PRESS
REPRESENTATIVE: JONATHAN SLAFF, 212-924-0496,
JS@JSNYC.COM
THEATER
FOR THE NEW CITY'S DREAM UP FESTIVAL PRESENTS "THE PHARMACIST,"
WRITTEN BY SAMSUN KNIGHT AND DIRECTED BY AARON AKIRA GARFINKEL. WHERE AND
WHEN: NEW YORK, August 7 – “The Pharmacist,” written and performed by Samsun Knight, is a one-man show about a pharmacist who accidentally gives someone the wrong prescription, and then tries to fix his mistake. It's a story about depression and antidepressants, about heartbreak and love and about what happens when your worst mistakes hit the Internet. Funny, dark and to the point, the show is at once a speculative fiction about the direction of the Internet culture and an investigation of modern loneliness. Aaron Akira Shibata Garfinkel directs this world premiere. A pharmacist starts swapping people's antidepressants out for placebos and watching them descend into depression. At first it is an accident, but as time goes on the pharmacist finds that watching people slowly lose their grip on life is, in essence, the best show he's ever seen. He selects his victims. The catharsis of causing deaths brings a jolt of excitement into his own wretched life, and soon enough he is hooked. Proud of his achievements and eager to show off, he begins videotaping the killings to publish them online -- with instant success, as the videos are watched around the globe by millions. This enthralling piece will have audiences questioning their own morality, along with that of the Pharmacist and all those around them. Knight developed the play under the guidance of director Aaron Garfinkel. Playwright Samsun Knight is Truman Capote Fellow and Graduate Fellow at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in the fiction MFA program. His one-act play, "Before the Orgy," debuts this July at the Hudson Guild Theater as part of NY Summerfest. Director Aaron Akira Shibata Garfinkel is a painter and writer originally from San Francisco. He lives and works in Brooklyn. The eighth annual Dream Up Festival (www.dreamupfestival.org) is being presented by Theater for the New City from August 27 to September 17. An ultimate new work festival, it is dedicated to the joy of discovering new authors 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. A unique and varied selection of productions will again be offered that draw upon a variety of performance specialties including singing, clowning, poetry, street music, magic and movement. 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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