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Upper Lip and Ludovica Villar-Hauser present THE PITCHFORK DISNEY A Dark Chocolate Comedy by PHILIP RIDLEY Directed by KEVIN KITTLE The chilling story of chocolate-addicted twins and the man who came for desert. Featuring: Tara Denby, James M. Larner*, Aidan Redmond and Victor Villar-Hauser* June 18 to July 6, 2003 (Extended due to popular demand) The Greenwich Street Theatre 547 Greenwich Street (between Charlton and Vandam) New York, NY 10013 * Appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association |
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Reviews David Cote, TIME OUT (July 3-10, 2003) "A sensationally creepy and menacing funhouse!"..."Marvelously acted!"..."It's the inaugural show for Stiff Upper Lip, and an auspicious one, too." Chesley Plemmons, Danbury News-Times (June 29, 2003) “A first-rate revival! Rare and special!"..."Hold on to your chair, for this is a dizzying descent into dementia!" "Kevin Kittle’s inventive direction holds your attention through comedy and surprise."..."Denby is like a pint-sized Maggie Smith…Villar-Hauser does a splendid job walking a tightrope between sanity and madness."..."A provocative first for Stiff Upper Lip and a hopeful omen for Off-Broadway." |
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Philip Hopkins, TheaterMania.com (June 27, 2003) "Some genuine delights…Sharply directed… A bizarre world of buried insights and twisted comedy!"..."The expertise of Denby's performance and Kittle's direction give the audience several opportunities to laugh at this pathetic yet rather charming creature."..."Villar-Hauser seamlessly embodies the boy-man's paranoid fantasy life." Martin Denton, nytheatre.com (June 23, 2003) "For over-the-top gothic creepiness, this mounting, helmed by Kevin Kittle and featuring a remarkable tour de force star performance by Victor Villar-Hauser, is unmatched!"..."…a remarkable tour de force star performance by Victor Villar-Hauser…supremely edgy!"..."… In what is surely the most singular first act curtain of all time!"..."Ridley has written a twisted allegory about the cosmic wasteland that is the post-modern world…a lurid and kinky imagination." Michael Lazan, Back Stage (August 1, 2003) “As Presley and Haley, Victor Villar Hauser and Tara Denby snap out of the dialogue with extreme precision, inhabiting this world quite fully. James Larmer is quite deliciously glib as the satyrlike Cosmo.” |
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The Cast TARA DENBY (Haley) Tara is enormously satisfied and grateful to be a co-founder of Stiff Upper Lip with Victor Villar-Hauser and James Larmer. She began her career in London after training at The Guildhall and then went on to Italy where she studied and worked with a comedy troupe. Her roles have ranged from Polly, in Jack the Ripper the Musical on the London’s West End to Ginny in Alan Ayckbourne’s Paris production of Relatively Speaking, to her personal favourite, Hayley in Philip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney at the Greenwich Street Theatre in NYC. See the reviews. Tara is currently looking for another challenging piece of theatre in which she will be able to work with the guys again… If they’ll have her!! JAMES M. LARMER (Cosmo Disney) Born and raised in Papua New Guinea, James M Larmer comes from a background of stage and film in Australia. Recent leading roles in New York include Roy Darwin in Counsellor at Law (Bank Street Theatre), Garry Essendine in Present Laughter (Century Center), Stafford Ellson in The John Wayne Principle (The Ohio Theatre), Detective Leon Zat in an adaptation of Lantana (Horace Mann Theatre), Cosmo Disney in the New York premiere of Phillip Ridley’s Pitchfork Disney (Greenwich Street Theatre), and a slew of characters Hair of the Dog’s the extended run of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand. Other work includes the great roles of Dr Henry Block in Psychopathia Sexualis (Atlantic Theatre Company Studios); John D. Rockefeller in Laurel Vartabedian's epic musical, American Story (42nd Street Workshop) and Hamlet in Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Porter (The Medicine Show); and Chapin & Friends, Florida Studio Theatre’s tribute to America’s storytellers. James has also landed leading roles in several independent films including Mixing Nia and Gimme Some Lovin and the soon-to-be-released The Pondhoppers and Love From The Machine. AIDAN REDMOND (Pitchfork) Recent engagements include performance readings of Blodeuwedd by Welsh playwright Saunders Lewis, at The Workshop Theatre Main Stage for the 2004 Midtown Theatre Festival, at the Zipper Theatre for the Stage One Reading of Slammed by Barry Alexander Brown and at the Greenwich Street Theatre for The Third Option, by Cat Bistransin, directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser. Aidan also played Pitchfork in the inaugural Stiff Upper Lip production of The Pitchfork Disney directed by Kevin Kittle at the Greenwich Street Theatre. In his native Ireland, Aidan has toured extensively with leading roles in Hamlet, Julius Caesar and a Midsummer Night’s Dream. He made his television debut in 2001 on the popular BBC/RTE series Bachelor’s Walk and has appeared in several TV commercials in the British Isles. Aidan has a BFA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. VICTOR VILLAR-HAUSER (Presley) Most recently played Darren in Stiff Upper Lip’s production of Dirty Works at the Greenwich Street Theatre. Other theatre credits include Robin in Sara Kane’s Cleansed at the Ohio Theatre, the lead role of Presley Stray in Stiff Upper Lip’s production of The Pitchfork Disney, Ray in the Greenwich Street Theatre’s production of Joe Penhall’s Some Voices, and the Understudy for the lead role of John Everett Millais in the Off-Broadway production of The Countess at the Lambs Theatre. His training has included the two-year Meisner program with Maggie Flanigan at The William Esper Studio. He is also the co-founder of the Leftfield Workshop reading series of new works at the Greenwich Street Theatre and most recently is a founding member of Stiff Upper Lip. His film roles include Ham in Ham and the Hotspurs, an NYU thesis film directed by Justin Nowell that will be doing the festival routes shortly. The Producer LUDOVICA VILLAR-HAUSER Ludovica Villar-Hauser is a native of Wimbledon, England. She has an international Baccalaureate Degree from Hammersmith and West London College and a combined BA degree in Spanish and Drama from London University and The Central School of Speech and Drama. Ms. Villar-Hauser’s first professional production was a revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Arts Theatre in London, which she produced and directed, and subsequently transferred to the Westminster Theatre in the West End. Following the success of that production, she produced and directed three productions at the Edinburg Festival: The Stronger (Strindberg), With All My Love I Hate You (Lynda La Plante), and Mary Stuart (Dacia Maraini). In 1985 Ms. Villar-Hauser moved to the United States and began pre-production work on the Archbishop’s Ceiling (Arthur Miller) and Margaret and Kit (Shirley Lauro). In addition, she raised the capital to purchase and refurbish The Greenwich Street Theatre in Tribeca, where she presented works by Common Ground Stage and Film Company, The Flock Theatre Company, and Works by Women; directed and produced The Ghost Sonata (Strindberg), Godex Has Come (Corneliu Mitrachi), and the premiere of Vacuums and the Whistling Pig (Tom Vecchio); produced Some Voices (Joe Penhall) and co-produced the New York premiere of the musical Nellie Bly (Bernice Lee and Jaz Dorsey); and co-produced and directed Impropriety by Ron Elisha, as well as the musical review Legendary Ladies, which tranferred to La Place on the Park before airing on QPTV in New York. She also founded The Villar-Hauser Theatre Development Fund to find, develop and produce new work by emerging playwrights through the Funds’s “New Voices” program. Ms. Villar-Hauser has been closely associated with Gregory Murphy’s The Countess since 1995 (almost from its inception). She produced and directed The Countess at the Greenwich Street Theatre in 1999. The play was an immediate success, garnering critical praise in The New York Times, TimeOut New York, and The New Yorker, among others. She transferred the play Off-Broadway to the Samuel Beckett Theatre, then to the much larger Lamb’s Theatre. Ms. Villar-Hauser is a member of The League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She currently leaves in New York, but travels frequently to London.
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