TNC's 2016 Dream Up Festival to Present CAMP BOHOGRO!

Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival Presents
"Camp BoHoGro!"
A New Satire Rife with Surreal Campfire Singalongs, Hallucinatory Hippies, Political Intrigue and Espionage

"Camp BoHoGro! Singalongs, s'mores, leading the free world - this is going to be the best summer ever." is a play that revolves around a camp in northern California where powerful politicians go on retreat. With a satiric mindset and a movement-based performance, this play lampoons American politics and intrigue old and new. The play is written by Rachel Kerry and Jessie Winograd. Rachel Kerry will direct.

The setting draws inspiration from Bohemian Grove, an actual summer camp and club in California that has hosted retreats for artists, writers, workers and politicians. Historically, it is a sort of gentleman's club for people who run the world. Bringing together a variety of characters based on real-life American figures, "Camp BoHoGro!" wastes little time in satirizing the concept of Bohemian Grove, by portraying it as akin to a summer camp for children, set with beauty pageants, singalongs and campfires. The play kicks off when the characters Nancy and Ayn (based on Nancy Reagan and Ayn Rand) arrive at the camp, intending to bring a much needed dose of femininity. However, things go awry when they summon a demon called Molochia. This, compounded by an intrusion of rebellious hippies and whistle-blowing journalists, threatens to destroy not just the camp but the free world. It's up to Nancy, Ayn and their fellow campers PBJ, Hubie, Ronny, Dick, and Freeley to save the camp and the country.

The play also focuses on the political, economic and gender exclusionary culture of Bohemian Grove. All the characters in the play are gender-bent, meaning that, say, the character Dick, who is based off Richard Nixon, will be played by a female actress. The satire highlights how the political exclusion and divisions between the elite and the common citizenry of America that was commonplace in the 1960s is still presented today, with renewed vigor.

The show was created by Rachel Kerry and Jessie Winograd. Rachel Kerry will direct. The Brain Melt Consortium will devise the performances. The cast will consist of Helena Farhi, Travis James, Alexander Katz, Bianca Kenna, Connor Pickett, Ian Prince, Sarah Wilhelm, and Jessie Winograd.

WHERE AND WHEN:
September 4 at 6:30 PM, September 9 at 9:00 PM, September 12 at 6:30 PM, September 13 at 6:30 PM, September 15 at 9:00 PM, September 17 at 5:00 PM, September 18 at 8:00 PM.
Johnson Theater, Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (at East 10th Street)
Presented by Theater for the New City (Crystal Field, Artistic Director) as part of the Dream Up Festival 2016.
Ticket Price: $15.00
Box office: (212) 254-1109, www.dreamupfestival.org
Runs for 45 Mins. Reviewers are invited

Brain Melt Consortium is a theater company and multimedia production group based in New York. In last year's Dream Up Festival, they performed "A Spectacular Night with the Stars!" They have also appeared in the New York International Fringe and the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. Their play "Seven Fragments" won best Video Design in the 2016 FRIGID Festival. The company is dedicated to engaged audiences in new and evocative ways through their fast-paced, high-energy works.

Rachel Kerry (co-creator, director) is a director, writer, designer and Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Brain Melt Consortium. Kerry's works tend to focus on audience immersion, and often involve a lot of devised movement. She is interested in exploring themes of popular culture and is the managing editor of New York Theatre Review.

Jessie Winograd (co-creator) is a performer and dramaturg. She appeared in Brain Melt Consortium's productions of "A Spectacular Night with the Stars!" and "ChristmApocalypse." She has acted in many recent New York plays, such as "Bride of Frankenstein, an experiment in intimacy," and Vagabond Invention's, "The Sins I Can Remember..." Winograd is also a dancer, and has performed original choreography in the United States and Iceland. She is a student of Klein Technique.

The seventh annual Dream Up Festival is dedicated to new works. Presented by Theater for the New City, the Festival will run from August 28 to September 18, 2016 and will feature a variety of original dramas, comedies, musicals, adaptations and experimental plays. The Festival celebrates the arts in a time when cultural and arts funding is in sharp decline due to a number of social and market forces. Now an East Village tradition, it challenges the audience to reflect on the innovative and imaginative ways that they interact with the theater.

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