Kill Me Like You Mean It

Horse Trade presents…
A production of The Stolen Chair Theatre Company…

"Playwright Kiran Rikhye, director Jon Stancato, and their collaborators dazzle with their range and versatility. Kill Me Like You Mean It is sharp, smart parody"

Martin Denton

Stolen Chair presents the second installment of its CineTheatre Tetralogy, a timely absurdist film noir for the stage as Ionesco might have imagined it, creating comic chaos out of the possibility that American life might actually be pointless.

" From its first murderous moments, Kiran Rikhye's Kill Me Like You Mean It is a clever, high-styling treat. "

Stanley Hall

Cameron J. Oro as Detective Ben Farrell

All photos by Aviva Meyer and Jon Campbell, 2006
Click Here to request full size images

Inaugurating its 5th anniversary season , Stolen Chair presents Kill Me Like You Mean It , an absurdist film noir for the stage and the second installment of the company's CineTheatre Tetralogy : 4 years, 4 productions, 4 classic film styles adapted for the stage.

Cameron J. Oro as Detective Ben Farrell, Alexia Vernon as Lydia Forsythe, Tommy Dickie as Tommy Dickie

A leggy redhead is shot dead in the middle of her nightclub act and Ben Farrell, American private detective, is on the case. The list of suspects grows to include a fatalistic femme fatale, an avaricious publisher, and a millionaire playboy who pens a serialized crime novel called… Kill Me Like You Mean It . Turns out that art imitates life and Ben Farrell finds his own life in the pages of the playboy's pulp fiction while the redhead's simple murder mystery quickly degenerates into a sick game for which Farrell never learned the rules.

With the lines blurred between the trauma of post-war, the paranoia of pre-war, and the jingoism of actual wartime, Americans today have been flung back to the late 1940s, when these anxieties first found their way onto the silver screen. Stolen Chair's director Jon Stancato has conceived of a world in which film noir combines with Theatre of the Absurd , another stylistic innovation of the post-war era. Through this unique pairing, Kill Me Like You Mean It poses the all-too-relevant question: How do we cope in a world that has stopped making sense? Stancato is joined by Stolen Chair's resident playwright Kiran Rikhye , who mines sources as diverse as Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano and Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep to pen her 9 th original text for the company.

Kiran Rikhye (Playwright) is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of The Stolen Chair Theatre Company. As the company's resident playwright, she has created 8 original plays which have been performed and acclaimed in both New York and Philadelphia . Her work includes adaptations of the texts of Sigmund Freud, Chikamatsu, S. Ansky, Theodore Dreiser, Victor Hugo, and John Lyly. Her playwriting has been praised for its "literary and poetical pyrotechnics" (Martin Denton, NYtheatre.com) and her adaptation of The Man Who Laughs , a live silent film for the stage, has been published by the New York Theatre Experience. Kiran holds a MA in English Literature at Columbia University .

Jon Stancato (Director) has co-created and directed all of Stolen Chair's productions since he co-founded the company in 2002. He was awarded the Lang Grant for the Humanities in support of his training with Thomas Richards at the Grotowksi Workcenter in Pontedera , Italy . He has trained with Anne Bogart and The SITI Company (Suzuki, Viewpoints, & Composition) and The Roving Classical Commedia University, and in the techniques of Jacques Lecoq. He teaches playwriting, directing, acting, and physical theatre techniques throughout the tri-state area and is a commentator and teaching artist for the NYC Student Shakespeare Festival.

Merav Elbaz Janowsky (Costume Design) is thrilled to continue her work with the fabulous Stolen Chair. This is the third New York production for Merav as a costume designer. Following Endeavor theatre's production Audience, Unveiling, Protest in February 2005, and The Stolen Chair's The Man Who Laughs in October 2005. Assistant costume designer credits include The Ladies for Dixon's Place, Paris Commune , Gone Missing, Apparition at Chashama and Nobody's Lunch at PS122 and 59E59 for the civilians; Molly's Dream for SoHo rep; Terrorism for The New Group at Theatre Row, MTI's Schoolsical Tour , and most recently The Milwaukee Shakespeare repertory's Henry the 2 nd . Merav earned her BA degree in January 2005 from Hunter College in Film and theatre.

Tommy Dickie	Tommy Dickie (Tommy Dickie ) is delighted to hop on board for his first Stolen Chair production. He is a New England boy who has arrived in NYC via the Dartmouth College Theater Dept and the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill. Tommy is slightly OCD and knows the release dates of about 1,000 movies in the last 11 years. Check out his Oscar predictions at www.geocities.com/tdoscar !
Sam Dingman	Sam Dingman (Jones ) has studied at the Circle in the Square Theater School , Studio Dante, and the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. Recent film credits include "Tonight at Noon ," "Trick," and "Being Jonah." He has appeared Off-Broadway in "Lenin's Shoe" (New York Theatre Workshop) and "Hugging the Shoulder" (NYCFringe). Off-Off Broadway credits include "Cex and the Sity," "I Wish I Was Woody Allen," "Pennybacker," and "The Crazy House," which he also wrote. Sam is a writer, voice actor and cartoonist for the humor magazine and radio show "Audience of Two," and holds a degree in Theatre Studies from Swarthmore College .
Cameron J. Oro	Cameron J. Oro (Ben Farrell) is proud to have become an Associate Member of Stolen Chair through the company's last production-- The Man Who Laughs . Prior to joining that project, he graduated with a BFA in Drama from NYU, where he trained with The Atlantic Theater Company, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and Stonestreet Studios for Film & Television. Cameron also had the great fortune of training with Anne Bogart and The SITI Company during the summer of 2004. While at NYU, he performed in The Merchant of Venice (RADA), a student-directed production of The Country Club , and the mainstage The Three Sisters .
Alexia Vernon	Alexia Vernon ( Lydia Forsythe) is a performer and educator. She has performed in New York City (29th Street Rep, Theater for the New City, CB's Gallery, Galapagos, Rififi, Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction, The Red Room, Producer's Club, One Arm Red), Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Singapore in such shows as bash, The Blue Room, Our Town, Little Women, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Baby with the Bath Water, and The Second Coming of Joan of Arc. Alexia is a Company Member of The Stolen Chair Theatre Company and has performed with them in The Man Who Laughs, Commedia Dell'Artemisia, and Sister Carrie. Alexia has been touring her performance piece, The Joy of Lex, and will next perform it at HERE Arts Center 's American Living Room Festival this August. Alexia works as a Theatre Educator for CUNY's Creative Arts Team and produces the New York City Student Shakespeare Festival. Alexia recently graduated from NYU with an MA in Experimental Theatre and Sexuality Studies.
Liza Wade White	Liza Wade White (Vivian Ballantine) is thrilled to be making her Stolen Chair debut…kung pow! Other New York credits include Faust and the Furious at the Culture Project, Guys and Dolls with the Heights Player's, and actor/teacher for Creative Arts Team. Liza can also been seen bustin a move in a Cingular commercial. Favorite roles: Shelia in The Boys Next Door , featured dancer in Unto These Hills , and Mute in The Fantastics . Ms. White also fancies herself a playwright, educator, and proud auntie. Love to DSG.

Kiran Rikhye (Playwright) is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of The Stolen Chair Theatre Company. As the company's resident playwright, she has created 8 original plays which have been performed and acclaimed in both New York and Philadelphia . Her work includes adaptations of the texts of Sigmund Freud, Chikamatsu, S. Ansky, Theodore Dreiser, Victor Hugo, and John Lyly. Her playwriting has been praised for its "literary and poetical pyrotechnics" (Martin Denton, NYtheatre.com) and her adaptation of The Man Who Laughs , a live silent film for the stage, has been published by the New York Theatre Experience. Kiran holds a MA in English Literature at Columbia University .
Jon Stancato (Director) has co-created and directed all of Stolen Chair's productions since he co-founded the company in 2002. He was awarded the Lang Grant for the Humanities in support of his training with Thomas Richards at the Grotowksi Workcenter in Pontedera , Italy . He has trained with Anne Bogart and The SITI Company (Suzuki, Viewpoints, & Composition) and The Roving Classical Commedia University, and in the techniques of Jacques Lecoq. He teaches playwriting, directing, acting, and physical theatre techniques throughout the tri-state area and is a commentator and teaching artist for the NYC Student Shakespeare Festival.
	Emily Otto (Music and Dramaturgy) is an Associate Member of Stolen Chair. She recently completed her MFA in dramaturgy at the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University . A native of Minnesota , she worked in Minneapolis for five years as a dramaturg, music director, pianist, actor, improviser, sketch comedy writer, and theatre educator. She currently lives in Cambridge , MA , where she is a teacher, vocal coach, pianist, and dramaturg.
	Jon Campbell (Props & Stage Combat) has been many things during his time on this earth. He has been a clown, an actor, a director, a mover, a shaker, a lover, an artist, a student, a teacher, a creator. He has helped create 4 and 1/2 shows with Stolen Chair over the past few years, including the title character in last fall's The Man Who Laughs. He went to school somewhere and has been in some other shows. His work has been seen around New York , around the country, and around the world.
	David Bengali (Sets & Lights) graduated from Princeton University , where his theater studies focused on lighting design, directing, and writing, and is particularly interested in Commedia and its relationship to modern street performance and other site-specific art. He has worked recently on projects with Prospect Theatre Company, Pig Iron Theater Company, New Jersey Opera Theater, The Jamal Jackson Dance Company, Women's InterArts, and Princeton Summer Theater.
Merav Elbaz Janowsky (Costume Design) is thrilled to continue her work with the fabulous Stolen Chair. This is the third New York production for Merav as a costume designer. Following Endeavor theatre's production Audience, Unveiling, Protest in February 2005, and The Stolen Chair's The Man Who Laughs in October 2005. Assistant costume designer credits include The Ladies for Dixon's Place, Paris Commune , Gone Missing, Apparition at Chashama and Nobody's Lunch at PS122 and 59E59 for the civilians; Molly's Dream for SoHo rep; Terrorism for The New Group at Theatre Row, MTI's Schoolsical Tour , and most recently The Milwaukee Shakespeare repertory's Henry the 2 nd . Merav earned her BA degree in January 2005 from Hunter College in Film and theatre.
	Aviva Meyer (Stage Management & Graphic Design) graduated from Swarthmore College and received a Masters in Public Health from Columbia . Her endeavors include origami, knitting, web and graphic design, and electing progressively-minded musicians to Congress. She brings her eclectic interests and skills to the tasks of stage management and graphic design.