Theater For the New City and Lesser America Present SQUEALER

Theater for the New City (Crystal Field, Artistic Director) presents the world-premiere production of Squealer, part of Lesser America in residence at Theater For the New City.

Theater for the New City (TNC) has announced that the show Squealer, written by Jonathan Blitstein and directed by Daniel Talbott, will open Thursday May 5th at 8pm at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, between 9th and 10th Streets. Squealer is the inaugural production from brand new company Lesser America (founded by Jonathan Blitstein, Daniel Abeles, Laura Ramadei, and Nate Miller).

Set in fictional Wauketawnee Lake, Illinois against the backdrop of recession in the heartland, Squealer follows an ambitious pork farmer with a roving eye who moves in with a widowed single mother and her teenaged daughter. When he can't get what he wants, things get bloody. A full-on taste of America's poverty-soaked obsession with consumerism and our unquenchable thirst for more, whether it's meat, or love, or both.

The production will feature cast members Nick Lawson and Sarah Lemp (Adam Rapp's Hallway Trilogy, Amoralists' Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side), Laura Ramadei, Dan Abeles, Nate Miller (Keep Your Baggage With You) and newcomer Jamie Law.

Jonathan Blitstein is an emerging playwright from Illinois, whose debut play Keep Your Baggage With You, at Theater For the New City kicked off a collaboration with director Daniel Talbott in 2010, and helped spawn the fledgling company Lesser America. Jonathan's projects as an indie screenwriter and director have screened at international festivals, in theaters, and on television. He began his career as an actor, singer and dancer in Apple Tree Theater's youth program. A BFA graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, his award-winning debut independent film Let Them Chirp Awhile (avail. on Netflix) was completed on a shoe-string budget in 18 days, with the support of Kodak. The script was recently made available in the Permanent Collection of the Margaret Herrick Library at AMPAS. Jonathan studied acting and playwriting at NYU, The Second City, The Piven Theater, LAByrinth, and Primary Stages. He is a founding member of Lesser America, a member of the Rising Phoenix Repertory (for which he will write a play for the CINO NIGHTS series in Spring 2012), and is an associate artist with the LoNyLa Project. Squealer is his second play produced in New York City.

Daniel Talbott's most recent work as an actor includes the Theatre for One project in Times Square and around NYC, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis), Master Builder (Irish Rep), Rocket City (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Tartuffe (McCarter Theatre/Yale Rep), Marat/Sade (Classical Theatre of Harlem) and the feature films Pretty Bird and Dreaming American, and "The Big C" on Showtime. Recent directing work includes Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) (Theater for the New City). His play Slipping was produced at Rattlestick with Piece by Piece Productions (named one of the top 10 plays of 2009 by The Advocate), premiered in Chicago at The Side Project, was part of the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, and was published this year by Dramatists Play Service. He received a 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for directing, a Drama-Logue Award, two Dean Goodman Choice Awards and a Judy Award for acting, and was also named one of the 15 People of the Year 2006 by nytheatre.com. He is a member of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition, of last year's 24Seven Lab, and of TOSOS. He is a graduate of Juilliard and of Solano College Theatre's ATP, and teaches at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA). He is one of the literary managers of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and the artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep (recipient of the 2007 NYIT Caffe Cino Fellowship Award).

Tickets will be onsale soon at:

www.theaterforthenewcity.net

Evening performance Dates: (Thurs-Sat) May 5th, 6th, 7th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 19th, 20th at 8pm

And Matinees Sundays: May 8th and 15th at 3pm

For more information about Squealer and Lesser America, visit www.theaterforthenewcity.net or www.lesseramerica.com

About Theater For the New City:

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize winning community cultural center that is known for both its quality artistic work and unique widespread community service. One of New York's most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC's Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Vin Diesel, Oscar Nuñez, Laurence Holder, Romulus Linney and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and COBU, the Japanese women's drumming and dance group. TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company's 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play by Gao Xingjian ever produced in America before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 42 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor's Stop The Violence award.

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About LESSER AMERICA:

"Lesser America is pop theater. We are an ensemble of renegade artists dedicated to smart, quality entertainment that puts the audience first, fulfilling the promise of affordable, accessible theater for the 21st century."

Learn more at www.lesseramerica.com