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HARD SPARKS
SEPTEMBER 1-17
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It’s New Year’s Eve 1983 and Martin’s plan for a quiet night in his parents’ basement is thrown into chaos when his old friend Dina and her hooligan roommates arrive with a gun, a bag of stolen books, and a dangerous idea. Directed by Theatre Hall Of Fame fellow and NYIT winner Daniel Talbott, Eightythree Down examines the consequences of overindulgence and the futility of isolation through blood-smeared Ray-Bans. It’s a coke-fueled paean to superpop, reckless sex, sudden technology, and the search for authenticity in an increasingly artificial world. "J. Stephen Brantley's Eightythree Down is a marvelous comedy of manners and menace, stylishly imagined in the vein of The Petrified Forest, and Daniel Talbott is just the gender-twisting wunderkind to bring it to life. Can't wait." -Playwright Craig Lucas |
Melody Bates Dina
Melody's theatre includes: Bartlett Sher’s Le Comte Ory and Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Metropolitan Opera House; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night (Stonington Opera House, Maine); Mike Gorman’s How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store, The Poet and the Lumberjack, Biffing Mussels, and Andrei Serban’s Caucasian Chalk Circle (La MaMa E.T.C.); John Jahnke’s Men Go Down (3LD); WaxFactory’s Blind.ness (P.S. 122, Abrons Art Center, and Cankarjev Dom, Slovenia); Ajax: 100% Fun (Culture Project); Mac Wellman’s Obie Award-winning Jennie Richee (Chicago and NYC); No Mother to Guide Her and Craft (Flea Theatre); Robert O’Hara’s Booty Candy (Kraine Theatre); and Robert Woodruff’s Godard: distant and right (NYC and Paris). Film: Public Hearing (2011), Le Comte Ory Live in HD (2011), A Tree A Rock A Cloud (2011), The Deafening Silence of a Very Bright Light (2010), Sum of the Parts (2009). Melody is a company member of Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant, with whom she has performed at A.R.T. (Boston), the Cleveland Public Theatre, and many NYC venues including last summer’s Ice Factory Festival at the Ohio Theatre. She holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.
J.Stephen Brantley, playwright
J.Stephen Brantley's work has been commissioned by Lincoln Center Director's Lab and Performance Space 122, where his Distortion Taco was named a Village Voice Pick Of The Year. His plays Blood Grass (Sam French Final Forty, 2011), Furbelow, Good God Enters Flossing, The Jamb, Nevertheless, Shiny Pair Of Complications, and Struck have been performed across the United States. Brantley's award-winning one-act Break has been produced in Provincetown, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland, Cranston RI, and at the Absolut Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival. J.Stephen is a graduate of NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing, a member of EAT and TOSOS, artistic director of Hard Sparks, and a quintessential Scorpio. He is currently collaborating with Theatre 167 on the third installment of their epic Jackson Heights trilogy.
Janie Bullard, Sound design
Evan Cacciopoli, Assistant Director
Eugenia Furneau-Arends, set design
Bryan Kaplan plays Tony.
Bryan is a graduate of the British American Drama Academy and has been seen on stages Scotland, London, and New York. While attending drama school in London he spent time working with the Royal Academy and was cast as Romeo in a school production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He won critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival and again in London for his starring role as Ross in a play called (Knuckleball). He is a principle actor of Second Skin Theatre in London and has done several readings at the New Group, most recently (Variations on a Theme) directed by Ian Morgan and featured actor Richard Masur. Bryan has just completed a starring role in his first feature film (Fray); a story about Justin, an Iraq Vet. who is battling with life after war. The film is written and directed by Geoff Ryan, and produced by Jodi Redmond (producer of Crazy Beats Strong Every time- Sundance Film Festival OfficialSelection 2011) The film is currently in post-production and has been submitted to major film festivals. Other films include two starring roles in short films (Pour), (Cult of Eden). His upcoming projects include a one-man show of (Hamlet) being directed by west-end director Julia Stubbs Hughes at the Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London late 2012; and other film and television projects.
Alex Marks, Assistant stage manager.
Amanda Michaels, stage management.
Amanda Michaels (Stage Manager): NY Credits: Struck with the Ice Factory Festival at 3LD, SM; Dutch Masters with the LAByrinth Theatre co. at the Cherry Lane, SM How to be a Good Italian Daughter at the Cherry Lane, PSM; 24 Hour Play Series at the American Airlines Theater on Broadway, ASM; Side Show at the Roundabout Theater Co., ASM; A Bronx Tale on Broadway at the Walter Kerr, PA.; Bridge Over Land at the Interarts Theatre Co., PSM; The Dwellers at Intar Theatre Co., PSM; Two Trains Running at the Signature Theatre Co., PA; Regional Credits: Orestes at the Folger Shakespeare Theater, PSM; Intimate Apparel, Thousand Clowns, Heartbreak House and Melissa Arctic (by Craig Wright) at Two River Theater Co., PSM; I Capture the Castle, School for Wives and Private Lives at the Shakespeare Theater of NJ, PSM; TV/Film: The Good Wife, PA (Season 1); Law and Order: Criminal Intent, PA (seasons 7 and 8); The Tell-Tale Heart (Short Film) with Palehorse Productions, 1st AD
Brian Miskell plays Martin.
NYC: The Un-Marrying Project (Paradise Factory); Ghost Life (Playwrights Horizons Resident Workshop); The Sunken Living Room (Theater 80); The Stray Dog (Rising Phoenix Repertory), The Mike and Morgan Show (Access Theater); Spring Awakening (Lee Strasberg Institute). REGIONAL: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey). INTERNATIONAL: Requiem pour Ionesco (Paris); A Hatful of Rain (Warsaw). Brian is a Literary Associate at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and a proud company member of Rising Phoenix Repertory. BFA: NYU Tisch.
Brad Peterson, Lighting design
Tristan Raines, costume design.
Tristan Scott Barton Raines(Costume Design): New York: The Bilbao Effect(Off Broadway), Squealer, Keep Your Baggage With You(Lesser America), Bi*ch(TNC), Umbrella Plays(The Tank), Gormanzee(Flea Theater), Comedie of Errors(NYC Parks and Rec). Regional: Book of Grace, ARTiculation(Company One), My Name is Rachel Corrie, Pieces(New Rep of Boston), Lucia di Lammermoor(Huntington Theater), Hank Williams: Lost Highway, Cinderella Waltz, Much Ado(Shawnee Theater). Broadway/Off Broadway: The Merchant of Venice(Assistant), HAIR(Assistant), IHO(Assistant), The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide...(Assistant). National Tour: Little House on the Prairie: The Musical(Assistant), Bring It On(Assistant). Other Costume Designs include: Lizzie Stranton, Women and Wallace, Cinderella Waltz, The Yellow Boat, Buried Child, Glass Menagerie, Proof. Education: BS:Northwest Missouri State University, MFA: Boston University; Studied at Imperial College, London.
Daniel Talbott directs. 
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 film Pretty Bird, Dreaming American and The Big C on Showtime. Recent directing work includes Squealer (Lesser America at Theater for the New City), The Umbrella Plays (the teacup company/FringeNYC – Overall Excellence Award: Outstanding Play and at The Tank), Keep Your Baggage With You (at all times) (Theater for the New City), Footprint by Mac Rogers (part of +30NYC for Red Fern Theatre), Afterclap by Daniel Reitz, Birthday and Nobody, both by Crystal Skillman (Rising Phoenix Rep at the Seventh Street Small Stage), and Fall Forward (Sitelines/River to River Festival produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council). His play Slipping was produced at Rattlestick with Piece by Piece Productions (named one of the top ten plays of 2009 by The Advocate), premiered in Chicago at The Side Project, and was part of the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. It was published last year by Dramatists Play Service and was a finalist for a 2011 Lambda Literary Award for Drama. His play What Happened When was produced at HERE Arts Center and The Side Project and was published as part of the Plays and Playwrights 2008 anthology. He received a 2011 Theater Hall of Fame Fellowship, 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).
"The direction is tight, and the actors keep the intensity high for a full hour. This is, without a doubt, edge-of-your-seat theater." "A 2009 four-person, high energy, 1983-era slacker-in-parents-suburban-basement quick-paced intelligently crafted piece of theatre." "The play certainly moves quickly, and is a joy to watch." "The four-person cast of Eightythree Down strikes the right balance between volatile hysteria and emotional realism." "Their scenes together are the highlight, as Miskell gives Martin great vulnerability, while Kaplan captures Stuart's inner turmoil." Interview with stagebuzz.com |