NINE/TWELVE TAPES Receives Premiere at Theater for the New City, Closes 9/4

Stages on the Sound (Will Ditterline, Artistic Director) is proud to announce the world premiere of nine/twelve tapes, presented in the Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City
(155 First Ave, NYC).

Created by playwright Leegrid Stevens and director Ryan Pointer, nine/twelve tapes will close September 4 in a limited engagement.

While September 11, 2001 will forever be a day of national tragedy, September 12, 2001 was a day of national confusion, shock and fear. On that day and the days to follow, one young man grabbed a simple audio recorder and hit the streets - compelled to speak with strangers about the attacks. The resulting interviews have been re-created in the nine/twelve tapes just as they were recorded.

Using analog equipment and an ensemble of actors, each of these accounts is brought to life with all the background noise and immediacy of those days intact. Equal parts time-capsule and public memoir, nine/twelve tapes gives voice to the national psyche and shows us the start of our own recovery.

nine/twelve tapes will feature Regan Adair, Reiss Gaspard, Lynne McCollough, Andres Munar, Lori Prince, Erin Treadway and Shannon Michael Wamser.

"We were surprised when we listened to these interviews", says Artistic Director Will Ditterline. "Our own memories from that time had been recounted so often that they formed a sort of tragic storybook. But we were all so fundamentally shaken those first few days in a way that we didn't always share and tried to forget. nine/twelve tapes recovers that forgotten level of emotional detail, and in the process, explores how distance and memory help write our history."

nine/twelve tapes will be presented August 31 through September 4 at Theatre for the New City as part of the Dream Up Festival. Performances on 8/31, 9/3, & 9/4 at 7:00 p.m. and 9/1 & 9/2 at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $15 at the door, or at www.smarttix.com.

BIOGRAPHIES

Leegrid Stevens(Creator/Playwright) has had his work produced at several downtown New York theatres such as HERE Arts Center, Lark Theatre, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, Altered Stages, and Spring Theatreworks' Dumbo space. His plays have also been produced across the U.S. as well as Europe and have been published by Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Smith & Kraus, Stage Tribes, Theater-Verlag Desch Publishers, and by Martin Denton's Plays and Playwrights Anthology.

Ryan Pointer(Creator/Director) is originally from Texas, where he has produced and directed a wide variety of projects there including acclaimed productions of Shakespeare's R&J by Joe Calarco, David Auburn's Proof, the dance musical Swing!, Steve Martin's adaptation of The Underpants and Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.

Stages on the Sound has commissioned and produced several new plays, including Crossings,
based on interviews with NYC immigrants, which was presented at the Close Strangers theatre festival at Teatr Polski in Poznan, Poland in 2008 and FringeNYC in 2009. Stages on the Sound is also an arts-in-education provider for NYC schools with their Shakespeare in ACTion tour entering its sixth year.

Photo Credit: Daniel Brock

More Articles by This Author...