NAATCO Presents

The Seagull

A Comedy in 4 Acts
by Anton Chekhov
(translation by Paul Schmidt)

with: Rajesh Bose, Cindy Cheung, Jojo Gonzalez,
Marcus Ho, Mia Katigbak, Peter Kim, Lavrenti Lopes, Orville Mendoza,
Andy Pang, Sophia Skiles, Tiffany Villarin

Directed by Gia Forakis

Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue
(between 9th & 10th Streets)

September 26, 2009 - October 17, 2009
Mondays through Saturdays at 7:00pm
Matinee performance at 2:00pm on Wednesday, October 14

Tickets: $15 - $20
212-352-3101

Set: Lee Savage
Costumes: Alixandra Gage Englund
Lights: Stephen Petrilli
Sound & Music: Robert Murphy
Video: S. Katy Tucker

Press: Sam Rudy Media Relations (press release HERE)

A lively production punctuated by touches of vaudeville and the grotesque.
(Andy Webster, NY Times)

The company's fervor and skill is impressive.
(Ron Cohen, BackStage)

Forakis has all but declared war on the naturalism and psychological realism that is the bedrock of much of what we've come to think of in this country as modern theatre, and The Seagull is perhaps the perfect vessel to target to fire a shot across its bow, since Stanislavsky's famous 1898 Moscow production was the flagship that in many ways started it all.
(Fred Backus, NYTheatre.com)

With graceful, determined, exuberant gestures, the characters seem to bounce across the stage. On this Dr. Seuss-ian landscape, there's no room for naturalism, and humor crackles through slapstick physical comedy: quick gestures, deft asides, and (sometimes alarmingly) flexible facial expressions.
(Amy Krivohlavek, Curtain Up)

Using sight gags, crude sexual innuendos, Commedia pratfalls and an elaborate, consistent semaphore of over-the-top gestures, Forakis wrings the text like a dishrag, forcing the play's humor to the true source of all comedy: pain.
(Marianne Moore, Show Business Weekly)

The Seagull in residence at Voice & Vision's Annual Retreat at Bard College, June 2009. Photographer: William P. Steele.