October 1 -3, 2009, 8pm
Performance will be in the DiverseWorks Theater
Co-commissioned by DiverseWorks with Pick Up Performance Co(S.) and National Performance Network
Ain Gordon, a recipient of such honors as the Obie Award, NYFA Playwriting Fellow and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, presents the world premiere of his new work A Disaster Begins, a fictional account of a lone woman Muriel Halstead (played by Tony nominated actress Veanne Cox) and her unbreakable bond with the devastating Galveston hurricane that decimated the Texas island in 1900, taking the lives of 6,000 in a single night. She appears with little more than a glass and pitcher of water to tell her tale of the storm, and unravels with it the shocking truth behind her experiences of presidential corruption, pubescent despair, patriotic fervor, pre-marital passion, and otherwise unfortunate fits of writer’s block.
ABOUT AIN GORDON
Gordon has been writing and directing since 1984. He is a three-time Obie Award-winner, a two-time NYFA Fellow; and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in Playwriting. His most recent play, In This Place …, was produced in NYC by 651ARTS, opening their 20th anniversary season. His work has been commissioned and or presented by diverse venues including the Mark Taper Forum (CA), Performance Space 122 (NYC), George Street Playhouse (NJ), New York Theater Workshop (NYC), The Krannert Center (IL), Dance Place (DC), Jacob’s Pillow (MA), and Soho Rep. (NYC) to name a few. Gordon also appeared in the Off-Broadway run of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell, and has written for NBC’s “Will & Grace.” Gordon is a Core Writer of the Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis, Artist-In-Residence at the Center for Creative Research, and Co-Director of the Pick Up Performance Co(S.) since 1992.
ABOUT VEANNE COX
Veanne Cox plays the part of Muriel Halstead in Ain Gordon’s A Disaster Begins. She is a Tony nominated and an Obie Award winning actress. She has appeared on Broadway in Caroline, or Change; The Dinner Party;Company (Tony, Drama Desk nominations); Smile, Off-Broadway: 2008 Obie for Sustained Excellence; Damn Yankees (Encores!); Paradise Park(Signature); Spain, The Wooden Breeks, Last Easter (MCC); The Altruists,The Waiting Room, The Batting Cage, Flora, the Red Menace (Vineyard);House and Garden, Labor Day (MTC); A Question of Mercy (NYTW);Freedomland (Playwrights Horizons); The Vagina Monologues, The Food Chain, A Mother, a Daughter and a Gun. Regional: The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Berkshire Theatre Festival); Twelfth Night (Shakespeare DC);Private Lives (Guthrie); The Way of the World, The Beaux’ Stratagem(STC); Ahmanson, Yale Rep, Old Globe, Long Wharf, Bay Street, La Jolla, Pasadena Playhouse, Paper Mill, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Goodspeed. TV: Royal Pains, Law & Order, Boston Legal, Seinfeld, Cinderella, Joan of Arcadia, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Film: Sex and the City; Erin Brockovich, Big Eden, Beethoven’s 4th, Marci X, Two Weeks Notice, You’ve Got Mail, Henry Fool.
This Click HERE to read the review of A Disaster Begins by Everett Evans in The Houston Chronicle.
Click HERE to listen to Ain Gordon & Veanne Cox interview with Bob Stephenson on KUHF’s The Front Row.
Ain Gordon tells a forgotten story, click HERE to read the interview with Ain Gordon and Nancy Wozny on 29-95.com.
A Disaster Begins in The Houston Press, click HERE to check it out.
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