Theater for the New City's 2019 Dream Up Festival to present "Two is a Prime Number," written and directed by Anna Watts
In love and kickboxing, two is the only even number that cannot be divided.

WHERE AND WHEN
August 25 at 2 PM, August 26 at 6:30 PM, August 27 at 9 PM, August 31 at 5 PM, September 1 at 8 PM
Theater for the New City (Johnson Theater) 155 1st Avenue
Presented by Theater for the New City (Crystal Field, Artistic Director) as part of Dream Up Festival 2019
Tickets: $18 Box Office: (212) 254-1109, www.dreamupfestival.org
Running time: 95 minutes
Critics are invited to all performances.

NEW YORK -- "Two is a Prime Number" by Anna Watts is a two person show about two individuals' love for each other and kickboxing. It will be presented by Theater for the New City as part of its 2019 Dream Up Festival on August 25 to September 1 for its New York debut. Jason Paul Tate directs.

This show, using poetry, movement, and workout reenactments to tell the story of a mixed-race couple: Sam, a workaholic with a troubled childhood, and Taylor, an aspiring playwright. The two bond over their interest in kickboxing and quickly begin a relationship. However, between Sam’s increasing responsibilities as an physical instructor and Taylor’s struggle for her work to be recognized, they begin to fight more and more often, and they must decide whether or not they are truly right for each other.

At its core, "Two is A Prime Number" is a universal story, told through movement and poetry, about what it means to fall in love, to fall out of love, to be in love, and the fundamental problem of intensely loving someone who may be completely wrong for you. It has evolved through workshopping, experimentation, and molding the text to fit the performers who are working with it.

Anna Watts (playwright) is a New York based theater artist born and raised in Minnesota. She is a gymnast and rock climber, and her love for physical activity comes out in her energetic writing. Her other plays include "Stalling," which has been performed at Hofstra University, NYC's Winterfest and Theater for the New City, and "Plowing Through," which had a reading at Theater for the New City and will have a full production in   Winterfest in January 2020. (annawattsnyc.com and @wattsanna)

This is the play's first full production. There was a workshop at Dixon Place in March, 2019.

Alex Taylor plays Sam and Maia Baird plays Taylor. Stage manager is Bree Bursey.

Alex Taylor (Sam) played Tullus Aufidius in Hudson Shakespeare Company’s all-female "Coriolanus." Other credits include the short film "Crazy" (Midnight Film Festival 48 hour challenge finalist) and "Pregnancy & Mars" with the Navigators Theatre. She will soon play the Earl of Richmond in "Richard III" with the Fools & Kings Project and is recording her first audio book, Christa Avampato’s Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters with Double or Nothing Media. (alextayloractor.com, @taylorrosealex!)  

Maia Baird (Taylor)  is a Philadelphia-born actress with a BFA from Hofstra University. She played Nurse Ratchet in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Catherine in "Rapture, Blister, Burn" and Sarah in the webseries "Real Adult." 

Jason Paul Tate (Director)  is a New York City based director, choreographer and performer. As a movement and fight director he has collaborated with world renowned acrobats, tango dancers and string musicians. He has worked at the Edinburgh and New York Fringe, The Public, A.R.T., BAM, Classic Stage, Great Lakes Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Ars Nova, Rattlestick, and The Lost Colony. Tate is a member of SDC, a certified instructor of stage combat with the Society of American Fight Directors; and co-founder of Neutral Chaos, LLC; a movement solutions company in DUMBO dedicated to training artists to tell physical stories

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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