THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
BRING THEM BACK
A Meta Dark Comedy
Written and Directed by David Willinger
May 9 – 19, 2024
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets: $18 General, $15 Students and Seniors
Run Time: 90 minutes, no intermission
JOHNSON THEATER
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003
In the meta dark comedy Bring Them Back, screenwriter Paul is still sheltering in place long after the Covid threat, only sometimes visited by his schleppy older family friend, Trudy. Now of a certain age, Paul realizes that more people he has known are dead than alive. With amusing desperation, and against Trudy’s better judgement, Paul resolves to bring them back using a medieval Cabalistic ritual that never works due to his countless mistakes. Nevertheless, random affinity groups of dead former friends, family, lovers, and enemies begin to appear. Is it all in his mind? Is it on the page? How do these unorthodox methods satisfy Paul’s desire to resolve unfinished business?
David Willinger (playwright/director) A native New Yorker, David Willinger has been active in the theatre since the age of nine, when he played Ado Annie’s father in a day-camp production of Oklahoma. There followed 17 years of acting, during which he performed at The Theatre East, The Mercer Arts Center, The Manhattan Theatre Club, the Provincetown Playhouse, the Mahopac Playhouse, the Dorset Playhouse, and in college productions, among others. Then he exchanged acting for directing and writing. Non-musical self-authored plays, which he has also directed, include: Existence, Andrea’s Got Two Boyfriends (published by DPS and performed all over the country – and even in Poland), Malcolm’s Time, Frida y Diego, Bombing the Cradle, Caprichos, and The Trail of Tears: A Drama from the Historical Record, written with Peggy Dean. His play Out of Their Minds about James Joyce’s eccentric daughter Lucia and her affair with the young Samuel Beckett, was produced at New Media. He has adapted and directed such novels as Joseph Conrad’s Secret Agent, Camus’s The Stranger, Carson McCullers’s Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Paul Willems’ The Wound, Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, Ibarguengoitìa’s The Dead Girls, and William Saroyan’s novel Rock Wagram under the title The Upper Lip. Has written the book and lyrics for the musical The Open Gate with music by Arthur Abrams, based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s epic novel, The Manor, and for a musical version of Thomas Hardy’s famous novel called Casterbridge with Christopher Beste. He also wrote book and lyrics for The Tale of Teiresias and the Idiot that ran at Hartley House Theatre as well as an opera based on Hugo Claus’s The Life and Works of Leopold II with Hellmuth Dusedau, composing. He has directed at TNC, La Mama, Interartheatre, HERE, the Laurie Beecham Theatre, the Avalon Repertory Company, and the Cubiculo, all in New York, as well as for the Ambassador Theatre in Washington D.C. He has directed world premières of Eduardo Machado’s Don Juan in NYC, Serge Goriely’s The Sorcerers, Adrienne Kennedy’s Diary of Lights as well as co-directing her Solo Voyages together with Joseph Chaikin. On Jewish subjects he has directed René Kalisky’s Jim the Lionhearted as well as Hanoch Levin’s Job’s Passion and Winter Wedding. As professor of theatre at City College of NY, he has directed such large-scale productions as King Lear, Richard III, Twelfth Night, The Cherry Orchard, Mary Gallagher’s De Donde? Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, Gorky’s Enemies, Edward Ravenscroft’s The London Cuckolds, and such musicals as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Promenade, The Wiz, Little Shop of Horrors. He has co-authored the screenplay for the film Take the Bridge and both written and directed the full-length feature movie Lunatics, Lovers, and Actors. He has 9 published anthologies of play translations from French and Dutch to his credit, and also recently published Ivo van Hove Onstage with Routledge. He has won two Fulbright fellowships, three Jerome Foundation Grants, A Drama-Logue Award, a BAEF fellowship, a Peg Santvoordt Foundation grant, a Translation Center award, etc. He studied and worked with Joseph Chaikin, with Arlen Digitale, at HB Studios and, chiefly with Eve Shapiro, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
CAST
Paul Korzinski (Paul)
Carole Forman* (Trudy)
*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association. AEA Showcase
PRODUCTION
Set Designer: Lytza Colon
Lighting Designer: Alexander Bartenieff
Costume Designer: Sarah Shah
Video Designers: David Willinger and Roy Chang
Video Graphics: Kayla Lessard
Production Stage Managers: Christopher Bello and Dianne Ramirez
Publicity: Paul Siebold OFF OFF PR
Paul Korzinski (Paul) is a NYC actor and performance artist. He has worked in such TV shows as The Black List, The Deuce, etc. He recently acted in Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love and Terry Lee King’s Liv’n Dead. He has performed Vaudeville, English Music Hall, Commedia Del and songs from the great American song book with Theater For The New City’s Art Of Comedy workshops under the direction of Mark Marcante and co-sponsored by the Yip Harburg Lyrics Foundation. He’s worked and trained with Jerzy Grotowski and Zbigniew Cyngutis of the Polish Lab Theater. He is a founding member and tenor saxophonist of the Avant Garde musical ensemble Transgendered Jesus, and has performed along with Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Jayne County, John Zorn, Vijay Iyer and Jonas Mekas at many of the New York Film Makers Coop Benefit Concerts. He has studied acting with Gene Frankel, Caymichael Patten, Ted Brunetti, and Fred Waggoner. He earned an MA in playwriting from Smith College under the guidance of Len Berkman. He is pleased to be working in Bring Them Back.
Carole Forman* (Trudy) is an actor, writer, and Jewish spiritual storyteller. She was in the Broadway production of Strider based on the story by Tolstoy and directed by Robert Kalfin. Other roles include Betty in Touch by Lori Goodman at New Circle Theater, NYC; the Prophetess Miriam in the Voice of Our Mothers by Carol Fox Prescott; Die Alte in A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner, at Episcopal Actor’s Theater, NYC, and Grace in the sci-fi play Clear Cold Place at Black Box Theater, Queens, NY. Carole’s film work includes Bubbe in 40 Nichols, Miss Ruby in Key Lime Pie, Fegele in Clara, and Mamale herself in Mamale. Carole has brought story programs to people of all ages and backgrounds around the U.S. and Canada. She’s edited the posthumous writings of her late husband Yitzhak Buxbaum to be published by Ben Yehuda Press. Carole lives in Brooklyn, NY. AEA, SAG-AFTRA. carolefor@msn.com.
COVID Protocol:
As of September 26th, 2022, we are no longer requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for our audience upon entry.
Wearing of masks is suggested in the lobby, restrooms and performance spaces at Theater for the New City, but they are not required.