Hunger & Thirst Theatre Presents MESSENGER #1, A NEW ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY Tonight

Hunger & Thirst Theatre will present MESSENGER #1, A NEW ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY, written by Mark Jackson and directed by Hondo Weiss-Richmond.

MESSENGER #1, A NEW ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY begins performances tonight, March 3, for a limited engagement through Saturday, March 18. Press Opening is Sunday, March 5 at 2 PM.

The performance schedule is Thursday at 7 PM; Friday & Saturday at 8 PM; Sunday at 2 PM. There are added performances on Wednesday, March 15 at 7 PM and Saturday, March 18 at 2 PM. Performances are at The Paradise Factory (64 East 4th Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue; F to 2nd Avenue; B,D,M to Broadway-Lafayette; 6 to Astor Place; R,W to 8th Street-NYU). Tickets are $18. For tickets and more information, visit www.hungerandthirsttheatre.com.

Before there was Internet, before there were newspapers, before there were carrier pigeons, there were the messengers.

MESSENGER #1, A NEW ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY transforms Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy into an athletic and lean 90-minutes, focusing on the three messengers who serve the House of Atreus, theater's first dysfunctional royal family. As Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra's actions cause the world to spiral out of control, our messengers' clear, passionate voices are the country's only source of information, a powerful and potentially dangerous position to hold.

The cast features J.C. Ernst (A Christmas Carol at A.C.T. San Francisco), Natalie Hegg (Potion: A Play in Three Cocktails, Stolen Chair Theater at People Lounge), Jordan Kaplan (world premiere of Charles Strouse's You Never Know, dir. Amanda Dehnert, at Trinity Rep), Emily Kitchens (Three Sisters, adapted by Sarah Ruhl, at Yale Rep & Berkeley Rep), Dan Morrison (Three Day Hangover's Tartuffe!), and Deb Radloff (Dance Dance Revolution with Les Freres Corbusier).

The design team includes Ghazal Hassani (set); Remy M. Leelike (lighting); Heather Carey (costume); and Randall Benichak (sound).

Mark Jackson (playwright) is an award-winning theatre maker whose work has been seen on both US coasts, the UK, Germany and Japan. Mark has been a resident playwright of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and English Theatre Berlin, is a recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's German Chancellor Fellowship.

Hondo Weiss-Richmond (director) is a director, primarily of new plays. He has directed or developed work with the Ohio Theatre, Dutch Kills Theater Company, Hunger and Thirst Theatre, and simple machine theatre, among others. He was one of the Drama League's 2016 Artists-in-Residence, and has previously been a Directing Resident at Playwrights Horizons and the Literary Assistant at Woolly Mammoth. BFA in Drama, NYU/Tisch. MFA in Directing, Boston University.

Hunger & Thirst, founded in 2012, is dedicated to discovering exciting, new ways to perform the classics as well as producing contemporary works inspired by classic stories. By contemporizing classic works, the overall theatrical experience becomes as emotionally resonant today as it was when the original piece was first performed.