Rage Play
Flux Theatre Ensemble presents
the World Premiere of
by Nandita Shenoy
directed by Lori Elizabeth Parquet
It’s with a heavy but grateful heart that we’re sharing our decision to cancel our production of Rage Play. The health of our team, and the health of our audience and community, must come first. It’s important Flux play our part to flatten the curve and lessen the harm of COVID-19.
We are also in conversations about an alternative way to support Nandita’s vision for the play in a virtual space and will share updates along those lines as soon as we have them. In the meantime, we’re really focused on practicing our core value of Collective Care now and are moved to see so many folks in this city, state, country and world doing the same.
Until then, thank you, and please take care of yourselves.
The Story
Three women stand over the man they’ve killed, struggling to understand how it happened and why he keeps coming back to life. Again and again and again. Inspired by the #MeToo movement, Nandita Shenoy’s outrageous black comedy Rage Play explores the cost women face in fighting back against misogyny and patriarchy, and how they might be complicit in these systems. Through their purgatory, the women aim for liberation…and maybe even a little sweet revenge.
CAST
Leila Ben-Abdallah, Bea, (she/her/hers) is a Tunisian-American comedian, actor, and puppeteer. A graduate of the William Esper Studio, Leila has performed with The People’s Improv Theater, The Flea, ScaryMommy.com, CollegeHumor.com, and the NY Arab-American Comedy Festival. Leila served as associate producer for The Box Show and she’s a Resident Artist with New Light Theater Project. Leila is a twin so you’d think she’d be great at sharing, but instead she’s written four solo shows and performed them at the SOLOCOM Fest, NY Fringe Fest, The People’s Improv Theater, and in her living room for her two cats Sophocles and Gloria Steinem. www.leilaben-abdallah.com
Alexandra Curran, CeCe, (she/her/hers) is thrilled to be returning to Flux after performing in their Marian, or The True Tale of Robin Hood at The New Ohio. Other NY Theater includes: Wolf in the River (Adam Rapp/The Flea), Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom (Joel Schumacher/The Flea), My Dead Friend’s Porn (NYTF), Look Me In The Eyes (ARTC), Student Body (The Flea). She made her international debut in Pool Play at the Theater Festival of Kerala, India.
TV: Maniac (Netflix), Hawaii 5-0 (CBS). Excited to rage with this fantastic team of humans. www.alexandracurran.com
Chris Wight, Man, (he/him/his) is thrilled to be returning to Flux, especially to work with Lori Elizabeth Parquet, his traveling companion from their inaugural Flux production: Liz Duffy Adams’ Dog Act. He is an Artist Member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and ‘Friend’ of Flux; there and elsewhere he has appeared in premiers of plays by Tennessee Williams (in the premier of Spring Storm with Peter Sarsgaard), Cassandra Medley, Cherie Vogelstein (36DD with Judy Gold), Sheri Wilner, Olivia Dufault, Arthur Giron, David Zelnick, Adam Szymkowicz, Cheryl L. Davis, Julie Selbo, Joshua Conkel, Amanda Keating, Christina Quintana, J. Holtham, John Augustine, Robert Simonson, Michael Louis Wells, Ryan Dowler, Maria McCarthy and many other acclaimed writers. He most recently appeared in Everyday Inferno’s production of Quicksand by Regina Robbins and Deya Danielle Drake’s Escape for FringeNYC. www.chriswight.net
Yolanda K. Wilkinson, aka Yeauxlanda Kay, Ay, (she/her/hers) has been dubbed ” one of the country’s most respected and talented spoken word artists” by Playbill, “charismatic and funny” by Dan Bacalzo of Theatremania and “Brilliant” by Inside New York. She appeared in the New York Neo-Futurists’ production of LOCKER #4173b, winner of the 2011 NYIT Award and called “smart” by The New York Times. She has performed at The Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, Cherry Lane, Manhattan Theatre Club, Classical Theatre of Harlem, The National Black Theatre Festival 2001 & 2005, and The New Black Theatre Festival with Suzan Lori Parks and Lynn Nottage in 2010. https://lovefibonaccisyste.wixsite.com/yeauxlandakay
CREATIVE TEAM
NANDITA SHENOY (Playwright) (she/her/hers) is a New York-based writer-actor who loves to hear an audience laugh. She returns to Flux as a playwright after performing in their Marian, or The True Tale of Robin Hood. Her play Washer/Dryer has been produced multiple times across the country after its world premiere in Los Angeles at East West Players and an Off-Broadway production in which she also starred. Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC, and more recently, her play Satisfaction completed a developmental run at the Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her one-acts, Marrying Nandini, By Popular Demand, Rules of Engagement, You Are Here, and A More Perfect Date, have been produced in New York City and regionally. Currently, she is developing her play Baby Camp. Nandita has acted in world premieres of new plays by Richard Dresser, Madhuri Shekar, Chelsea Marcantel, Adam Szymkowicz, and Eric Pfeffinger as well as a season at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Nandita is the winner of the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting for her commissioned one-act, Safe Haven, and a 2018 Mellon Creative Research Fellowship at the University of Washington School of Drama in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab and the Dramatists Guild. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. nanditashenoy.com
LORI ELIZABETH PARQUET (Director) (she/her/hers) is an actor, director, and playwright from New Orleans, Louisiana with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Cornell University. Her New York City stage credits include Macbeth, Dispatches From (A)mended America (Off-Broadway, Epic Theatre Ensemble), The Providence of Neighboring Bodies (Dutch Kills Theater/Ars Nova), The Honeycomb Trilogy: Sovereign (Gideon Productions), Medea (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble), Dog Act, Ajax in Iraq, Honey Fist, Operating Systems (Flux Theatre Ensemble), and Republic, Baal, Murder In the Cathedral (JACK/Hoi Polloi). She made her international debut performing in Pillars of Society at Teater Ibsen in Skien, Norway. She also performed in The Providence of Neighboring Bodies at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018. In 2019 she was nominated and won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her performance in Operating Systems. As a director, Lori has directed Topdog/Underdog at Princeton Summer Theater and assistant directed The Public Theater’s most recent Shakespeare in the Park productions of As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. She was also an acting coach on Disney’s Hercules, a Public Works production. Lori just served as Associate Director of New York City Center’s Encores: Off-center production of Maria Irene Fornes’ Promenade and has directed many readings and workshops with Public Works, Flux Theatre Ensemble, The Brooklyn Generator, and other theatre companies across New York City. As a playwright, Lori was selected as one of six featured playwrights for Season Five of The Fire This Time Festival, which produced a reading of her full-length play In Communion. Her short plays Sir and Blood Money have been produced through Flux Theatre Ensemble and New York Madness respectively.
Jodi M. Witherell, Production Stage Manager, (she/her/hers), was most recently seen as PSM for Flux’s Operating Systems and Adam Szymkowiz’s Rare Birds (Red Fern). Favorite credits include: miscellaneous work on The Miracle Worker (Queens Theatre) and Mac Rogers’ Universal Robots and The Honeycomb Trilogy (Gideon Productions); That Which Isn’t (Theater Accident), All Systems Go: Mission 4 (Mission to (dit)Mars); Moby Dick (Fireboat Productions); AM I DEAD? Marian, or the True Tale of Robin Hood, Rizing, Salvage, Once Upon a Bride…, Jane the Plain, Hearts Like Fists, Deinde, Ajax in Iraq and many others with Flux; as well as shows with The Gallery Players; Avalon Studios; The St. Bart’s Players; Working Man’s Clothes; Pembi Players; Playwright’s Company; Audax Theatre Group; Streetlight Productions and The American Globe Theatre. NYIT Award Winner: Outstanding Stage Manager 2016.
Rocio Mendez, Fight and Intimacy Director, (she/they) is an actor/fight director/teacher from Hell’s Kitchen, NYC. Fight | Intimacy | Movement Direction credits include: The Wolves (Actor’s Theater of Louisville), Love in Hate Nation (Two River Theater), The Secret life of Bees (Atlantic), Leap and The Net Will Appear (New Georges), The Royale (Geva Theater | The Kitchen), Southern Promises, Good Friday (The Flea Theater), Marian; and The True tale of Robin Hood, Hearts like Fists (Flux Theatre Ensemble). Film credits include Bad Writing, Clandestiny, Tied Up, Hurt filling. Nominee for two New York Innovative Theater Arts Award – Outstanding Choreography and Movement, Winner for Artemis “Women In Action” Film Festival. Rocio is a Team Member of Unkle Dave’s Fight House. www.rociomendez.com
Will Lowry, Scenic Designer, (he/him/his) is a multidisciplinary designer with an MFA from UNC Greensboro, and he has been a Creative Partner with Flux since 2011. This is his eighteenth Flux production, the most recent being World Builders (NY & LA). He has completed over 110 scenic, costume, and lighting designs ranging between New York, regional, and academic theatre, and he has worked as an assistant on eleven Broadway productions. He serves as an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Lehigh University. Love to B&P. will-lowry.com
Kia Rogers, LightingDesigner, (she/her/hers) has had her work seen at BAM Fisher, 3LD Art & Technology Center, The Gym at Judson, The SoHo Playhouse, Theatre at St. Clement’s, Danspace, St. Luke’s and the 4th Street Theatre. Regional: Thieves by Charlotte Miller in LA. Selkie by Sarah Shaefer in San Francisco. International credits: Associate Lighting Designer for Slutforart/98.6 in Gothenburg, Sweden with Muna Tseng. Tours: The God Box Project with Mary Lou Quinlan, and Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca. Awards: Outstanding Lighting Design for Jane The Plain with the NYITA, 2014 and nominated in 2016 for Rizing. www.krogersld.com.
Karen Boyer, Costume Designer, (she/her/hers), designs and builds costumes in NYC. Past and recent collaborators include Object Collective, The Flea Theater, Pan Asian Repertory Theater, Catherine Galasso, Target Margin Theater, Meta PhysEd, Little Lord, harunalee, and Yangtze Repertory. For more: karenrachelboyer.com
Twi McCallum (Sound Designer), (she/her/he/his/they/them) is a Black + femme + queer sound designer raised in beloved Baltimore, MD living in New York. When not working, she loves reading urban fiction novels and watching Food Network. She is thankful to Lori (Director) for calling her on a whim to be part of a strange but riveting production. Recent production credits: Frankenstein at Kansas City Rep, Mirrors at New York Theatre Workshop, My Baby at WP Theatre. “Planted and underqualified; planted not buried”-Michael Todd.
SAVI and Flux’s Commitment to Collective Care
Rage Play depicts and discusses violence against women and sexual assault.To support our audience, Flux is honored to welcome Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) volunteers at every performance. SAVI volunteers will be on hand to provide discrete and informed emotional support to anyone who needs it, both during the performance and afterward. This partnership emerges from Flux’s core value of and commitment to Collective Care.
Please read the handouts that will be available at the performances to learn more:
The Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) was founded in 1984 to provide free, confidential, high quality therapy and advocacy to survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence and commercial sexual exploitation as well as their loved ones. In addition, SAVI works with coalitions to advocate policy and legislative changes on behalf of survivors, and promote awareness of gender-based violence in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn in New York City through free community education. For more information or to access our services, please visit https://www.mssm.edu/SAVI or call 212-423-2140. Believe survivors.
