Lost Angels at Planet Connections Theater Festivity 2017
In June of 2017 the social issue theater company, Playground Theatre Project, premiered it’s new show Lost Angels at the Planet Connections Theater Festivity.
Press Release:
Theater with a Message; Local Teen Social Issue Theater Company Brings New Show to Premier New York Theater Festival.
Playground Theatre Project, a theater company with a seven-year history of performing social issue plays on a peer-to-peer level, will premier its newest play at the Planet Connections Festivity in New York City.
FREEHOLD, NJ. – May 31, 2017 – Starting June 14th Playground Theatre Project, an outreach of Actors Playground School of Theatre, will perform Lost Angels, at the Planet Connections Festivity in New York City. Compromised of young actors ages 14 to 25, the play tackles issues affecting teens today such as: bullying, racism, sexism, date rape, drug abuse, and much more. The actors are all local to the Monmouth and Ocean County, New Jersey area and have been training in the craft of acting for years.
Playground Theatre Project was born out of the Actors Playground School of Theatre in Freehold, NJ. For 12 years, this acting community in central New Jersey has trained actors of all ages with a philosophy of empowering people to use their art to inspire change.
The vision of the Playground Theatre Project, helmed by Megan Donovan, is to use peer-to-peer plays and workshops to tackle the issues that kids and teens face every day. Because of this, the company is comprised of two age groups:
There is an older company, with members ages 13 to 24, which performs at high schools, colleges, teen summits and organizations.
The younger company, The Mini Misfits, which is the youngest theater company in the world, is made up of actors age 7 to 12, who perform an anti-bullying show for groups Kindergarten through 6th grade.
Playground Theatre Project has taken these socially conscious young people throughout the tri-state area to inspire change through theater. The Mini Misfits, under the direction of Company Director Ralph Colombino, have traveled the Northeast performing their original anti-bullying play, The Gaggle.
The teen company was honored to be selected as part of the 2013 and 2014 New York International Fringe Festival. In 2013, they presented Bang, Bang You’re Dead written by William Mastrosimone and directed by Ralph Colombino and Dan Cooley. This critically acclaimed show, about the effects of a school shooting, toured dozens of schools in the tristate area. The tour was dedicated to the victims and survivors of the horrible events at the elementary school in Newtown, CT.
The company has performed various shows in Camden, Neptune City, and Paterson New Jersey, where the Assistant Principal informed the company there had been a decrease in bullying after seeing Bang, Bang You’re Dead.
The 2014 selection, Lady Parts, was workshopped and written by Literary Manager Becky Ellis and the Women of PTP and was conceived and directed by Megan Donovan. The show is the historical perspective of issues faced by women intertwined with the current problems and inequality that women face in our modern society.
Lady Parts has sparked conversation throughout the tri-state area performing in schools, the Young Women’s Conference in Middlesex County, and multiple Planned Parenthood conferences.
Lost Angels will be at the Planet Connections Festivity in the LATEA Theater
107 Suffolk St., Second Floor, New York, NY 10002
June 14th @ 9pm
June 17th @ 8:30pm
June 21st @ 9pm
June 25th @ 12pm
July 2nd @ 7pm
July 7th @ 4:30pm
For tickets, go to: http://planetconnections.org
For more information on the Playground Theatre Project go to: http://playgroundtheatreproject.com
Cast:
Malcolm – Andy Jean-Louis
Rudy – Josh Miller
Jake – Vinny Loretta/Jonathan Slovack
Angela – Elaina Francis/Hannah Feldman
Carson – Julia Barnett/Kayla Folz
Calvin – Sawyer Barth/Steven Braunstein/Brian Beckerle
Morgan – Hannah Teitelbaum
Bailey – Kelsey O’Keefe/Gillian Andresen
Harper – Courtney Brennan/Jenna Brando
Fiona – Kami Weinstein/Sasha Silver/Shannon Tormey
Bixby – Delaney Buday/Shea Grant
Millie – Gracemarie Loretta/Hailey Conway
Crew:
Kerry Downing
Mark Bakishyev
Bethany Friedman