Fool for Love is arguably the hippest love story to hit the stage in three decades…yet recent renditions have lacked the comedy needed to lighten the weighty themes this play provides. We prefer to take it one step further into the brutal surrealism the play already offers. The characters in our version of Fool for Love are just that, characters. We see the play as an oft times amusing fight, not an opportunity for soul-searching pragmatism. Face it: violent, tumultuous relationships are often times sexy and our human experience with love is often times opposed to social convention. Hence, we offer a pulp version of Fool for Love. Once the Living Theater heard our vision and agreed that Sam Shepard was one of our most esteemed American playwrights, they happily agreed to co-present our revival of Fool for Love. Our rendition is joyful, sexy and mean. We hope you will join us for this knock-down, drag ‘em out fight!

FOOL FOR LOVE features Katie Bender, Kevin Shaffer, Bill Weeden, and Jonathan Wilde.

The creative team for FOOL FOR LOVE includes David Rosar (PSM), Alessandra Williams-Bellotti (SM), William G. McGarvey (Scenic Designer), Justin Zalkin (Sound Designer), Tod Michaels (Costume Designer), Christina Watanabe (Lighting Designer), and Dan Zisson (Fight Choreographer).

The production, produced by The Bull, will play at The Living Theatre  (21 Clinton Street) March 4-22, Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Tickets ($25) are available online

Next up from The Bull: Katie Bender’s A Night at the Magician. Coming to SoHo Rep, Fall 2009.

KATIE BENDER

Katie Bender is a playwright and performer. Recent theater credits include the premier of “This is a Cowboy Poem my Daddy Taught me” which she wrote and performed in; NYTheater.com called the “lyricism of the play remarkable” and that “Bender’s [character] is a delicate and soulful gift”. Regionally she has performed with The Rude Mech’s in Austin Texas, with The Hudson Shakespeare Company and The Electric Lodge in Los Angeles. Katie is currently writing her next bit of big theater, working title “A Night at The Magician”. BFA/NYU.

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KEVIN SHAFFER

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BILL WEEDEN

Bill Weeden played The Boy’s Father in the final cast of the record-breaking 42-year run of The Fantasticks at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. He has appeared in Shakespeare (Much Ado, Midsummer’s, Two Gents, As You Like It), the two “horror” musicals (Little Shop and Rocky), Sam Shepard (States of Shock, The Unseen Hand) Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman), and John Guare (The House of Blue Leaves). Bill began his career as a writer of comedy and comic songs, creating material for such performers as Lily Tomlin, Carol Channing, Dick Shawn, Madeline Kahn, Bud Cort, and Stiller & Meara. As part of the trio Weeden, Finkle & Fay, he carved an impressive career in corporate entertainment for Fortune 500 companies throughout the 1980s, and was a resident commentator on the PBS-TV staple Adam Smith’s Money World. Weeden is the current co-host of “Doc Day” on Sundance Channel, and has himself been featured in a host of independent films, including the cult classic Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., in which he portrays the evilest man in the galaxy.

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JONATHAN WILDE

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The Bull and art.les.nyc studios are pleased to present, “Luchadores Match!!!“,

FREE TAMALES will be  given out during the match!  All proceeds from “Luchadores Match!!!”  go to The Bull,
an entertainment group dedicated to making and promoting theater through  and for the downtown nightlife scene, and their upcoming production of Fool for Love, a play by Sam Shepard.