Rising Phoenix Repertory and Piece by Piece Productions present TOO MUCH MEMORY A project of New York Theatre Workshop's Jonathan Larson Lab A new play by Keith Reddin and Meg Gibson Directed by Meg Gibson Set Design - Ola Maslik Light Design - Joel Moritz Costume Design - Clint Ramos Sound Design - Eric Shim & Brandon Epperson Video Design - Joe Tekippe Fight Choreography - Joseph Travers Cast: Aria Alpert, MacLeod Andrews, Peter Jay Fernandez, Laura Heisler, Martin Moran, Seth Numrich, Jamel Rodriguez, Ray Anthony Thomas, and Wendy vanden Heuvel Order tickets: Online: www.smarttix.com By phone: 212-868-4444 Box Office: Tickets may only be purchased at the box office 30 minutes prior to the advertised performance time on the day of the performance. Tickets purchased at the box office may only be purchased with cash.

Facility address:
Fourth Street Theatre
83 East 4th Street, located between Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village.

Prices:
Single tickets $20.00 each.

Description:
A theatrical explosion of myth and revolution, Too Much Memory is a re-telling of the classic Greek story of Antigone set firmly in the present. It’s a timeless drama of family conflict and social turmoil that the New York Times says “finds nuance with humor and clarity.” nytheatre.com calls it “an engaging political thriller”…. “the acting is of a truly high caliber,” and Time Out NY pronounces it “a parable for our wartime moment. Too Much Memory helps us remember why we do these bloody tragedies again and again.”

Dates:
Performances start Tuesday, December 2; opening night, Tuesday, December 9;
final performance, Monday, December 22, 2008.

Performance schedule:
Please note staggered schedule: Mondays and Tuesdays at 8:30pm, Fridays at 9:30pm,
Saturdays at 5:00pm and 9:30pm, and Sundays at 5pm

Running time:
65 minutes with no intermission

Political Forums

Sat, Dec 6 after the 5pm matinee performance

Panelists:
Katrina vanden Heuvel - Editor of The Nation, Patricia J. Williams - James L . Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University, The Nation columnist “Diary of a Mad Law Professor”, Michael Ratner - President of the Center of Constitutional Rights

Sun, Dec 21 after the 5pm matinee performance

Panelists:
Amy Goodman - Host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now! JoAnn Wypijewski - Independent journalist and columnist for Mother Jones magazine, Jared Bernstein - Director of the Living Standards program at the Economic Policy Institute

Additional panelists to include leading theatre artists including playwright Wallace Shawn and others.

About the artists:

Keith Reddin has written Life and Limb, Rum and Coke, Life During Wartime, Big Time, Nebraska, Brutality of Fact, The Innocents Crusade, Almost Blue, All the Rage, Frame 312, But Not for Me, Prophets of Nature, Human Error and The Missionary Position. Reddin was a playwright in residence at The Goodman Theater in Chicago. His plays have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, The New York Shakespeare Festival, Atlantic Theatre, Primary Stages as well as regionally and in London and Berlin. Adaptations include; Bulgakov’s Black Snow, Shatrov’s Maybe (with Vanessa Redgrave), Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, Thorton Wilder’s My Destination and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Rich Boy.

Meg Gibson has worked extensively on stage in New York, regionally, as well as acting in film and television. She has directed Terry Johnson,’s Hysteria, Chuck Mee’s Big Love and Arthur Miller’s The Ride Down Mt. Morgan with the Salt Lake Acting Company. Too Much Memory was first presented in the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival for which it won Outstanding Play and an outstanding directing award for Meg from offoffoff.com. She is a graduate of The Juilliard Theatre Center and was a research fellow at The Yale School of Drama.

Founded in 1999 by Artistic Director Daniel Talbott (named one of nytheatre.com’s People of the Year in 2006), Rising Phoenix Repertory began by producing an ongoing reading series of new plays and has continued to add workshops, festivals, and highly praised productions of new plays. Recent productions include Don’t Pet the Zookeeper at Seventh Street Small Stage, 365 Days/365 Plays at Jimmy’s No. 43 and The Public Theater, What Happened When at HERE Arts Center, Fall Forward in the Sitelines/River to River festival produced by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Telling Trilogy (including The Ride, 2006 NYIT Award Nominee – Outstanding Original Short Script), Rules of the Universe (Winner, 2007 NYIT Awards for Outstanding Original Short Script (Daniel Reitz) and Director (Daniel Talbott), and Three Sisters at the Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy’s No. 43. Too Much Memory received FringeNYC’s Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Play and was Rising Phoenix Repertory’s third production with the Fringe, following Gift by Mark Schultz in 2005 and Ponies by Mike Batistick in 2003.

Piece by Piece Productions is a not for profit organization that was started in 1999 by Wendy vanden Heuvel. Its mission is to produce film and theater that is socially, politically, and spiritually relevant to our times. Piece by Piece is also very interested in supporting the development of theatre artists and their original work through workshops, readings, and the productions of new plays. Productions have included: Medea directed by Deborah Warner with Fiona Shaw, The Tricky Part by Martin Moran, Ode to the Man Who Kneels by Richard Maxwell, in association with the NY City Players, and The Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh, as well as the upcoming 2009 "comeback" of Mabou Mines DollHouse, both in association with St Anne's Warehouse. Films: Fierce Grace: Ram Dass by Mickey Lemle, and The Rest I Make Up: Documenting Irene by Michelle Memran (a documentary about the life and work of the playwright Irene Fornes). Wendy vanden Heuvel also served as co-artistic director with Rosemary Quinn of The Other Theater; her past producing and associate producing credits include: Three by Beckett '94 and '96 directed by Joseph Chaikin, Mud by Irene Fornes, Women. War. Comedy. by Thomas Brasch, Springtime by Irene Fornes, Counting the Ways by Edward Albee, and My Name is Rachel Corrie (with Royal Court Theatre).

Born from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's challenge grant and created in 2001, the Jonathan Larson Lab is a memorial to the creator of Rent that gives emerging and established theatre artists essential resources, a nurturing creative environment, and an open canvas for exploring their ideas and developing their work. Participants are often given a grant, a venue, and the support of New York Theatre Workshop’s (NYTW) artistic staff. Project participants are paid for their work and the development phase is designed to serve the need of the artists. Some of these works go on to receive full productions at NYTW or at other theatres around the country. The works developed at the Jonathan Larson Lab over the past few seasons have included Will Power's The Seven; Thaddeus Phillips's ¡El Conquistador!; Martha Clarke's KAOS; Beckett Shorts; Elevator Repair Service's The Sound and the Fury, and The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, a new play by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman.