Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leigh McLeod Fortier or Sandra Kuker (323) 960-7779
Email: pr4plays@plays411.com
The Zephyr on Melrose * 7456 Melrose Ave *(323) 653-4664
OPENS OCTOBER 29th, 2009
Laugh Until You Scream At The Zephyr On Melrose
SLASHER
By Allison Moore
Directed by Lee Sankowich
Previews October 23rd, 24th, 25th and 28th
Opens October 29th through December 13th, 2009
(Los Angeles, CA) (October, 2009)… Playwright Allison Moore captivated audiences at the 2009 Humana Festival with this edgy, satirical and laugh-out-loud thriller, SLASHER. Opening Halloween weekend The Zephyr on Melrose Theatre brings to Los Angeles all the hilarity, blood, and gore of Moore’s witty black comedy.
“[Allison Moore] provides a story that allows for a strongly realized self-referential perspective on the horror film genre, as well as taking aim at the broader target of the independent film business as a whole. She digs just deep enough and certainly mines the premise for all it’s worth in terms of humor. “SLASHER” should delight audiences of the theatre and movies….”it is a riotously funny excursion into the grisly but artificial world of low budget horror films. This is a very funny play”
- Keith Waits, TheatreLouisville.org
About The Show
SLASHER is the story of a D-list Hollywood movie director, Marc Hunter, who goes to Texas to shoot Bloodbath, a low-budget slasher flick. After he loses his ‘name actress’ he hires a local “Hooter” waitress, Sheena McKinney, as ‘The Last Girl’ to be killed, which unleashes her mother’s thwarted feminist rage. The ensuing events — comical, intense, and emotional — result in a degree of horror Marc could never have imagined.
The Creative Team
Written by Allison Moore
Directed by Lee Sankowich
Produced by FireMused Productions
STARRING
BRENDAN BRADLEY (Lost Harbor, Love Conquers Paul, Sept.12th)
TIM CUMMINGS (My Two Fans. Criminal Minds, Presence, The Box)
SUZANNE FORD (The Informers, You, Me and Dupree, Monk, House)
STEFFANY HUCKABY (Adam, Beth on GREEK)
DEB KNOX (Brothers and Sisters, In Plain Sight, Carrie II, The Rose Garden)
JOANNA STRAPP (Medium, Murder by The Book)
ALLISON MOORE- WRITER
Allison Moore is a displaced Texan living in Minneapolis, where she is a Core Member of The Playwrights’ Center. Her plays include Hazard County, Eighteen, Urgent Fury, The Strange Misadventures of Patty, Cow Town, and American Klepto. Her work has been developed or read at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Williamstown Theatre Festival, InterAct Theatre, and Manhattan Theatre Club; and produced at the Cherry Lane Alternative, Kitchen Dog Theatre, Actor’s Express, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Playwrights’ Center, among others. Ms. Moore has received two Jerome Fellowships, a McKnight Advancement Grant, and the Iowa Arts Fellowship. She is a graduate of Southern Methodist University, and received her MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop
LEE SANKOWICH – DIRECTOR After serving for 16 years as Artistic Director of the Marin Theatre Co., Lee resigned to return to producing and directing independently. Among the 45 plays he directed there were two world premieres of previously unproduced Tennessee Williams’ plays. His career got off to a jump start with his successful productions of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST which ran for two and a half years in New York, five and a half years in San Francisco, a year and a half in Boston, and in Israel. In all, he did eleven productions of the play. Since then he has worked in Regional Theatres across the country including Baltimore Center Stage, The Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, Florida Stage, Geva, Jewish Repertory Theatre, City Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre where he was a Resident Director, and was an Associate Professor of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. Lee directed the seven-month run of THE LAST SCHWARTZ in 2007-8 and most recently SOMEONE’S SOMEBODY at the Zephyr. Among his several awards, he has been the recipient of four San Francisco Bay Area Drama Critics Awards for Direction. Lee owns and operates the Zephyr Theatre.
BRENDAN BRADLEY- JODY JOSHI
Brendan Bradley is thrilled to make his Los Angeles theater debut! Hailing from North Carolina, Brendan studied at New York University’s Tisch School and The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before moving West. A few past favorites “on the boards” include: Hamlet (Theater 150), Coriolanus (London),The Oresteia (Off-Broadway), Venezuela (Off-Broadway), Last Night of Ballyhoo (Kennedy Theater). Current Film: The Last Harbor, Love Conquers Paul, Redwoods, September 12th, Weak Species. His first play, Jettison was recently published and staged at The City Theater in Miami. Endless love and thanks to his family, mentors, buddies, and Tim for their unyielding support and understanding. For more information, please visit: www.brendanbradley.net.
TIM CUMMINGS – MARC HUNTER
LA credits: Hamlet (Theater 150 in Ojai, directed by Jessica Kubzansky); Tartuffe (Theatre @ Boston Court); Only Say The Word (Ensemble Studio Theatre); The Last Schwartz (The Zephyr); The Pursuit of Happiness (Laguna Playhouse; Garland Nom. Best Supporting); Burn This (LA Weekly Nom. Best Supporting); Dan in Patrick Marber’s Closer (Hollywood Food Chain). Film/TV: My Two Fans; Criminal Minds; Presence; Sunken Warrior; Exit Interview; The Box (won Best Horror Film at Comic-Con). Selected NY credits: Broadway: Frankie & Johnny starring Edie Falco & Stanley Tucci, directed by Joe Mantello; Off-Bway: The Guys at The Flea, opposite Susan Sarandon, Sigourney Weaver, Swoosie Kurtz. Past affiliations include The Bat Theater Company, The Builders Association, Big Dance Theater. Tim is headed back to NY after this to do the Off-Broadway production of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, a play based on the venerated graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. He is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. GPK #1.
STEFFANY HUCKABY- SHEENA MCKINNEY
This is Steffany’s second time working with Lee and Tim; the first being the long-running comedy THE LAST SCHWARTZ in which she played ‘Kia’ and loved every minute of it! No stranger to the horror genre, Steffany has played the ‘last girl’ once before when she starred in the Sony Pictures release of DEATH TUNNEL. On the big screen she was most recently seen in the Sundance indie-favorite ADAM, released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. On the small screen she can currently be seen as the ditzy but lovable ‘Beth’ on ABC Family’s smash hit GREEK. She is thankful to be playing at the Zephyr again with most of the Zephyr Family reunited.
SUZANNE FORD –FRANCES MCKINNEY
Suzanne Ford’s recent theatre: World premieres of Wild Boy by Oliver Goldstick at Pacific Resident Theatre, Razorback at Rogue Machine and The Concept of Remainders at The Production Company. Other recent Los Angeles stage credits: Sylvia at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at The Black Dahlia, Simpatico at Pacific Resident Theatre and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife at the Laguna Playhouse. New York theatre: 1776 with Howard da Silva, El Grande de Coca Cola Off Broadway and tour, and multiple roles at Lincoln Center, SoHo Rep, American Theatre Company and Hartford Stage. Recent TV guest starring roles: Monk, Bones, How I Met Your Mother and House. Recent horror films! Darkening Sky and Of Silence. Other recent film: The Informers with Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger, Uncross the Stars with Barbara Hershey, You, Me and Dupree with Matt Dillon and Michael Douglas, By Appointment Only, Honeymoon with Mom, Raw Footage. Member of Nine O’Clock Players, a non-profit organization presenting live theatre to disadvantaged children. Studied with Stella Adler, Alan Schneider, William Esper.
DEB KNOX – CHRISTI GARCIA, BRIDGET, MARCY, BETH, MADISON, CAR HOP, NEWS ANCHOR
Deb Knox moved to LA a year ago, and since then, she has been involved in a bunch of readings at the Zephyr, including A Diary of Teenage Girl and SLASHER. Theatre: LA: Countess in The Bourgeois Gentilhomme (City Garage), NYC: Spill the Wine (Barrow Group); Gone (CUNY Prelude, 59E59); Deathvariations (59E59); The Master Builder (workshop w/ Wallace Shawn, dir. Andre Gregory). Regional: Susan Smith in 1:23 (dir. Mark Wing-Davey) and Crime and Punishment, both at the Cincinnati Playhouse; The Provok’d Wife (dir. Mark Wing-Davey) at the American Repertory Theatre, Amerika (dir. Dominique Serrand) ART/Theatre de la Jeune Lune; Spring Awakening in Cambridge and Moscow; Pinter’s Partytime (dir. Sam Weisman). Television: Brothers and Sisters, In Plain Sight. Film: Carrie II and The Rose Garden (w/ Mary Tyler Moore), The Bare Show. M.F.A. from A.R.T. at Harvard University, B.A. from Dartmouth College.
JOANNA STRAPP- HILDY MCKINNEY
Joanna Strapp is thrilled to be returning to the Zephyr where she has appeared with the Reading Series in End Days (Rachel) and First Person Shooter (Tamar). Other Los Angeles theatre includes roles at The Laguna Playhouse in the world premiere of The Pursuit of Happiness (Jodi), The Colony Theatre in Mary’s Wedding (Mary u/s), The Production Company in Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Vivie) and Breaking The Code (Pat), LCF Shakespeare Festival in The Tempest (Miranda), and at the StillSpeaking Theatre in The Runner Stumbles (Sister Rita). Other theatre includes Williamstown Theatre Festival as the title role in Tattoo Girl, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and numerous shows at Carnegie Mellon University. Television credits include “Medium”, “Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip”, and “Murder by the Book”. Training: Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, The Antaeus Company. Member of AEA and SAG.
FIREMUSED PRODUCTIONS, DEBORAH TAYLOR, PRODUCER
FireMused Productions produced the seven-month critically acclaimed hit “The Last Schwartz” and Bridezilla Strikes Back at The Zephyr Theatre. NY On/Off Broadway productions include Eve Ensler’s “The Goodbody”, Cultural Industry’s “Shockheaded Peter”, and “Stomp/Las Vegas”. Tracy Lett’s “Killer Joe”, at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Associate Producer “Jocasta Rising”, Cape Town, South Africa. Producing Director, Marin Theatre Company’s New Works Program. Associate Producer, new works program THE GAP at The Aurora Theatre, Berkeley, CA. Film/TV credits include Associate Producer for “Highway Courtesans”, winner of The Best Feature Documentary, 2005 Galway Film Festival and President’s Jury Award, 2005 Chicago International Documentary Festival. Producer/ series special, “Theatre Arts in New York” and “Behind the Scene, Behind the Mask” for PTV Oakland, CA. Deborah Taylor is a member of NYWIFT, BAWIFT, SF Film Arts Association and auxiliary board member of the San Francisco Ballet. She is a graduate of DSL in London and a recent participant in the Commercial Theatre Institutes 2009 Producer Conference in New York, as well as CTI’s producer conference at The O’Neill this summer. She is the producing director of THE ZEPHYR on MELROSE, creating the ZEPHYR on MELROSE Reading Series. FireMused Productions is currently producing the hot new Hip-Hop musical STREET LIGHTS by Joe Drymala, as part of NYMF in New York. Opens Oct 13th at American Theatre for the Arts. Coming to the Old Globe as part of the development program in February,2010. www.streetlightsmusical.com
TIM CUMMINGS, ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Tim’s passion for this project stems from his love of – and obsession with – horror films. He still remembers seeing ‘The Exorcist’ when he was three years old. (Thanks mom and dad.) Said passion led him to have many meetings with Producer Deborah Taylor wherein he would suggest hoards of actors, designers, ideas, and strategies about how to make this thing fly. Having done so much stage work (and indie horror films) in LA, he has formed great working relationships with some of the best theater (and indie-horror people) in this town – for which he is ultra-grateful. As such, he was able to send Deborah and Lee a mighty plethora with whom they could natter and negotiate. And so it came to be, on a dark and stormy night, that Tim got mired in the sinister fate of becoming…Associate Producer! (cue: BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM) It has been an honor, a privilege, and one hell of a joyride. Thanks Deborah and Lee. Thanks Allison Moore. Thanks to the entire cast and crew of SLASHER.
About The Zephyr on Melrose
THE ZEPHYR ON MELROSE is one of the longest continuously operated theatres in California. Opened in 1954 as the Horseshoe Stage with Carson McCullers’ “Member of the Wedding,” it was purchased in 1978 by Lee Sankowich, who returned to running his theatre in 2007, as both producer and director. It has operated as both a producing entity and a rental house and has been the home of several award-winning plays and playwrights. It is currently the home for The Zephyr on Melrose Reading Series, a monthly reading series for new plays and playwrights.
SLASHER runs October 29th through December 13th, 2009. Previews are October 23rd, 24th, 25th and 28th, with opening night October 29th. (Opening Night Reception Thursday, October 29, 2009.) Performances are at The Zephyr on Melrose at 7456 MELROSE AVENUE (not… Santa Monica Blvd.) West Hollywood, 90046. Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Sundays at 7PM. Tickets are $25, $20 for previews. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Allow time for street parking. There is a parking garage one block West on the corner of Melrose and Gardner or valet parking for $5.00 next door in front of Antonio’s Restaurant.
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