SHUT UP, EMILY DICKINSON! Receives New York Worshop

A workshop production of Shut UP, Emily Dickinson,by award winning playwright/performer Tanya O'Debra, comes to The Kraine Theater(85 East 4thSt., New York, NY 10003)on Tuesday, August 7thand Wednesday, August 8that 7:30pm. Tickets are available online for $15 (https://red.vendini.com/ticket-software.html?t=tix&e=7b29e39777627cd11ffe6239d2731a42), or at the door.

Shut UP, Emily Dickinson!

Written byTanya O'Debra

Original Music by Andrew Mauriello

Directed by Artem Yatsunov

Starring Tanya O'Debra& Gregg Bellón

Emily Dickinson: poet, recluse, a**hole. Loosely based on her Master Letters, Shut UP, Emily Dickinson! is a pseudo-historical, quasi-biographical, hysterically existential, sadomasochistic psycho-romance about America's most brilliant and annoying poetess. Holed up for all eternity in the bedroom of our minds, the "woman in white" stretches into a projection screen for truths, half-truths, truthiness, and truth-less-ness. She's whatever you want her to be and nothing you imagined. Emily Dickinson is the definition of a difficult woman.

TANYA O'DEBRA (Emily Dickinson) is a writer/performer/funny lady. Her play Fuck You won The Excellence Award in Overall Production at Fringe NYC. Published by Original Works, her play Radio Star has been produced in numerous cities nationally and internationally, it won Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival and received nominations from the Montreal Fringe Festival and the NYIT Awards. The Secrets of Avondale Falls, written by The O'Debra Twins, had readings at Dixon Place and The Celebration of Whimsy (NYC), and was presented at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Other theater credits include Patrice O'Debra in Straight Up Vampire (Joe's Pub, NYC), The Evil Queen in Snow White (The New Acting Company, NYC) and Amanda McCloud in The Ultimate Stimulus (Dixon Place and Fringe NYC - nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role at the NYIT Awards). O'Debra is the winner of this year's Jill Cummins MacLean Prize at Smith College.

ANDREW MAURIELLO (Composer)is composer with over 15 years of experience including his studies at Berklee College of Music, Mr. Mauriello has been incorporating his songwriting into a variety of settings with a vast spectrum of musical styles. He has performed at Boston's Symphony Hall, crowded basements in Philadelphia, sold out shows at the late CBGB's in New York City, and seemingly everywhere in between. His music for Radio Star garnered a NYIT Award nomination for Outstanding Original Music.

ARTEM YATSUNOV (Director)is a Ukrainian-born, Jersey-raised, Brooklyn-based theatre director, storyteller and educator who creates live shows for theatre fans as well as for "people who mistakenly think they don't like plays." He frequently collaborates with Brooklyn's Oye Group and is the co-founder of North Jersey nomadic StrangeDog Theatre. As Director, he's staged plays at The Public Theater/Under The Radar Festival, The Performing Garage, Abrons Arts Center, 3-Legged-Dog, Tank, Downtown Arts, Horse Trade, Luna Stage Theater, Playwrights Theater of NJ, Passage Theater, Tierney's Tavern, and Fringe Festivals around USA and Canada. As Teaching Artist, Artem has worked with Two River Theater, Creative Arts Team/CUNY, Town Hall, Stella Adler Studios, Manhattan Early College Academy for Advertising, Bronx School For Excellence at Morris Campus, Writopia Labs NYC, Luna Stage Theater, and Playwrights Theater of NJ. Currently Artem is planning a tour of his solo-show Please Google Ukraine(JACK, New Ohio) which investigates immigrant issues and national identity in the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War. BFA, Montclair State University.

GREGG BELLÓN(Master)is a multi-disciplinary theater artist; Founder of Production Consolidated; Co-Founder of Puppet Phactory. Credits: The Secrets of Avondale Falls(Cincy Fringe); Flood (Samuel French One-Act Festival; Best of Fest Finalist); La Playa(SPF); A Queen and His Crown(Nuyorican Poets Cafe); Boss(Hudson Arts Festival); Las Aventuras de Don Quijote (U.S. Tour); Batman Forever Stunt Spectacular(Six Flags).

Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) is one of the greatest American poets of the 19thcentury. Little is known about her life, because many of her papers were burned after her death by her sister, Lavinia*, as per the poet's wishes. In the process of destroying these papers, Lavinia discovered Dickinson's hidden collection of poems and letters. Dickinson was an avid gardener, baker, and sender of sympathy notes. She never married and rarely left her Amherst, MA home, preferring the solitude of her bedroom to the company of visitors. She only met her editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, once. Higginson wrote in a letter to his wife that he was never "with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her." Nicknamed "the woman in white," Dickinson took to wearing the late 1800s equivalent of sweatpants, a white wrapper dress. She died of the historical kidney ailment Bright's disease, and her final wish was for her coffin to be carried through a field of buttercups. Emily Dickinson's poems have continuously been in print since 1890. For more information, go to www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org.

Photo credit: Molly Broxton

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