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Under the Influence (Produced By Gbenga Akinnagbe)

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Under the Influence: Two Plays
The Mad Brooklynite and Sunlight in a Cafeteria

The Tank
354 West 45th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues
Thursday – Saturday, May 13 – 15, 2010  9:30 pm
Tickets $15 : www.thetanknyc.org

The Mad Brooklynite
by Ben Bowman
based upon the short stories
“The Mad Brooklynite” and “Breakfast at Brelreck’s”
by Jonathan Lethem
directed by Ben Bowman
with Ato Essandoh, Clare Barron
and Almeria Campbell

Sunlight in a Cafeteria
by Anna Ziegler
directed by Dina Leytes
with Jessica Dickey and Andrew Garman

Produced by Dina Leytes and Gbenga Akinnagbe

Description:
Two one-act plays, each adapted from other works, one literary the
other visual.  THE MAD BROOKLYNITE, based on short stories by novelist
Jonathan Lethem, asks the question, what happens when you ask
directions of a stranger on a Brooklyn subway platform?  SUNLIGHT IN A
CAFETERIA imagines the two subjects of an Edward Hopper painting come
to life, fully aware that they are in a work of art.  Followed by a
conversation about art, authority, inspiration and appropriation.
About the Plays:

The Mad Brooklynite is a dramatic re-working of two short stories by
Brooklyn writer Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, 1999 National

Book Critics Circle Award Winner; Fortress of Solitude, 2003 NY Times
Best Seller) by filmmaker Ben Bowman, staging his first play.  Set in a
Brooklyn subway station, a young traveler seeks directions from an eccentric
borough denizen.
Sunlight in a Cafeteria is a recasting of an
Edward Hopper painting.  It depicts the two lone figures of the
painting as having come to life.  The author of Sunlight in a
Cafeteria is Anna Ziegler, a Brooklynplaywright (http://annabziegler.com/).
Anna recently won the Third Annual STAGE Competition for her play
Photograph 51, which was judged by David Auburn, John Guare, David
Lindsay-Abaire and two Nobel Laureates.

About the Production Team:

Ben Bowman (Writer/Director The Mad Brooklynite):
Ben’s award-winning short film New Detroit (2001) screened at festivals
around the world. His screenplay Knucklehead, a twist on the gritty urban
drama, won a cash prize as a finalist for the 2006 Richard Vague Award.
His 2003 screenplay One Thousand Feet Deep won the Minnesota
Independent Film Fund, the nation’s only development grant for
independent features. Ben holds an MFA from the NYU/Tisch graduate
film program, where he has also taught.

Dina Leytes (Producer/Director Sunlight in a Cafeteria):

Dina Leytes is a theater producer, director, dramaturg and lawyer.  In
2009, Dina produced Two Girls, a one-woman play about two girls, one
black, one white, coming of age in post-apartheid South Africa.  Two
Girls played to sold-out audiences as part of the Washington, D.C.
Capital Fringe Festival and the Midtown International Theatre Festival
in New York.  Dina has directed Beckett’s Play and Chekhov’s The Bear
at Stanford University.  She assisted Conall Morrison on Antigone with
Storytellers Theatre Company and Bairbre Ní Chaoimh on Stolen Child
with Calypso Theatre Company, in Dublin, Ireland.  Dina is a lawyer at
the firm Lewis & Hand, LLP, where she concentrates her practice on
intellectual property law.

Gbenga Akinnagbe (Producer):

Gbenga Akinnagbe is best recognized from his role as enforcer Chris
Partlow on HBO’s acclaimed series, THE WIRE.  Since then, Gbenga (the
first “G” is silent) has worked at the The Public Theatre, Shakespeare
in the Park, and appears in the world premier of the one person show The

Thin Place at Seattle’s Intiman Theater in the Spring of 2010.
Gbenga made his film debut in the Oscar nominated, THE SAVAGES,
starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney.  His latest projects
include Tony Scott’s THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 with Denzel Washington
and John Travolta, EDGE OF DARKNESS alongside Mel Gibson for director
Martin Campbell and THE GOOD WIFE on CBS.  Gbenga is a producer of the
film Knucklehead.

Filed under: Entertainment by !YG

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