The Flea Theater Premieres FUTURE ANXIETY 4/15

The Flea Theater presents World Premiere of FUTURE ANXIETY by Laurel Haines, directed by Jim Simpson. The cast features 23 of The Bats, the resident Acting Company of The Flea. Previews begin April 15, with opening night slated for Thursday, April 28.

FUTURE ANXIETY is set in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, the planet's become uninhabitable. Fortunately, Karl's built a spaceship. In this fiercely intelligent and wildly conceivable vision of the apocalypse, a new generation tries to make sense of how to live on a planet with increasingly drained resources and suspect inhabitants.

"This play fits The Bats like a glove," says Simpson. "Laurel has written an epic about the future that is both funny and frightening. And our diverse company of young in-your-face artists is ready to take it on." Producing Director Carol Ostrow adds, "We are delighted to continue work that began at the Lark, a theatrical laboratory that develops new voices and new ideas. This is a wonderful paradigm for the future - a brilliant playwright and a diverse, multi-talented company of actors."

The production features The Bats: Brett Aresco, Allison Buck, Holly Chou, Ugo Chukwu, Katherine Folk-Sullivan, Grant Harrison, Alex Herrald, Josephine Huang, Amanda Idoko, Raúl Sigmund Julia, Yvette King, Vin Kridakorn, Maren Langdon, Betsy Lippitt, Seth Moore, Joy Notoma, Reynaldo Piniella, Donaldo Prescod, Anita Sabherwal, Joann Sacco, Keola Simpson, Hansel Tan and Monica Wyche. The design team includes Kyle Chepulis (set), Brian Aldous (lighting), Sydney Gallas (costumes), Jill BC DuBoff (sound), David Prittie (graphics) Kate Sinclair Foster (props) and Michelle Kelleher (stage manager). 

Laurel Haines writes plays and musicals. Her play The Dianalogues, about the public's obsession with Princess Diana, has been produced in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and South Africa, and is published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2003 (Smith and Kraus) and Best Women's Monologues for the Millennium (Applause Books).

Future Anxiety, a dystopian comedy she wrote after thinking too much about plastic bags, was developed in the Lark Playwrights Week 2009, had staged readings at Chicago Dramatists, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and Stage Left Theater, and was a finalist for the National New Play Network's Smith Prize. She has written book and lyrics for musicals including Stones of Wisdom, a puppet musical for young people commissioned by First Stage Children's Theater in Milwaukee, WI, and Beach Wars, co-authored by Nan Hoffman and Howard

Pfeifer and presented at the Stages Festival 2006 in Chicago. Other plays include Gun in the Funnies (staged reading in Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Works Festival 2009), Raw Footage (Arizoni Award, Best Original Script 2000), and Potatoes and Radio City (Collaboraction Sketchbook 2004 and 2005). Laurel has a B.A. in Anthropology from Brown University and an M.F.A. from ASU, where she studied with Guillermo Reyes. She recently moved back to New York after many years
in Arizona and Chicago. Laurel is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Jim Simpson is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Flea Theater(2004 Drama Desk cited for Downtown Adventurous Theater). Two-time OBIE-award winner, 2002 National Board of Review Excellence in Filmmaking, and cited for artistic leadership in Downtown New York by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2002. Jim has directed over 70 works for the theater and has also directed for film and television. Venues include nine seasons at the Williamstown Theater Festival,
Alley Theater, Hartford Stage, Yale Rep, Actor's Theater of Louisville, Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, EST, CSC, MCC, the London International Theater Festival and the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Jim was a child actor in his hometown of Honolulu, as a teenager worked with Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, and holds degrees from Boston University School for the Arts and the Yale Drama School. Most recently, Jim directed A. R. Gurney's Crazy Mary at Playwrights Horizons, Will Eno's Oh, The Humanity..., the revival of Peter Handke's Offending The Audience, Addison's CATO, Thomas Bradshaw's Dawn, Gurney's A Light Lunch and Office Hours, Will Eno's UNUM as part of The Flea's The Great Recession, Jonathan
Reynolds' Girls in Trouble, Bathsheba Doran's Parents' Evening, and Steven Banks' Looking at Christmas.

The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented nearly 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the premieres of Anne Nelson's The Guys; six plays by A.R. Gurney (Post
Mortem, O Jerusalem, Screenplay, Mrs. Farnsworth, A Light Lunch and Office Hours); Mac Wellman's Cellophane and Two September; Roger Rosenblatt's Ashley Montana Goes Ashore... and The Oldsmobiles; Elizabeth Swados' JABU and Kaspar Hauser; Karen Finley's Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman; Adam Rapp's Bingo with the Indians; Will Eno'sOh, The Humanity and other exclamations; Dawn by Thomas Bradshaw; The Great Recession, Jonathan Reynolds' Girls in Trouble, Bathsheba Doran's Parents' Evening, and most recently the holiday hit Looking at
Christmas by Steven Banks and American Sexy by Trista Baldwin. FUTURE ANXIETY runs April 15 - May 26, Tuesday through Saturday at 7pm and Saturday at 3pm.

There is an added performance Sunday, April 17th at 3pm. The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the A/C/E, N/R/Q, 6, J/M/Z and 1 subway lines. Tickets are $25 and are available by calling 212-352-3101 or online at www.theflea.org. Please also note: all Tuesday performances are Pay-What-You-Can, subject to availability at the door, only 1 ticket per person.