver! at Festival 56, Choreographer for How To Succeed at the New London Barn Playhouse, Annie Get Your Gun at the MacHaydn Theatre, Choreographer for The Days of 98 in Skagway, Alaska and Choreographer for Broadway Under The Stars and Working for Transcendence Theatre Company.

Playpen Theater (Producer) is dedicated to producing raucous and irreverent pieces of theater that delight and astonish. We believe that play is the basis of creativity, and that the most exciting ideas come only when artists are given the freedom to bounce off the walls. Founded in San Francisco, and now producing in NYC, productions Three Little Words by Tim Bauer at the 2010 Bay One Acts Festival, Miss Johnson's Six O'Clock Class Present a 9/11 Grief Ballet by Elise LeBreton at the 2012 First Look Festival, and CHALK (a silent comedy.) by Alex Curtis at the 2014 Providence Fringe Festival, the 2015 Frigid Festival, and at now in artistic residency at The Kraine Theater.

FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade is a theater development group with a focus on new work that produces a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater every season. FRIGID's Resident Artist Program offers a home to a select group of Independent theater artists, pooling together a great deal of talent and energy. FRIGID New York grew out of the annual FRIGID Festival, the first and only festival of its kind in New York City to offer artists 100% of their box office proceeds, and Horse Trade Theater Group, a self-sustaining theater development and management group.

Photo Credit: Steven Jaehnert