Pig Iron Theatre Company announces a collaboration with New York City-based BESSIE Award-winning musician and theatre artist Cynthia Hopkins as part of the nationwide festival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Plays/365 Days. Pig Iron is producing Week 51 of the cycle and turning seven of Parks’ short works into a cabaret of “rites and wrongs,” accompanied by Hopkins’ haunting melodies. Pig Iron is the only Philadelphia theatre company participating in The Public Theater’s staging of the festival. The performance will run November 2nd and 3rd at the Brick Theatre in Brooklyn and at the Latvian Society in Philadelphia on November 4 and 5th.

“Suzan-Lori Parks’ musicality, her surreal and biting sense of humor - it’s a good fit for Pig Iron,” says Director Dan Rothenberg. “Normally, we don’t work with playscripts, but we wanted to be part of this ambitious collective undertaking.” Week 51 is the penultimate week of this year-long marathon of snapshots, sketches, and pop-song-length plays. It includes a visit from the “ghost of the writing process,” a play for the day of the dead, a rain of blessings, and a father returning from war. Each play is no more than five pages and ranges from serious to comical and grotesque.

Performing in this innovative project are Pig Iron company members Sarah Sanford, James Sugg, and Dito van Reigersberg with Hopkins, Hinako Arao and Mikaal Sulaiman. Sanford, Arao, and Sulaiman recently appeared with Pig Iron in Love Unpunished. Sugg was the lead in Chekhov Lizardbrain and van Reisgersberg, Co-Artistic Director of Pig Iron, appeared in ISABELLA. James Clotfelter will handle the lighting and Barrymore Award-winner Mimi Lien will design the set. Pig Iron co-Artistic Director Dan Rothenberg directs. Pig Iron’s newly-appointed Associate Artistic Director, Alex Torra, will assistant direct.

“We’ve wanted to work with Cynthia Hopkins for a long time,” says Rothenberg. “Some of Parks’s miniature plays seem like a dark cabaret, a philosophical vaudeville; Cynthia’s haunting voice will be the audience’s entry point into this other world. She’s planning to compose original songs that spring from the plays and from our ensemble.”

In November 2002, Parks committed to writing a play a day for one year. The world premiere of this play cycle began November 13, 2006 and will run until November 12, 2007. Each week, theatre companies present seven works at various locations through out New York and throughout the country. Produced by The Public Theater, this ambitious festival links theatre companies throughout the country. The Public is one of the seven hub theaters for the Festival. Pig Iron will also be one of three companies performing November 12th at The Public, with Parks in attendance to close out the festival.

Cynthia Hopkins is a writer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and theater artist. In 1999, she formed the band Gloria Deluxe, which has produced five full-length albums and performed at numerous venues in New York City and elsewhere. Opening for legendary artists such as David Byrne and Patti Smith, the group has developed an enthusiastic following for its unique blend of folk, cabaret, rock, blues, and country music. Gloria Deluxe has been an integral component of works created with Accinosco, including Accidental Nostalgia (an operetta about the pros and cons of amnesia, for which Ms. Hopkins received a 2005 Bessie Award) and Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, a prequel to Accidental Nostalgia which premiered in January 2007 and recently ran at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. In addition, Ms. Hopkins has worked as a composer, musician, and performer for many projects, including Another Telepathic Thing (2001 Bessie award for composition; 2000 OBIE award for performance); and Ridge Theater's production of Mac Wellman's at jennie richee, for which she won a 2001 Obie Award as part of the collaborative team.

Pig Iron Theatre Company, founded in 1995, has rapidly become known as a unique, innovative voice in American theatre and an audience favorite at the Live Arts Festival in their hometown of Philadelphia. Founded in 1995, the ensemble’s physical precision, lyrical writing, and exuberant productions have earned them 36 Barrymore Award Nominations in the past 8 years; five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe; and an OBIE Award, Off-Broadway’s highest honor. Pig Iron’s work has toured to theaters and festivals in London, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil, Romania, Germany and Italy. Pig Iron recently completed a highly successful run of their macabre riff on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, ISABELLA, during the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.

TICKETS/TIMES
Venue: BROOKLYN: Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Ave,
PHILADELPHIA: The Latvian Society, 7th and Spring Garden.

Performances:
Brooklyn: November 2, 7 p.m.
Brooklyn: November 3, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Philadelphia: November 4, 7 p.m.
Philadelphia: November 5, 7 p.m.

Box Office: (215) 627 1883 or at www.pigiron.org

Ticket Prices: Free, Suggested donation of $10

Go to www.pigiron.org for further information.