Opening Night 8/14! The Hyperbolist fr Chicago at FringeNYC

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::::: SHARE THIS EVENT WITH ALL LOVERS OF ABSURDITY, THEATRE, PUPPETRY, WHIMSY, AND LOVE! :::::
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bang-bang-fou! and Joe Mazza presents from Chicago:
'The Hyperbolist'
the BEST OF THE
The New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC
A production of The Present Company
Performing at the Dorothy B. Williams Theater
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Dorothy B. Williams Theatre located at 145 Sixth Ave in SOHO.

Showdates/Times:
SAT, AUG 14 @ 2:30pm + SUN, AUG 15 @ 8:30pm
FRI, AUG 20 @ 8:45pm + SUN, AUG 22 @ 9:45pm
THU, AUG 26 @ 6:00pm + FRI, AUG 27 @ 7:00pm

Running Time: 60 minutes
Tickets: $15-$18 For tickets visit http://www.FringeNYC.org

For more information about Joe Mazza and The Hyperbolist, visit http://joemazza.org
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** EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT: Joe will be all over NYC through August between shows, popping up at undisclosed gatherings and venues with SHOCK PERFORMANCES! Spontaneous, sometimes improvised, often interactive and always unforgettable - keep an eye out!

New York, NY - bang-bang-fou! is proud to present the New York premier of Joe Mazza's The Hyperbolist, as part of the 14th annual New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC).

The Hyperbolist is a grandiloquent farce of tiny proportion about the desperate search for love in a world that offers mostly rakes to step on. In what the Chicago Tribune called, “an archly conceived puppet show,” Joe Mazza, the sole performer, uses a gaggle of puppets, film, and interactive live performance to explore our collective definition of love. The show is Shakespeare meets Dr. Seuss, Leo Buscaglia meets David Lynch. It's the Brothers Quay-- only live. There's an absurdist flea circus, a puppet crucifixion, an audience survey, and an assignment at the end to run into the streets to smile at strangers.

In the flea circus, a frustrated scientist turned mad-showman aims to prove the existence of love by subjecting his two tiny fleas (his only friends) to gruesome marital experiments. In The Hyperbolist's feature, Punctilio-- a faceless, one-armed grotesque-- flings his only friend, a puff of silk, into the world to find love and bring it back-- or be crucified. In between, film clips demonstrate with silly-severity the challenges of showing love that reaches deeper than skin.

The Hyperbolist is a fun and exhausting introduction into Joe Mazza's phantasmagorically raucous world. Greg Allen, Founding Director of The Neo-Futurists and creator of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind called the show “beautiful and funny and tragic all simultaneously...he had my eyes welling up within three minutes of the start; right after I chuckled.”

Mazza, a riotous actor and puppeteer - began his creative discovery in Boston, then took to Chicago where he has lived and worked for the past five years. He has been associated with such companies as Steppenwolf and NeoFuturists. His puppets have been featured in galleries such as NAB Gallery, Tom Robinson Studio/Gallery, The Irish American Heritage Center, and 10 puppet films at The Smart Museum, University of Chicago. This is his New York City debut and we're lucky to have him.
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BIOS:

Joe Mazza (writer/performer) has been creating theater for over 25 years and his work has been performed in venues from tavern-vaults to nationally syndicated radio. He devises all the elements of his shows-- from puppets to film to audio gosh-wowery. Joe's been caught stealing on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, patting a spaniel in Mademoiselle, and pontificating as Napoleon on the Discovery Channel. His puppets were last seen in June 2010 at the Great Small Works Temporary Toy Theater Museum at St. Anne's Warehouse, DUMBO, and ten of his puppet films were part of the Heartland Exhibition at the Smart Museum, University of Chicago, this past winter. XXX, his first solo-show with puppets (1999) which Bay Windows called, “a bizarrely entertaining and provocative must-see” was performed at the Boston Center for the Arts and his two solo-shows, the tiny O of long and Man and Variations (2007, 2008) received extended runs at Tom Robinson Studio/Gallery, Chicago. In June 2009, he created and performed the interactive lobby installation at the Steppenwolf Garage for Rivendell Theatre Ensemble’s production of The Walls (Jeff Nominated). For the same show he created the puppets and choreographed the puppet sequences. Later that Summer he curated the show In Absurdum, with his own selected works and invited guests at the Building Stage (Chicago). His work with Boston's Catbox Cabaret-- where he wrote and performed experimental works on a weekly basis-- was called, “intelligent lunacy...from the wildly hilarious to the deadly serious” by the Boston Globe. His play, Art and Her Ugly Sisters, is a 2008 Eugene O'Neill semi-finalist.

Susan Ask (director), the other half of the bang-bang-fou! creative team for the past 3 years, has a diverse background that spans from the sciences to the arts. After marrying into theater, Susan has co-directed and produced Joe's solo-pieces, the tiny O of long, Man and Variations, In Absurdum, and now The Hyperbolist.

Dan Kerr-Hobert (director): A former fellow of the Folger Shakespeare Library and an alum of The Theatre School at DePaul University, Dan passes his time in the Chicago theatre as a company member of Blair Thomas and Company, Artistic Director of Sans-culottes Theater, and a regular collaborator with the Chicago Neofuturists. As a director, deviser, performer, and puppet designer, his work has been seen at the MCA, The Garage at Steppenwolf, The Pritzker Pavillion, The Smart Museum of Art, The Storefront Theatre, Dad's Garage in Atlanta, the Neofuturarium, The Puppet Gumbo South Eastern Puppetry Festival, and more. He is a Resident Artist at Children's Memorial Hospital through the Snow City Arts Foundation and works as an arts educator through CAPE and the Theatre School at DePaul University.