Every day is opening night.

Rick Miramontez / Marie Pace
rick@oandmco.com / marie@oandmco.com
(212) 695-7400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

T H E C I V I L I A N S
PRESENT
THE WORLD PREMIERE
OF
“ B E T H E D E A T H O F M E ”

JUNE 28-29, 2013
AT THE
IRONDALE CENTER

New York, NY (5/28/13) – The Civilians take their singular brand of creative investigation in a bold new direction with Be the Death of Me, an installation performance piece that offers the audience intimate encounters with matters of life and death in New York City. The show runs for 2 performances only at the Irondale Center (85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn) on Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th at 8:00 pm.

In this groundbreaking, daring event, the audience will navigate their experience inside the atmospheric Irondale Center, housed in a historic church in Fort Greene Brooklyn. Through a dynamic variety of settings and formats, the audience encounters real stories gathered from a wide cross-section of New Yorker, everyone from ER nurses to priests, funeral directors to vampires, shamans to crime-scene cleaners. Through this myriad of perspectives, Be the Death of Me uncovers hidden worlds inside New York, places inhabited by those that witness the demise of the human body as well as those that imagine what may or may not happen to our souls on the other side of life.

Be the Death of Me draws on months of interviews conducted by The Civilians artistic team:

“If you want to be buried in New York City, you need a lot of money, or a family member who already has a plot, or you just get lucky with immediate internment, otherwise you're probably going to be buried in New Jersey.”
– Allison, Cemetery Tour Guide/Historian

“Death gives everything such beautiful meaning. To live forever, you just wouldn’t do anything. People already know they’re going to die and they just sit around and watch television – that’s death as much as anything else…I think maybe people should, periodically, have guns put to their heads.”
– Brandon, Former Embalmer

“I liken death to a hot air balloon that there are many ropes that tether the balloon once it’s full of hot air it wants to rise and leave the ground, leave the earth. But those very thick ropes leave it tethered to the ground, and sometimes those ropes are fear, sometimes they’re a very strong relationship, and we think about all the threads that connect you to your mother or your sister, or your brother. You kind of have to let some of those threads go, and you actually need to receive permission from your loved ones.”
– Anon, Cancer Nurse

The cast of Be the Death of Me includes Aysan Celik, Donnetta Grays, Daoud Heidami, Nina Hellman, Daniel Jenkins, Trey Lyford, Caitlin Miller, Garrett Neergaard, Stephen Plunkett, Brian Sgambati, and Colleen Werthmann.

The Be the Death of Me artistic team consists of Director, Steven Cosson, Project Director, Ian Daniel, Project Manager, Meridith Friedman, Dramaturg, Micharne Cloughley, Artistic Assistant, Leonie Ettinger, Set Design, Mimi Lien, Lighting Design, Lucrecia Briceño, Costume Design, Chloe Chapin, Projection Designer, Jeanette Yew, Associate Director, Mia Rovegno, and Associate Dramaturg, Deepali Gupta.

Tickets are available for $25. Press are invited to attend both performances. For tickets and additional information, visit BeTheDeathOfMe.brownpapertickets.com or call 1-800-838-3006.

BIO________________________________________________________ _______
The Civilians is the center for investigative theater led by Artistic Director Steve Cosson, supporting the development and production of new theater from creative inquiries into the most vital questions of the present. The Civilians expands the scope of American theater and champions innovation by tackling complex and under-explored subjects, enabling artists to enrich their processes through in-depth interaction with their topics, diversifying artistic voices and audiences, and integrating theater with new media. Development often involves community residencies, travel, face-to-face conversations, and extensive research. This high degree of engagement with the public continues into production, inviting the audience to be active participants through ongoing channels of dialogue. The company provides a home for a multidisciplinary group of artists and partners with regional theater and arts presenters in New York, nationally, and internationally.

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