An audition goes terribly wrong for one desperate gay actor in this dark political comedy.
October 11 & 12 at Laurie Beechman Theatre
Spin Cycle presents the World Premiere of THE CRISIS ACTOR by Johnny Drago. This semi-finalist for the 2017 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference reunites director Zack Carey and performer Brendan George from the long-running immersive hit Bleach. Performances are October 11 & 12 at 7pm at The Laurie Beechman Theatre (407 West 42 Street at 9th Avenue, inside West Bank Cafe). Tickets are $22, available at www.SpinCycleNYC.com or 212-352-3101. There is a $20 food/beverage minimum at all performances at this venue.
THE CRISIS ACTOR is a dark political comedy that takes the form of an audition-gone-wrong. After answering a casting call on Craigslist, a gay actor desperate for work is asked to bare his soul -- and more -- for the chance to score the job of a lifetime.
This two-character play is a dialogue between an actor on stage and an unseen, disembodied voice who grills the aspiring performer. At each performance of THE CRISIS ACTOR the unseen casting director will be voiced live by a different special guest performer. October 11 will feature Gerald McCulloch (CSI, Bear City) and October 12 is Ben Rimalower (Patti Issues).
The production features lighting by Jake Lemmenes, costumes and set by Max Ruby, and sound consultationby Andy Evan Cohen with Thomas Henke as understudy.
Johnny Drago is a non-binary queer, Brooklyn-based Southern playwright and performer, who makes comedies and tragedies about sex and death. His work has been developed and/or produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Lark, Pig Iron Theatre Company, the ANT Fest at Ars Nova, SPACE on Ryder Farm, PrideFest at the Tank, and the HOT! Festival at Dixon Place. His most recent play, GLOCKENSPIELSEXPARTYBAVARIAGOO
Zack Carey’s directing credits include a 3 month Off-Broadway run of the immersive hit Bleach, Boylesque (starring RuPaul’s Drag Race star Mimi Imfurst) at The Laurie Beechman Theatre, The Other Me at FringeNYC, and Club Nights at HERE. Regional credits include the Ohio premieres of Wallace Shawn’s The Fever and Keith Curran’s Walking the Dead.
Brendan George is an actor and comedian last seen with Spin Cycle in the immersive hit Bleach. Other credits include What Is Your Name??? (24 Hour Plays: Nationals), No Sympathy For The Wolf (FringeNYC), Reverse Transcription (Williamstown Theatre Festival), and Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (Sock & Buskin). As an improviser, he has performed at Second City and with longform troupe IMPROVidence. He is a graduate of Brown University.
Gerald McCulloch is best known for his 10 seasons as "Bobby Dawson" on CSI and his critically acclaimed performances as "Roger" in the Bear City franchise. McCullouch recently guest starred on FBI, Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots and will appear in an upcoming Netflix series. McCullouch's award-winning directorial debut feature film, Daddy, received international distribution and critical praise. His filmmaking has received multiple awards beginning with his highly praised short film The Moment After. He served as Co-Executive Producer of the LGBT niche franchise of Bear City films starring alongside Kathy Najimy and Richard Riehle. McCullouch has been selected by Out Magazine as one of the OUT 100 alongside Ricky Martin, Alan Cumming, Rachel Maddow and others. He also won the Independent Series Best Supporting Actor Award for his appearances in the web series Hustling. His most recent directing/writing/producing credit is the 2019 documentary All Male, All Nude: Johnsons, which was recently released on DVD.
Ben Rimalower is the author and star of the long-running, internationally acclaimed solo plays Bad with Money (The Advocate’s #1 of 2014) and Patti Issues (New York Time Critics Pick, M.A.C. and Bistro Awards), available as a double audiobook on iTunes, Audible and Amazon. He is a frequent contributor to Vulture, Out, The Huffington Post and Time Out New York, with regular columns at Playbill and Decider, as well as the Broadwayworld podcast “Ben Rimalower’s Broken Records,” streaming on all platforms. Ben is recognizable around the world for his three seasons and counting on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City” as the writer-director of Luann de Lesseps’s record-breaking cross-country cabaret sensation, Countess And Friends. He also co-wrote de Lesseps’s hit single, “Feelin’ Jovani.” Ben directed Snoopy! (Symphony Space, starring Tony winners Sutton Foster and Christiane Borle), the Off-Broadway plays Joy (Actors Playhouse) and The Fabulous Life of a Size Zero (Daryl Roth/DR2 Theatre, starring Gillian Jacobs and Anna Chlumsky), and a slew of solo shows, most notably conceiving and directing Leslie Kritzer is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches and subsequently producing Ghostlight Records’ “Patti LuPone at Les Mouches.” Follow @benrimalower on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and visit benrimalower.com.
Thomas Henke (understudy) made his New York City debut in What’s Left of the Harringtons at the Hudson Guild Theater. As a playwright, he has been featured in the New York Theatre Festival’s Winterfest and his play Flash Fire was in the finals of Manhattan Repertory Theater’s short play competition. He also recently published a collection of creative non-fiction work about dating and technology titled No Hard Feelings with Amazon/Kindle.
Since its founding in 1998, Spin Cycle has co-produced shows by artists including Joan Rivers, Anthony Rapp, Gavin Creel, Holly Woodlawn, Alison Arngrim, Alec Mapa, Alice Ripley, Karen Finley, and Ain Gordon. Other producing credits include the World Premiere of The Donkey Show, Kiki & Herb’s Obie winning Have Another, The Vaudevillians starring Jinkx Monsoon, John Kelly’s Paved Paradise, and the Rochester premiere of Woman Before A Glass (directed by Austin Pendleton). Current and recent theater PR clients include: 21 seasons with The New York International Fringe Festival, 21 seasons with The Flea Theater (including premieres by A.R Gurney, Elizabeth Swados, Will Eno, Christopher Durang, Adam Rapp and Mac Wellman) and 7 years with P.S. 122 (including premieres by Spalding Gray, John Leguizamo, Elevator Repair Service, and Eric Bogosian), the long-running immersive hit Then She Fell, and theater companies including Partial Comfort, The Civilians, Bedlam, SITI Company, Pig Iron, 3LD, Ars Nova, New Georges, The Culture Project, the cell, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, and Theater Breaking Through Barriers.