Off Broadway Show

The Nursing Office.com and Banig sa Bood HTS International, Inc.

supports Ma-Yi Theater Company's

"HOUSE RULES"

 

April 10, 2016  Sunday @ 4:00pm  HERE 145 Sixth Ave, NYC

 

Synopsis: 

In HOUSE RULES, tradition and contemporary manners make strange bedfellows when the grown children of two Filipino-American families - neighbors in the same apartment building - come to realize their parents are not immortal, and that the rules of the many card and board games they play together are constantly renegotiated, as are the rules of living. In the mix are a tough-as-nails father, his sons, a physician and a comic book artist; a no-nonsense mother and her daughters, a doctor and a budding photographer; and another doctor who has mysteriously broken off his engagement with the old man's son.

This is the volatile and hilarious cocktail of humans in HOUSE RULES, A. Rey Pamatmat's funny and deeply moving play about two Filipino families dealing with the impending death of parents.  Meantime, there's plenty of monopoly, mahjong, and gin rummy to keep them all busy.

 

Written by Ma-Yi Writers Lab Co-Director A. Rey Pamatmat and directed by Ralph B. Peña.

 

CAST: Tina Chilip Jojo Gonzalez Mia Katigbak Jeffrey Omura Conrad Schott Tiffany Villarin James Yaegashi DESIGN: Set Designer: Reid Thompson Costume Designer: Martin Schnellinger Lighting Designer: Oliver Wason Sound Designer: Fabian Obisbo Production Stage Manager: Jennifer Delac Production Manager: Libby Jensen Producer: John Kurzynowski

 

 

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Rey Pamatmat’s (playwright) newest play House Rules will premiere at Ma-Yi Theater Company, and his play after all the terrible things I do will be produced in About Face’s 25th Anniversary Season, both in Spring 2016. Recently, his work was celebrated in Boston where the Huntington and Company One Theatres presented after all and Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them concurrently in the Calderwood Pavilion. Edith premiered at the Humana Festival, received the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Citation, and was nominated for GLAAD Media and Lambda Literary Awards. Rey’s plays A Power Play; Or, What’s-its-name and Thunder Above, Deeps Below were developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and his shorts appeared in New Black Fest’s Facing Our Truth, The Mysteries at The Flea, and two Humana Festival anthologies. Other productions: Thunder Above, Deeps Below (Second Generation), A Spare Me (Waterwell), DEVIANT (Vortex), High/Limbo/High (HERE); publication: Samuel French, Playscripts, Cambria Press, Vintage; awards: ’12/’13 Hodder Fellowship, ’11/’12 PoNY Fellowship, Princess Grace Award and Special Projects Grant, NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, E.S.T./Sloan Grant. Rey is Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab and teaches at Primary Stages ESPA and SUNY Purchase. BFA: NYU, MFA: Yale School of Drama.

 

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Ralph B. Peña is the Producing Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company. Recent directing credits include developing a new musical for ACT San Francisco, The Orphan of Zhao (Fordham Theatre), Macho Dancer: A Musical (Cultural Center of the Philippines), Livin’ La Vida Imelda (Ma-Yi), Lloyd Suh’s The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go! (Children’s Theater Co. and Ma-Yi, Off Broadway Alliance Award), Joshua Conkel’s Curmudgeons in Love (EST Marathon), Mike Lew’s microcrisis (Youngblood, Ma-Yi), and House/Boy (Dublin and Singapore Theater Festivals). He received an Obie Award for his work on The Romance of Magno Rubio. Upcoming projects include the premiere of House/Rules by A. Rey Pamatmat, and Felix Starro a new musical by Jessica Hagedorn and Fabian Obispo. He is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theater.

 

ABOUT MA‐YI THEATER COMPANY

is an award winning, nationally recognized not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose primary mission is to develop and produce new and innovative plays by Asian American writers. Since its founding, Ma-Yi has distinguished itself as one of the country’s leading incubators of new work shaping the national discourse about what it means to be Asian American today. Ma-Yi was founded to develop new plays that explore and affect Asian-American experiences, and challenges the perceptions of what culturally specific theater should be by producing forward-thinking plays by today's emerging playwrights. Ma-Yi strives to address the cultural and artistic needs of the Asian American communities and artists in the tri-state area. Although most initiatives are basically Asian American, Ma-Yi forges ties with groups from other cultural backgrounds and experiences. The company believes that theater can play an important part in breaking down barriers and increasing the understanding and appreciation of the cultural and ethnic diversity of our contemporary society. Recent productions include Soldier X by Rehana Lew Mirza, Carlos Celdran’s Livin La Vida Imelda, Chairs and A Long Table by Han Ong, Jesus in India and the New York Times Critics’ Pick The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!, by Lloyd Suh, Bike America and Microcrisis by Mike Lew, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G by Qui Nguyen, The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness by Carla Ching, Flipzoids by Ralph Peña, Rescue Me by Michi Barall, Children of Vonderly by Lloyd Suh, the Drama Desk-nominated, Off-Broadway premiere of Tony Award-winner Warren Leight's No Foreigners Beyond This Point, Mr. Miyagi's Theatre Company's Sides: The Fear Is Real, Sung Rno's wAve, Han Ong's Middle Finger and Watcher, and Mia Chung’s You For Me For You in association with Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington D.C. The company's bestknown production is multiple OBIE Award-winner The Romance of Magno Rubio by Lonnie Carter. Ma-Yi Theater Company won the 2010 Special Drama Desk Award for more than two decades of excellence and for nurturing Asian-American voices in stylistically varied and engaging theater. Over the course of its 24-year history, Ma-Yi and its affiliated artists have garnered 9 OBIE Awards, and numerous Henry Hewes Award nominations. Ma-Yi Theater Company is under the guidance of Ralph B. Peña, Artistic Director, and Jorge Z. Ortoll, Executive Director.

 

HERE ARTS CENTER

Since 1993, HERE has been one of New York’s most prolific producing organizations, and today, it stands at the forefront of the city’s presenters of daring new hybrid art. Over the last 20 years, HERE and the work presented HERE have garnered 16 OBIE awards, two OBIE grants for artistic achievement, a 2006 Edwin Booth Award (“for Outstanding Contribution to NY Theatre”) from the CUNY Graduate Center, five Drama Desk nominations, two Berrilla Kerr Awards, four NY Innovative Theatre Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. 145 Sixth Avenue (enter on Dominick Street, one block south of Spring) www.here.org

 

Directions: Subway: C/E to Spring Street Parking: Available at 239 Hudson and 360 West Broadway

The Nursing Office Extended Arts Presents 

 

SPOTLIGHT: The Graying New Yorker"

    

Does impending parental mortality look any different from the eyes of their children?Traditional Filipino, Filipino-American, or cosmopolitan New Yorker? 

    

Death can be a comedic illusion, as no one really "dies" and parents & ancestors live on in our genes and DNA, like cutting-edge DNA technology has graphically & scientifically established (See PBS.org's series, "Finding Your Roots," by Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.).  The Ancients have known this all along; hence elaborate rituals honoring Ancestors have always been an integral essence of every indigenous or ethnic culture in the world.

    

The graying New Yorker, living longer and spinning life as never before, must also confront this transition from being just a Parent or relative to that of becoming an Ancestor. The person (or memory of) plays beyond physical life as indeed, we can and have become Who our parents and/or ancestors were.

    

As America "grays up" along with the world's elderly, death as a comedic illusion in this play focuses a "spotlight" on this transition process and tinges it with wise, balmy laughter and soothing hilarity.

 

Ludy Resurreccion

Program Director

4/2016