Flux Theatre Ensemble Announces Their 2011 Season

Flux Theatre Ensemble's fourth season will explore the cost of a society remaining always vigilant. In our See Something, Say Something world, what happens to empathy when we're always on guard? What is our responsibility to those keeping watch? And what happens when our defenses are breached? From the post-apocalyptic comedy of Dog Act to the Greek tragedy crashing into the present of Ajax in Iraq to the subversive storytelling of Menders, Flux will take a penetrating look at the walls and watchers that keep us safe.

Dog Act
Written by Liz Duffy Adams
Directed by Kelly O'Donnell
February 4-20, 2011
Flamboyan Theatre at CSV Cultural Center (107 Suffolk Street at Rivington)
A theatrical, post-apocalyptic dark comedy, DOG ACT follows Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they walk through the wilderness of the former U.S.A. with their little vaudeville troupe. They are heading toward a gig in China, if they can find it...and if they can survive to get there.

Ajax in Iraq
Written by Ellen McLaughlin
Directed by August Schulenburg
June 3-26, 2011
Flamboyan Theatre at CSV Cultural Center (107 Suffolk Street at Rivington)
Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin's mash-up of Sophocles' tragedy Ajax and the Iraq War. The play follows the intertwining paths of the Greek hero Ajax and A.J., a female soldier in Iraq, both undone by the betrayal of a commanding officer. The atrocities they commit as a result of those betrayals force us to look at our culpability in the actions of those keeping us safe.

Menders
Written by Erin Browne
Directed by Heather Cohn
Winter 2011/2012: Dates and Venue TBA
MENDERS, inspired by Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall," follows the story of Corey and her cousin Aimes as they train to become "wall menders" for their community. But there's something suspect about their teacher Drew, who passes the time by telling subversive fairytales of people on the other side of the wall.

FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE produces transformative theatre that explores and awakens the capacity for change. As an ensemble-artist driven company, Flux believes that long-term collaboration and rigorous creative development can unite artists and audiences to build a creative home in New York. Flux is the proud recipient of two NYC Fringe Festival Awards. In 2007 the Village Voice Audience Favorite Award for August Schulenburg's Riding the Bull and in 2008 for Heather Cohn's "Outstanding Direction" of Other Bodies. In 2008 nytheatre.com chose Flux Theatre Ensemble as one of their "People of the Year" saying "This rising theatre company had a hit in the New York International Fringe Festival with Other Bodies, written by artistic director August Schulenburg, and then went on to mount the fall's most ambitious indie show, Johnna Adams's Angel Eaters Trilogy." Flux received a Citation for Excellence in Off-Off Broadway Theatre from the Independent Theater Bloggers Association and seven New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations for The Angel Eaters Trilogy including a win for Best Sound Design. In 2010, director Heather Cohn was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for The Lesser Seductions of History.

"Best Underappreciated Indie Theatre Company Whose Work You Should Get Your Ass To"
New York Press

"Better than any Bible story, as good as even a superior episode of "The Twilight Zone."
The Jewish Daily Forward (Jacob's House)

"The ambitious, intellectually provocative and beautifully realized play does what theatre too rarely does - it leaves you thinking about your life, your times, your choices."
Just Shows To Go You (Top Sixteen Shows of 2009, The Lesser Seductions of History)

A "taut production" with "strong, affective performances"
The New York Times (Pretty Theft)

Liz Duffy Adams (Playwright, Dog Act) Liz Duffy Adams' most recent play Or, premiered Off Broadway at the Julia Miles Theater in November 2009; west coast premiere at the Magic Theater in San Francisco. Other plays include Dog Act; Wet or, Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitude; The Listener; The Reckless Ruthless Brutal Charge of It or, The Train Play; and One Big Lie. She received a Lillian Hellman Award for Playwriting in 2010, the Lilly's inaugural year, for both Or, and Dog Act. Other honors include: New Dramatists residency (2001-2008), New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Will Glickman Award (for Dog Act), Weston Playhouse Music Theater Award, and a commission from Children's Theater Company, Minneapolis. Her work has been produced or developed at the Humana Festival, Portland Center Stage, Portland Stage Company, Syracuse Stage, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, New Georges, Shotgun Players, MOXIE Theater, Clubbed Thumb, Cutting Ball, and Crowded Fire among others. Publications include Poodle With Guitar And Dark Glasses in Applause's "Best American Short Plays 2000-2001," Or, in Smith & Kraus' "Best Plays Of 2010," numerous short plays and monologues in anthologies from Smith & Kraus and Heinemann, and several plays in acting editions by Playscripts, Inc. and Dramatists Play Service. She was profiled in American Theater Magazine (December 2004) and has been in residency at the MacDowell, Djerassi, and Millay artist colonies. BFA: New York University's Experimental Theater Wing; MFA: Yale School of Drama.

Ellen McLaughlin (Playwright, Ajax in Iraq) Ellen McLaughlin's plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, Helen, The Trojan Women, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq and Penelope. Producing theaters include The National Actors' Theater, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company, the Actors' Theatre of Louisville, the Intiman in Seattle, the Mark Taper Forum in L.A., the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Almeida in London and the Guthrie Theater in MN. She is the recipient of grants from the Fund for New American Plays and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the winner of The Great American Play Contest, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Writer's Award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. McLaughlin is also an actor, best known for originating the role of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, a role she played in all of the U.S. productions as well as Broadway.

Erin Browne (Playwright, Menders) Erin has had short plays produced by Flux Theater Ensemble, Slant Theater Project, Poliglot Theater, Spork Fest, Brooklyn Playwrights' Collective, Sticky, Gi60s, America-in-Play, Brooklyn College, Adelphi University, Pace University, and Columbia University. Trying was produced at the Bushwick Starr and at the Saltbox Theatre in April 2010. She was the 2009 winner of the BBC WorldService International Radio Play Competition for the radio version of Trying and it was a finalist for the Richard Imison Award. A Meth Play was the 2008 winner of NSDF's International Student Playscript Competition.