THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY’S DREAM UP FESTIVAL PRESENTS
"PETER IN PIECES" BY ANTONY RAYMOND

WHERE AND WHEN:
September 8 at 5:00 PM, September 10 at 9:00 PM, September 12 at 6:30 PM, September 13 at 9:00 PM, September 14 at 5:00 PM
Theater for the New City (Johnson Theater), 155 First Avenue
Tickets: $18
Presented by Theater for the New City (Crystal Field, Artistic Director) as part of Dream up Festival 2019
Box Office: (212)254-1109, www.dreamupfestival.org
Running Time: 85mins. Critics are invited to all performances.

New York, July 23 --"Peter In Pieces," written and directed by Antony Raymond, is a dark comedy about the life and relationships of a New York actor who is always trying to get laid until it causes his demise. Theater for the New City’s Dream Up Festival will present the play's world premiere September 8 to September 14.

The play depicts the sexual exploits, including then failed and thwarted encounters, of an aspiring actor named Peter, played by Christopher Heard.  Peter, like many a serial womanizer before him, has a penchant for destroying relationship bridges as he follows his desires. Over the course of four pieces, we get to see Peter from various angles--with a running buddy, an acting partner, his mistress and his fiancée and finally, his brother. In the end, of course, Peter gets his comeuppance (and some would argue a fitting one at that); it is a comeuppance that puts the “dark” in dark comedy.

The cast will include Christopher Heard, Greg Bell, Dan McVey, Annabelle Fox Tieman, Sara Duplancic and Stacey Roca.

Lighting is by Daryl Embry, sound is by Dean Werb and costumes are by Maurice Turtelli.

Author/Director Antony Raymond is author/director of “Apartment 301” (Access Theater), “Elsinore County” (Theatre Row and Cherry Lane Studio Theater), “Yeah, I Met this Girl”(Zipper Factory and Under St. Marks), "Lustyness: Plays About This Guy Names Lou" (Under St. Marks Theater) and "Julio" (Kraine Theater). As an actor, Raymond has appeared in several Off-Broadway shows, including “Fools in Love,” “The Tempest” and “Beach Trip and a Night’s Dream.” His directing credits include "Bette David Ain't for Sissies" by Jessica Sherr (EdinburghFringe and 59E59), "Bluff" (Provincetown, MA) and "Provincetown Murser Mystery" (Provincetown, MA). He has studied with Uta Hagen, Austin Pendleton, Reed Birney, and Robert Perillo. Before turning to the theater he was a professional wrestler who grappled with such WWE legends as The Iron Sheik, The Honky Tonk Man, Fabulous Moolah, Mae Young, and Superfly Jimmy Snuka. He is Artistic Director of Elsinore County, a theater company located in the West Village.

Reviewing his "Yeah, I Met this Girl,” Nelson Diaz-Marcano wrote in Manhattan With a Twist, “What I am trying to say is I think Raymond has a mastery of realistic dialogue that many lack out there. Most plays do not apply this way of speaking, instead they bask in stylish rhythms or create their own language. It’s the beauty of theater, the way you can manipulate the language to create new ones inside of the already established. Raymond’s dialogue is not where style lies, it’s in his structure, and what a great job he did of enforcing it by sitting on the director’s chair himself.”

ABOUT THE DREAMUP FESTIVAL
The tenth annual Dream Up Festival (www.dreamupfestival.org) is being presented by Theater for the New City from August 25 to September 15. An ultimate new works festival, it is dedicated to the discovery of new authors, fresh ideas and edgy, innovative performances. Audiences savor the excitement, awe, passion, challenge and intrigue of new plays from around the country and around the world.

The festival does not seek out traditional scripts that are presented in a traditional way. It selects works that push new ideas to the forefront, challenge audience expectations and make us question our understanding of how art illuminates the world around us.

In addition to traditional plays, a unique and varied selection of productions will again be offered, drawing upon a variety of performance genres including musicals and movement theater. The Festival's founders, Crystal Field and Michael Scott-Price, feel this is especially needed in our present time of declining donations to the arts, grants not being awarded due to market conditions, and arts funding cuts on almost every level across the country and abroad.

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