FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                CONTACT: Travis Stewart

                                                                                                Travsd1965@yahoo.com/ `                                                                                                      347-282-7495

 

La MaMa E.T.C. Presents

TRAVS.D.’S

TENT SHOW TETRAGRAMMATON

 

Trav S.D. is pleased to announce Trav S.D.’s Tent Show Tetragrammaton, an evening of four original one acts at La MaMa E.T.C. March 17 through April 3.

 

The four plays, all written and directed by Trav S.D. explore themes of identity and transformation as expressed through American folk culture: tall tales, superstition, theatrical stereotype, popular theatre forms (like the traveling tent show and freak show) and various form of American folk music. The plays include:

 

• The Strange Case of Grippo the Apeman. This play premiered in La MaMa’s Experimental Play reading series under George Ferencz’s direction in 2007, and was first runner up in the Bob Dylan Days Creative Writing Contest (Hibbing, Minnesota) in 2008. It concerns two fly-by-night hoodlums who exhibit a monstrous idiot-savant who possesses a genius for music and impersonation. But the tables are hideously turned with a twist out of O. Henry and E.C. Comics. The cast includes: James Habacker (proprietor and host of The Slipper Room), Catherine Porter* (of Peculiar Works Project and Dixon Place) Bob Laine, Stephen Heskett, and introducing Tom Bibla as the Ape Man.

 

• The Ballad of Jasper Jaxon.  A folk mini-operetta in the style of Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads, and performed by Trav S.D., Josh Hartung et al, this play was given its first reading in earlier form by the And How! Theater Company in 2007, directed by Arthur Aulisi. Based on a true story, it treats of the world’s worst bank robber, who winds up being exhibited as a mummy in carnivals posthumously.

 

• Universal Rundle. This play was given its first reading at Soho Think Tank’s Sixth Floor Series in 2006. Based on a section of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, it tells the story of a voodoo priest and bluesman who lives deep in the Louisiana bayou, anxiously awaiting the usurper who will overthrow him. When the devil arrives, he comes in a surprising disguise. The play stars Timothy McCown Reynolds*, Jeff Lewonczyk and Hope Cartelli (Piper McKenzie Productions and the Brick Theatre), with Art Wallace as “The Old Cracker in the Chair”.

• Strega Nona stars Sarah Malinda Engelke* (of Supermajor and Dye Violets) as the “Little Baby Grandma Witch” who reads your fortune in her magical pot of spaghetti and serenades you out with her accordion. The evening’s digestif.

 

Trav S.D. is the author of over 100 plays (for stage, screen and radio), 300 published articles, and the book No Applause, Just Throw Money, The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous (Faber & Faber, 2005). A frequent radio guest and public speaker, his voice has been heard on the Leonard Lopate Show (WNYC), The Sound of Young America (NPR), The Joey Reynolds Show (WOR), Cat Radio Café (WBAI), and a dozen others throughout the country. He has contributed to American Theater, the Village Voice, Time Out New York, the New York Sun, Reason, and many others, and currently writes the Downtown Theatre column for the Villager/ Downtown Express/ Chesea Now as well as the blog Travalanche. His plays include Willy Nilly a musical about the Manson Family that was a hit of the 2009 NY Intl Fringe Festival and House of Trash, published in Plays and Playwrights 2001. His works have been presented at Joe’s Pub (the Public Theatre), Theater for the New City, La MaMa E.T.C., the Ohio Theatre (Soho Think Tank), HERE, Dixon Place, the Brick, et al, and, regionally and internationally, in London, Portland, Minneapolis, Austin, Seattle, and Providence. He also presented hundreds of New York's top variety acts through his American Vaudeville Theatre.

 

WHAT: Trav S.D.’s Tent Show Tetragrammaton,

WHEN: March 17-April 3, Thur-Sat: 7:30pm, Sun: 2:30pm

WHERE: La Mama E.T.C., 74A East 4th Street (btw Bowery & 2nd Ave)

 

TIX: $18/ student and seniors $13

INFO/ RESERVATIONS/ PURCHASES: 212-475-7710 or www.LaMaMa.org

 

* Appears courtesy Actors Equity Association

 

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