Downward Facing Debbie at Planet Connections Festival
Posted by MB - April 5, 2014
Project Y Theatre Company is proud to announce another of our Holy Cow! Reading series plays is having a production in New York City:
David Caudle’s
Downward Facing Debbie
World Premiere directed by Andrew Block
Friday May 16th through Saturday June 7th
As part of the Planet Connections Festival
David Caudle’s comedy of manners, morals and comprising positions examines the personal conundrums of searching for healing in a yoga studio.
In Downward Facing Debbie, Mr. Caudle’s world premiere comedy directed by Andrew Block, a disoriented. modern woman, Debbie, dives headlong into yoga after being ditched at the altar. Luck (or is it destiny?) guides her to an exclusive class at a tony Hamptons studio led by two gorgeous, wise, powerful women. After healing physically and emotionally beyond her dreams, Debbie spots cracks in the studio’s stunning facade of unity, and her security in the power of yoga as medicine is shaken. Set entirely in a yoga studio, Debbie wonders if she can downward-dog her way to a better self when all the best yogis turn out to be something other than the perfectly aligned benders she thought.
To see an interview with David Caudle about the play CLICK HERE!
Downward Facing Debbie is produced by Project Y Theatre Company as part of the Planet Connections Festival at The Paradise Factory on 64 East 4th Street. Performances begin Friday May 16th at 7pm through Saturday June 7th at 7pm.
Downward Facing Debbie features Jordy Lievers, Geri-Nikole Love (LaMama), Karen Stanion (Satan in High Heels at Dixon Place), Esther Chen (Miss Saigon at Sondheim Center), and Dan Patrick Brady (Project Y’s FUBAR at 59E59 Theaters). Christopher Tierney (Broadway’s Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark) plays Tate, the hunky yoga master in training.
Performances for Downward Facing Debbie are as follows: Friday May 16th at 7pm; Saturday May 17th at 9pm; Friday May 23rd at 5pm; Monday June 2nd at 4pm; Thursday June 5th at 6pm; Saturday June 7th at 7pm
For tickets and info visit planetconnections.org or call 866-811-4111
TO DONATE TO THE PRODUCTION PLEASE CLICK HERE
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:
David Caudle’s play, Visiting Hours, a Weissberger Nominee and Premiere Stages Finalist, recently premiered with the Rising Shiners Theatre Company in New Orleans. (“powerful” and “immensely engaging” Times-Picayune.) He is an alum of the New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, where he developed several plays including the musical Show People (Anna Sosenko grant), Downward Facing Debbie,Leg Man (S.T.A.G.E. Finalist) and Damsel (SPF Finalist). He also taught playwriting in Primary Stages’ ESPA School of Theater. Miami’s New Theatre has premiered three of his plays, including The Sunken Living Room (Gold Medal Finalist, Pinter Review Prize; Winner, Southern New Plays Festival; Winner, Ambie Award for Best New Play; Carbonell Nominee; Lark Finalist) Sunken is published by Samuel French, with monologues reprinted in “Best of” anthologies by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus. His Heidemann Finalist and Samuel French Festival-winning one-act, Feet of Clay is also published by Samuel French. The short film version helmed by director/actress Carrie Preston made festival rounds in 2008. Three plays, The Common Swallow,The Short Fall (Lark Finalist) and Likeness (O’Neill Semi-Finalist) are published on IndieTheaterNow.com. The Short Fall was included in the Best of 2011 collection. Mr. Caudle recently wrote the screenplay adaptation of the memoir, Major Conflict, One Gay Man’s Life in the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Military, by Major Jeffrey McGowan, US Army retired. He studied theatre and creative writing at Middlebury College. www.davidcaudle.org
Downward Facing Debbie was originally written and developed in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. The play is being published by IndieTheaterNow, where it will be available for purchase and production.
playwright David Caudle
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
ANDREW BLOCK (Director) received the Ovation and L.A.Drama Critics Circle awards for Best Director for the world premiere of John Pollono’s ‘Small Engine Repair’ in L.A., (also Best Production), which received its Off-Broadway premiere at MCC this fall. He directed the critically-acclaimed ‘Lost and Found’ at the 2010 FringeNYC, invited to the Encore Series at the Lucille Lortel, as well as the 2011 FringeNYC hit ‘Recovery’ by Mark Jason Williams. Other recent work includes: West-coast premiere of Adam Rapp’s ‘Bingo With the Indians’ (GLAAD award nomination for Outstanding Theatre 2009); Best Director and Best Play in the 2010 Network One-Act Festival for ‘Illuminati’; ‘Company’ (Gallery Players); ‘Avenue Q’ (Manhattan College); ‘Inherit the Wind’ (Manhattan College); ‘Rumors’ (AADA); ‘The Shape of Things’ (Adelphi University); and Assistant Director of the Off-Broadway revival of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Cocktail Party’ (TACT/The Actor’s Company Theatre). He is a founding member of the award-winning Rogue Machine Theatre in L.A., curated their late-night theatre series, ‘Off the Clock’, and created and produced the hit short-play festival, ‘Shorts & Sweets’. Other directing credits include ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’, ‘Twelfth Night’, ‘Noises Off’, ‘City of Angels’, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’, and ‘Tartuffe’. Andrew makes New York his home and is a proud native of New Orleans. DePaul University (MFA), Adelphi (BFA); Member - Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). www.andrewblock.info
MEET THE CAST:
Esther Chen
Karen Stanion
Geri-Nikole Love
