NYCP Presents Dreamless Land by Julia Jarcho 11/4-20

Richard Maxwell and his company, New York City Players (NYCP), present and produce Dreamless Land, a new project written and directed by 13P's Julia Jarcho. Dreamless Land features Jenny Seastone Stern as Haley and Ben Williams as Morton. Linda Mancini plays Joyce and Richard Toth plays Carver. The work will premiere at Abrons Arts Center, November 4th through Nov 20th, Wednesday - Sunday, 8 PM. Abrons Arts Center is located at 466 Grand at Pitt, NYC. Tickets $18, for tickets: theatermania.com or 212.352.3101

Jarcho, an award-winning playwright, director and performer (American Treasure), first worked with Maxwell in 1998 when she performed in his piece Debate. In Dreamless Land Jarcho creates a compassionate portrayal of a teenage girl, Haley, whose best friend Morton is about to meet his estranged father in Las Vegas.

As Haley imagines Morton's experience, she pieces together her own version of her friend's "broken home" through scenes right out of a horror movie, a James Bond flick and a romantic comedy. Ten years later, Haley seems to be living a grown-up life, but the fantasies of her teen years slowly start interrupting reality again.

Dreamless Land explores storytelling as a response to rootlessness in American culture. "Julia's work has a wonderful knack for mining the strangeness in language and theater," says Maxwell.

Jarcho is the second emerging playwright who has gained Richard Maxwell's mentorship in a program that started last year when he directed Christina Masciotti's play Vision Disturbance. The success of that production (Vision Disturbance was reprised at Under the Radar last year and travels to Italy this Fall) emboldened him and his company to continue an idea that he had for some time: an ongoing NYCP program that supports other playwrights.

"It's important for new writers to have an extended network of collaborators. It's important for me, and for New York City Players to provide the community that is needed to make a whole show, and to get new work out there in a really concrete way."

"I've known Rich since I was in high school, and while I think my plays are very different from his, I've always thought of my work as being in conversation with his work," says Jarcho. "He's been a model of artistic integrity and courage for me, so I'm incredibly excited to be working with his company."

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Julia Jarcho is a playwright, director, and performer. Her plays include American Treasure (13P and Bay Area Playwrights Festival), The Highwayman (Missiles With Teeth), A Small Hole (Performance Lab 115), All I Do Is Dream of You (Sophiensaele and English Theatre Berlin), Take Me Away (Il faut brûler pour briller festival, Paris), The Whole Tree (Electric) (Playwrights Foundation), and Nursery (Young Playwrights Festival). She is a member of 13P. Artists she has worked with include Aaron Landsman, Tory Vazquez, Richard Maxwell, Mark Ravenhill, Ami Garmon, Benjamin Gassman, and Ásta Bennie Hostetter. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, a winner of the Berrilla Kerr award, and a Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco. She also studies Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.

Richard Maxwell (Artistic Director) is a playwright, director and composer living in New York. Maxwell studied acting at Illinois State University. In Chicago, he was a founder of the Cook County Theater Department. He is now the artistic director of New York City Players and a resident writer at New Dramatists. Maxwell has been selected for a Guggenheim Fellowship, an OBIE Award, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, and the Best in Festival Award at Zürcher Theater Spektakel. His plays have been commissioned by the Barbican Centre, London; the Lyric Hammersmith, London; Theater Bonn; the Wexner Center, Columbus; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Steirischer Herbst, Graz; the Hebbel- Theatre, Berlin; Toneelgroep Amsterdam; Festival Theaterformen, Hannover; Festival d'Automne, Paris; Project Arts Centre, Dublin; and Performance Space 122, the Kitchen and Soho Rep in New York.
A volume of his plays, Plays, 1996-2000: Richard Maxwell, has been published by Theatre Communications Group, and a book on acting called Theater for Beginners is also forthcoming. In 2011 he received an NEA grant for the premiere of Neutral Hero, which he wrote, composed and directed following a commission from the Kunsten Festival des Arts, Brussels.

New York City Players creates performances using original text and music in order to engage theater and non-theater communities in a dialogue about performance and American culture. Through collaboration with performers and designers from all backgrounds and levels of experience, we seek to

• show that acting processes devoid of emotional pretense achieve a more meaningful kind of realism;
• create theater with artists from across disciplines;
• produce new plays that feature particularly American themes and vernaculars.

Since 1999, NYCP have come to be known for creating original stark portrayals of American life using non-professional actors, a straightforward approach to acting that strips away embellishment, and incorporating original music.

NYCP has created nineteen productions presented in New York and over twenty countries. Domestic venues include Performance Space 122, The Kitchen, Soho Rep, The Performing Garage, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, the Abrons Art Center (all in New York), On the Boards, Seattle; the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. National and international venues and festivals include the Barbican Centre, London; Chelsea Theatre, London; Biennale Bonn, Bonn; the Lyric Hammersmith, London; Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz; the Hebbel Theater, Berlin; Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam; Rio Preto International Theater Festival, Brazil; and Festival d'Automne, Paris. NYCP has received national and international recognition, including three Obie Awards and the Best in Festival Award at the Theater Spektakel Zurich.

Dreamless Land
Written and directed by Julia Jarcho
With Jenny Seastone Stern (Haley), Ben Williams (Morton),
Linda Mancini (Joyce), Richard Toth (Carver).
November 4 ­- 20, 2011, Wednesday - Sunday, 8 PM
Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand at Pitt, NYC.
Tickets $ 18
theatermania.com or 212.352.3101