Dylan Guerra's THE BLENDER to Open 7/30 at Summer Shares at La MaMa

The Blender begins performances July 30th for a limited engagement through August 4th at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at 74A East 4th Street, New York, NY. Performance schedule: Tuesday-Sat at 8PM; Sun at 3PM. Press Opening: Tuesday July 30th. Tickets available through http://theblender.brownpapertickets.com. The Blender is written by Dylan Guerra and directed by Dylan Guerra, Tom Gelo and Hannah Benitez.

Cast includes; Ryan Avalos, Leslie Ballart, Tyler Crim, Danniel Gerchakov, JeremyGettis, Dylan Guerra, Stephanie Machado and Caitlin Rodstein.

The Blender is a collection of eight short plays by Dylan Guerra, all of which have been produced in the Miami area. In order to raise the impact of students in the professional artistic world, Dylan Guerra decided to compile his best shorts, rent out one of the most acclaimed off-off-broadway theaters in New York City (through Summer Shares at La MaMa), and present his work along with a group of incredibly talented student actors. The Blender uses striking comedy and twisted characters to address various issues including: self-discovery, sexuality, moving on, the definition of progress, and belief. The Blender received $5000 in donations through Kickstarter, and has been supported on its trip to New York through its Miami performances.

The Blender opens with How To a fast comedy on familial structure in the 1950's and continues with Brilliant Children, a play about actors who can't get over their past roles. Plants!, a thriller-comedy about people turning in to plants, delivers a sci-fi blow to the gut. Kill Your Darlings is an existential-crisis comedy that begins when a playwright tells the characters from his beloved play that he must kill one of them off. Guerra's award winning play Apple Tree, a re-telling of the classic Adam and Eve story, is also in the collection. Other plays included in The Blender are Python, a play about the end of a marijuana dealing family and their python on the back porch; The Six, a one man show that questions happiness; and Underworld, a mafia farce on the water.

The Blender is fresh, exciting and breaks away from typical theatrical conventions; all actors are on stage throughout all eight plays and often provide sound effects during the shorts. The production breaks away from blackouts and moves into a world of cohesive movement and striking transitions set to contemporary music. All eight student actors play multiple roles in the production ranging from an illiterate- over bearing sister, to a German doctor who believes he's found the cure to a killer plant outbreak. The play is a leap forward in bridging the gap between student voices and the professional artistic world.

Dylan Guerra wrote The Blender throughout high school (New World School of the Arts) and his freshman year at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts. Dylan is also a Silver Knight nominee for his work in creating powerful student voices in the professional artistic world. Dylan Guerra has been described as "blurring the line between fantasy and reality" (Buster Spills, Broadwayworld.com/Dallas) and as having an incredibly progressive and harshly comedic outlook in his plays. Actors in The Blender are studying in B.F.A programs at Carnegie Mellon University, Boston University, Florida State University and Southern Methodist University.

For more information, check out The Blender website: dylanguerra.com/the-blender.

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