Photo Flash: First Look at M-34's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST HEMINGWAY

M-34 presents the World Premiere of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway, co-created by James Rutherford and Elliot B. Quick, and directed by James Rutherford. The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway runs from today, August 17 to September 1, 2013 in a limited engagement at the Access Theater, located at 380 Broadway between Walker Street and White Street in New York City. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Literature's most dazzling wit faces down its most red-blooded stoic in The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway, a World Premiere by M-34. Set in 1926 Paris with rugged Hemingway men in the roles of Jack and Algy, this mash-up of texts from Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway outs the gay romance in Wilde's best-loved work and collides it with Hemingway's impossible machismo, exposing both artists' desperate search for an Ideal Masculinity. Directed and adapted by James Rutherford in collaboration with Elliot B. Quick, The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway is a trivial comedy about pain, lies, violence and vengeance.

The cast includes Leighton Bryan (Broadway: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Ross Cowan, Charlotte Graham (The Hot Flashes), Charise Greene (Notebook of Trigorin at The Flea), Timothy Hassler, Ned Riesley, Alexander Salamat, Wheaton Simis and Anne Troup (Ivanov with Classic Stage Company).

The production team includes Elliot B. Quick (Dramaturg), Oona Curley (Set and Light Design), Nikki Delhomme (Costume Design), Alex Clifford (Original Music), Michael Costagliola (Sound Design), Alexander Salamat (Fight Choreography) and Anne Huston (Production Stage Manager).

James Rutherford (Director, Co-Creator) is the founding Artistic Director of M-34. Last year he directed Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis and Franz Kafka's Letter To My Father at Brooklyn's Magic Futurebox, remounting productions originally presented at the AXA in Action Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. Back Stage called 4.48 Psychosis "well worth the trip." His past projects include As You Like It (Classic Stage Company) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Riverside Theater), assisting Romanian director Andrei Serban on a Hungarian Hedda Gabler in Transylvania, and directing student productions at the Stella Adler Conservatory. Rutherford has studied with Richard Foreman (Ontological/Hysteric), Wlodzimierz Staniewski (Gardzienice) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He has an MFA in Directing from Columbia University.

Elliot B. Quick (Dramaturg, Co-Creator) received an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, where he served as Production Dramaturg for sixteen productions at the Yale Rep, YSD, and the Yale Cabaret. He was the Resident Dramaturg and Associate Artistic Director for the 2011 Yale Summer Cabaret Shakespeare Festival and the Associate Artistic Director for the Yale Cabaret's 43rd Season. His work as a director has appeared at the Yale Cabaret, HERE Arts Center, Electric Pear's Synesthesia Festival, The Brick, and the NYC Fringe Festival. He also served as the Literary Assistant at Playwrights Horizons and currently works as a Literary Associate at Page 73. Quick is an Associate Artist of the Brooklyn-based performance ensemble Piehole and a Founding Member of Shakespeare on the Vine, a Shakespeare festival based in Napa Valley. He received a BA in Theatre and Performance Studies from Brown University.

M-34 is a fake mustache, a white phosphorus grenade, a star cluster and a crosstown bus. It is a rotating ensemble of young people attempting to be rigorous, critical and curious in a creative wasteland. They are lying in the gutter but looking at the stars.

Performances are Thursdays - Sundays at 8pm with an additional performance on Tuesday, August 20 at 8pm. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online at www.M-34.org. The running time is 2 hours and 30 minutes including intermission. The Access Theater is accessible from the #1 train to Franklin St., J, Z, N, Q, R, 6 trains to Canal St., and A, C, E trains to Canal-Church Streets.

Photo Credit: Nikki Delhomme

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