Emmy Winner Randy Cohen's THE PUNISHING BLOW Makes NYC Premiere, 8/13-8/28

THE YORK SHAKESPEARE COMPANY is pleased to announce the New York Premiere of Randy Cohen's THE PUNISHING BLOW, directed by Seth Duerr, who together will be conducting Q&A sessions after every Saturday and Sunday matinee. THE PUNISHING BLOW will play a three-week limited engagement at the Kirk Theater (410 West 42nd Street address). Performances begin Friday, August 13 and continue thru Saturday, August 28. Opening Night is Friday, August 13 (8 p.m.).

Working in the classical Actor-Manager system, Seth Duerr directs and performs in four-time Emmy Award-winner and New York Times "Ethicist" Randy Cohen's The Punishing Blow: An Illustrated Lecture Delivered by Order of the Orange County Criminal Court. Duerr directs and plays Leslie, an anti-Semitic college professor whose court-ordered public lecture is this play. Dark, yet humorous, Leslie's lecture transcends its purpose and becomes a reflection on the nature of hate and of the professor himself. Following the performance, both Cohen and Duerr will hold a Q&A session on this provocative one-man show.

After being arrested for drunk driving followed by an anti-Semitic rant, college professor Leslie (Duerr) can avoid jail time if he enters rehab, attends anger management classes, and gives a lecture on a figure from a list of The 100 Most Influential Jews of All Time. Rather than choose a more famous figure, such as Einstein or Moses, he picks Number 82: Daniel Mendoza, the 18th century British bare-knuckle boxing champion and father of "scientific boxing."

In presenting the life and times of Mendoza, Leslie allows details about his personal life to creep into his monologue. The audience discovers, through quick and sardonic asides, what led him to this point, gaining insight to the professor's tumultuous marriage, arrest, sentencing, and character. The Punishing Blow is an exploration of anti-Semitism, boxing, marriage, and of a man's own insecurity and bitterness.

THE PUNISHING BLOW plays the following regular schedule through Sunday, August 28:
Wednesdays at 8pm
Thursdays at 8pm
Fridays at 8pm
Saturdays at 2pm
Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 3pm

There is an added performance on Tuesday Aug 24, 2010 at 7pm

Tickets are $18 and are now available online at www.telecharge.com or by calling 212-239-6200. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at the Theatre Row Box Office, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily. TDF vouchers accepted.

Running Time: 84 minutes, no intermission

Website: www.yorkshakespeare.org

Talkbacks with Randy Cohen and Seth Duerr every Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm. In addition, they will join guest speakers at the following performances:

· Wednesday, August 18: journalist David Margolick, author of Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink.

· Wednesday, August 25: Binnie Klein, author of Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed My Mind.

· Thursday, August 26: ESPN 'Uni Watch' columnist Paul Lukas.

· Friday, August 27: David Rakoff, essayist, journalist, actor and a regular contributor to Public Radio International's This American Life. His new book, Half Empty, will be published in September.

 

Randy Cohen (Playwright) was born in Charleston, South Carolina and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania. He attended graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts as a music major studying composition. His first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for "Late Night with David Letterman" for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on "TV Nation." He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. Currently he writes "The Ethicist," a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine syndicated throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Seth Duerr (Actor/Director) starred in the World Premiere of this play two years ago and the subsequent NYC premiere in 2009. He has appeared in 31 productions of Shakespeare. Roles include: Iago, Claudius, Talbot, Margaret, Chorus, Leontes, Antonio (Tempest), as well as directing and playing the title role in Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, and Richard III. He is the Founder/Artistic Director of The York Shakespeare Company and was the Assistant Artistic Director of the Jean Cocteau Repertory, playing Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet; The Cook in Mother Courage; Lexy in Candida; and Cléante in The Miser. For The Public Theater he has twice appeared in Shakespeare in the Park: Macbeth directed by Moisés Kaufman and Romeo and Juliet directed by Michael Greif. Mr. Duerr wrote and directed the first author-approved adaptation of one of Ian McEwan's novels, In Between the Sheets. He recently reprised his performance as Captain Ahab in Orson Welles' Moby Dick-Rehearsed, touring the country with The Acting Company. Recent performances as John Proctor in The Crucible for manhattantheatresource and Tupolski in The Pillowman at APAC as well as directing and playing Jamie in YSC's production of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Film: The Summoning of Everyman (Death), The Kindergarten Shuffle and the forthcoming The Jew of Malta (Barabas). He is the lead vocal actor in the new World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Mr. Duerr is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association and The Dramatists' Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of Wingspan Arts with Donna Murphy and Scott Schwartz.

The York Shakespeare Company was founded in 2001 by its current Artistic Director, Seth Duerr. Working under the classical Actor-Manager system, YSC produced the critically acclaimed repertories of Richard of York, Julius Caesar, and Richard II in 2001; Coriolanus,Timon of Athens, King Lear, and Henry V in 2002; Richard of York, Macbeth, and Hamlet in 2003; Henry IV Parts I & II, Titus Andronicus, and Waiting for Godot in 2004; the first author-approved adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel, In Between the Sheets, in 2006; Nagle Jackson's The Quick-Change Room in 2007; and Randy Cohen's solo-comedy The Punishing Blow, The Merchant of Venice & Marlowe's The Jew of Malta in 2009. Richard of York, a conflation of Henry VI Part III and Richard III was published in 2003.