The Echo Theater Company Presents
the West Coast Premiere of …
  
BODY POLITIC
Written by Jessica Goldberg
Directed by Chris Fields
          
                           OPENS SATURDAY, JULY 26
 AT THE ZEPHYR THEATRE IN WEST HOLLYWOOD!


May 28, 2008…West Hollywood…The Echo Theater Company is proud to present the West Coast premiere of a new play by acclaimed playwright Jessica Goldberg, BODY POLITIC, which will be directed by Echo Theater Artistic Director Chris Fields (Anon, Melancholy Play).  BODY POLITIC will preview on Thursday, July 24 and Friday, July 25 and will open on Saturday, July 26 at 8:00pm and run for five weeks through Sunday, August 24 at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., 90046, in West Hollywood.

Wendy Hoffman is a screenwriter determined to gain access to Ward 57 of Walter Reed Hospital, the ward where soldiers who have suffered cataclysmic injuries in Iraq recover. Captain Gray Whitlock is the Army captain in charge who denies her access. Private Small is a patient on the ward who wants to die. And the studio executive, Eric, just wants a screenplay. What occurs between all of them, in Jessica Goldberg’s BODY POLITIC, is the surprising and poignant story of what can happen when people with deep commitments and beliefs come to recognize each other’s humanity.                                              
ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

JESSICA GOLDBERG (Playwright) Plays include: Get What You Need which was commissioned by The Atlantic Theater Company (NY); Sex Parasite which received a grant from the NEA, and recently premiered at The Mark Taper Forum’s Taper TOO; Good Thing, The Mark Taper Forum Taper TOO (LA), The New Group (Off-Broadway). Refuge, which premiered at Playwrights’ Horizons (Off-Broadway, NY), won the 1999 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and has had many subsequent productions including The Schaubuehne (West Berlin); The Hologram Theory, and Stuck. Her plays have been translated into German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Catalan; and are published by Dramatists Play Service Inc., Vintage Press and Smith and Krauss.  Jessica is a graduate of NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program and The Juilliard School.  She was a Tennessee Williams Fellow at The University of the South, a recipient of The Le Compte de Nouy stipend, the first annual Helen Merrill Award, and a 2,000 Berrilla Kerr Foundation Award.  She has been a resident at The O’Neill, New River Dramatists, Colony 3, 10 and 11, is a member of The Dramatist Guild and PEN American Center.

Jessica’s pilot “The Prince of Motor City” is in production at ABC.  Her film work includes “Upstate,” “Absent Hearts” with Imagine & Film 44, an adaptation of the film “Since Otar Left” for Vertigo and “The Amadou Ly Story” for Kennedy/Marshall.

CHRIS FIELDS (Director) is a Los Angeles-based director, teacher, and actor who is currently the artistic director of the award-winning Echo Theater Company, which he founded in 1997.  Most recently, he directed the world premiere of Kate Robin’s What They Have at South Coast Repertory along with the Lost Angels premiere of Robin’s Anon, the Los Angeles premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play, the world premiere of Paul Zimmerman's Pigs and Bugs, and the world premiere of Eat Me by Jacqueline Wright, which was nominated for six LA Weekly Awards including Best Director. He produced the Echo production of Bryan Davidson's War Music at the Los Angeles Theater Center, which won three Ovation Awards including one for Best Premiere Play and one for Best Ensemble. Chris founded and was Artistic Director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference from 1996 to 2000. Additionally, as a director, he's worked with and staged plays by Adam Rapp, Christopher Durang, Ellen McLaughlin, Napoleon Ellsworth, Padraic Duffy, Bernardo Solano, Deborah Prior, Neal Bell, Kira Obolensky, David Lindsay-Abaire, Herman Daniel Farrell III, and Quincy Long, among many others.  His work in film includes his adaptation of Neal Bell’s “Out the Window,” which he produced and directed, and his recent short “Sunnyslope,” which was awarded Best New York Film at the New York Film and Video Festival and nominated for Best in Fest at the Great Lakes Film Festival.
 
The cast of BODY POLITIC will feature: Kristina Lear, Michael James Reed, Samantha Shelton and Jeremy Maxwell.

The set design is by Torry Bend. The lighting design is by Ian Garrett. The sound design is by Fionnegan Murphy. The costume design is by Audrey Eisner. 

BODY POLITIC will preview on Thursday, July 24 and Friday, July 25 at 8pm and will open Saturday, July 26, 2008 and run for five weeks through Sunday, August 24. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 7pm at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood.  Ticket prices are $20.00 ($5.00 discount for students, seniors and 4-A union members). Tickets are available by calling 800-413-8669 or by visiting www.echotheatercompany.com.