Written by Neil Labute
Directed by Dan Bonnell
Produced by Illuminate Productions, LLC
Executive Producer Candace McAdams
Producers Carla Barnett &Paul Wittenburg
Stage Manager jj Jackman
Graphic Designer Daniel Sigvardsson
Lighting Designer Jeremy Pivnick
Set Designer Laura Fine
Sound Designer Max Kinberg
Sound Coordinator Noah Wolf
Publicist Matt Roberts,
Impact Communications, LLC
Starring:
Jon Beavers, Brian Cousins, Candace McAdams, Mandy Siegfried.
Angelinos will have much to talk about at the water cooler after witnessing “Bash,” a compelling collection of three one-act plays by über-writer-director Neil LaBute exploring what lies beneath the human psyche’s surface and whether perception and reality co-exist with ordinary people.
“Iphigenia in Orem” features Brian Cousins playing a Mormon salesman recounting the devastating loss of his five-month-old daughter, Emma. Set within the trappings of a hotel bedroom filled with mini-bar temptations, Cousins sadly begins to unravel, revealing the horrifying circumstances of his newborn’s death. It’s not what you think…
The second play, “A Gaggle of Saints,” features the delightful tandem of Jon Beavers and Mandy Siegfried, portraying a young Boston College couple on a weekend trip to Manhattan with friends, highlighted by a black tie youth group affair at a swank New York City hotel. Little do they know the night will also take them to Central Park. What happens there is nothing short of appalling…
In “Medea Redux,” an engaging monologue performed by Candace McAdams, the audience is led through a past relationship she had with an English teacher at the age of 13. Stranded in pregnancy and later with a baby, she recounts the experience, ultimately leading to a meeting with the man years later. What happens next is shocking…
Award-winning director Dan Bonnell is on-board for all three works. In addition to his work with Illuminate Productions, Bonnell is currently the Co-Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theater-LA, a company dedicated to new play development. His production of “Happy End” was recently chosen as a 2005 Top 10 play by the LA Weekly.
Bonnell has been nominated for the 2002 Theater LA “Ovation Award,” the 2004
LA Weekly “Directing Award” and the Theater Communications Group “Alan Schneider Award,” honoring outstanding national freelance directors. He received the LA Weekly “Directing Award” in 1997 and last year received the NAACP Theater Award and the GLAAD Media Award for his work on “Stage Directions” by L. Trey Wilson.
Acclaimed and highly discussed filmmaker Neil LaBute has made himself a force to be reckoned with and a name to watch. With his true-to-life cynical and self-absorbed characters and all-too-true social themes, LaBute has firmly established himself as an unforgiving judge of the ugliest side of human nature.
LaBute attended Brigham Young University and took theater as his major. Many say that Pulitzer-Prize winner HYPERLINK "/name/nm0000519/"David Mamet was a strong influence on him. He chose to attack subjects that usually people nowadays insist are handled P.C. and showed the way that people don't want to handle them that way and talk amongst themselves. His piece entitled: "Filthy Talk for Troubled Times" which featured two guys just sitting around and making small talk and ridiculing homosexuals and their ways in a way not unlike the conversations in his HYPERLINK "/title/tt0119361/"In the Company of Men (1997) film. His play was not met with great reviews.
After he graduated from the University of Kansas and New York University, he got a scholarship to London's Royal Court Theatre in England. He then went on to write and stage in the USA in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Then he got into cinema. He made his movies like his plays. Just characters talking and revealing how evil, scared, ignorant, wounded, disillusional and cynical they are.
In 2003, LaBute brought another adaptation - of his own work. Of the play he wrote and directed and had performed in England. He even brought his original cast (HYPERLINK "/name/nm0748620/"Paul Rudd, HYPERLINK "/name/nm0001838/"Rachel Weisz, HYPERLINK "/name/nm0001543/"Gretchen Mol and HYPERLINK "/name/nm0919867/"Fred Weller) back to appear in this one. It was entitled HYPERLINK "/title/tt0308878/"The Shape of Things (2003). About how a seductive art student named Evelyn takes Paul, a nerdy, insecure, out-of-shape guy... and begins molding him to look more and more desirable; much to the confusion of his friends. He enjoys being desirable, but is unaware of where all this remodeling will lead as Evelyn gets more and more possessive and controlling. With pieces like HYPERLINK "/title/tt0119361/"In the Company of Men (1997) and HYPERLINK "/title/tt0119517/"Your Friends & Neighbors (1998) LaBute has proven that he has his hand on the very pulse of everyday people--not heroes and villains, just people. People who sound and behave often horribly. And you cringe all the more because you know and identify with them.
