[PORTO]
January 28–March 4, 2018 Off-Broadway Premiere
a co-production with The Bushwick Starr
in association with New Georges
by Kate Benson
directed by Lee Sunday Evans
with Noel Joseph Allain, Kate Benson, Ugo Chukwu, Jorge Cordova, Leah Karpel, and Julia Sirna-Frest
“A stealthily ferocious, comfortingly hopeful, very funny new play. An exhortation to get out of your head and live, in thoughtful pursuit of joy.” –The New York Times
“Laugh-out-loud hilarious.” –New York Magazine
“Hugely worth seeing.” Four Stars! A Critics Pick! –Time Out New York
“Magical, mischievous, and just plan hilarious.” –Theatermania
A woman walks into a bar. Her name is Porto. She’s a regular. She likes this bar: serious food, serious wine, serious bartender–a staple in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood (perhaps Bushwick?). Her friends, her wine, and her artisanal snacks are there; her doubts about being a Modern Woman are put on snooze. A handsome stranger walks in and orders something special. Disruption ensues: an upside-down romantic comedy unfolds inside and outside her head. Desires of all kinds are awakened with a ferocious thump. A nice smile is a nice smile, but can we enjoy the sausage once we know how it’s made?
WP Theater teams up with The Bushwick Starr in association with New Georges to present the Off-Broadway debut of the sold-out hit [PORTO] by Kate Benson and directed by WP Theater Lab Alum Lee Sunday Evans, whose last collaboration, the Obie Award-winning A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes, was a smash success at WP in 2015.
[PORTO] was initially produced by WP Theater Lab Alum Rachel Karpf, John Del Gaudio and The Bushwick Starr, where it received its world premiere in their 2016-17 Season.
Lee Sunday Evans
Lee Sunday Evans (Director) is a two-time Obie Award-winning Director + Choreographer and the Artistic Director of Waterwell. She most recently directed the acclaimed production of Heather Christian’s ORATORIO FOR LIVING THINGS and was just announced as the director of a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of A WRINKLE IN TIME. She is developing a TV project for A24. Notable credits include DANCE NATION by Clare Barron, DETROIT RED by Will Power, SUNDAY by Jack Thorne, IN THE GREEN by Grace McLean, MILLER, MISSISSIPPI by Boo Killebrew, and HOME by Geoff Sobelle. She also directed THE COURTROOM by Arian Moayed (NYTimes Best Theater of 2019) which she just directed as a feature-length film that premiered in the 2022 Tribeca Festival.
Julia Sirna-Frest
Julia Sirna-Frest (she/her) is a performer, composer, director and teaching artist. She has performed at WP Theater (!), The Kitchen, NYTW, BAC, The Incubator, Hartford Stage, Wild Project, The Brooklyn Museum, La MaMa, Abrons Art Center, The New Museum, Mass MoCA, PS 122, Joe’s Pub, The Bushwick Starr and New Dramatists. Directing collaborations with playwright Zoë Geltman: Puffy Hair (The Tank), Sea Fraud (Dixon Place, The Brick), Lolly, Lolly, Lolly (Development at NACL, The Bushwick Starr and New Georges). As a founding member of the Obie winning theater company Half Straddle she has toured to France, Croatia, Portland and Philadelphia with Seagull (thinking of you), In the Pony Palace/Football and Ghost Rings. She composes with Shane Chapman and their work has been at Target Margin, Ars Nova, The Exponential Festival and The Fisher Center. Their first album will be released Jan 2023. She co-fronts Doll Parts, a Dolly Parton Cover Band.
Kate Benson
(Playwright/Narrator) Kate Benson is a writer and actor living in Brooklyn. Plays include: [PORTO] (The Bushwick Starr), A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (Obie winner), (New Georges with the Women’s Project Theater), Super Magic Wild Forest (Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission), and Desert (for Now). She has an MFA from the Brooklyn College Playwriting program. Performances include: I’ll Never Love Again (Bushwick Starr), Tiger, Tiger (on the Nature of Violence) (Dixon Place), Fondly, Collette Richland (Elevator Repair Service at NYTW), Nomads (the Incubator), Good Person of Szechwan (the Public & LaMama), and home/sick (the Assembly).
Noel Joseph Allain
(Doug the Bartender) Noel Joseph Allain is the Founding Artistic Director of the Bushwick Starr Theater. New York credits include [Porto], Heartbreak, the food was terrible, On a Clear Day I Can See to Elba, Jericho, Luft Gangster, Queerspawn , Motel Cherry, How Much Is Enough, The Wife, Sa Ka La, Tender, and Now That Communism is Dead, My Life Feels Empty. Regional credits include Asher in My Name Is Asher Lev (Cleveland Playhouse), Tom in The Glass Menagerie (Arizona Theater Company), Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (Playmakers Rep), and Transition with Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith (On the Boards). Awards: Indie Theater Award for Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role for Luft Gangster and Xammie for Best Male Actor for The Glass Menagerie. TV: Blue Bloods, Law and Order:SVU, Damages, Guiding Light. FILM: The Outpatient, Marcy, InContact TRAINING: Juilliard
Ugo Chukwu
(Raphael the Waiter) Ugo Chukwu‘s Recent credits include Today is My Birthday (Page 73), Ripcord (Huntington Theater in Boston), Adventure Quest (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), [PORTO] (Bushwick Starr) and Minor Character: Six Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time (New Saloon; NYIT award winner – BEST ENSEMBLE). Ugo has also been in numerous readings, and workshops with various companies such as Target Margin, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater, The Flea, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, EST, and more. BFA at Brooklyn College. www.ugochukwuactor.com
Jorge Cordova
(Hennepin) Theater: Porto (Bushwick Starr, upcoming: Women’s Project/New Georges), Universal Robots (Gideon Productions/Sheen Center), Lady Day (The Little Shubert), Family Play: 1979 – Present (Collaboration Town), Bonedive Scrounger (The Brick). Television: “Seven Seconds” (Netflix, Fall 2017), “Blue Bloods” (CBS), “Madame Secretary” (CBS). Film: “The Visit”.
Leah Karpel
(Dry Sac) Off-Broadway: The Harvest (LCT3); Pocatello(Playwrights Horizons); Porto (Bushwick Starr). Regional: Miller Mississippi (Dallas Theatre Center); Residence (Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival); Appropriate, The Whale, We Are Proud to Present…(Victory Gardens Theatre); Buena Vista, The Glass Menagerie, The Hot L Baltimore (Steppenwolf Theatre); The Diary Of Anne Frank (Writers Theatre); The Commons of Pensacola (Northlight Theatre); 4000 Miles (Long Wharf Theatre); Punk Rock (Griffin Theatre); Ten Chimneys (Milwaukee Repertory). Film/TV: Chicago Med; Patriot; Olympia.
The Bushwick Starr
The Bushwick Starr is an Obie Award-winning nonprofit theater that presents an annual Season of new performance work. We are an organization defined by both our artists and our community, and since 2007, we have grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performance. We provide a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and we are a sanctuary where established performance companies come to experiment and innovate. Our past Seasons have included new work from groundbreaking artists such as The Mad Ones, Clare Barron, Dave Malloy, The Debate Society, the TEAM, and Half Straddle.
“The work they program is boldly experimental. It’s also a lot of fun… a bright spot on the Off Off Broadway map” – New York Times
“A home for gutsy experimental work.” – 2012 Village Voice OBIE Award for Outstanding Work
“Brooklyn’s hottest incubator. One of New York’s best-curated off-off venues.” – Time Out New York
New Georges
New Georges, founded in 1992, is a strategically small theater company with a national reputation as a productive home and launchpad for exuberantly theatrical women artists – individually, as collaborators, and as a community. We cultivate our boundary-pushing aesthetic in a nimble, artist-driven production environment: committing to projects early on, equipping them with processes rooted in strong collaborations, and providing steady artistic support. We serve and sustain the largest ongoing working community of women theater artists in New York City — more than 200 playwrights, directors, actors and designers – with premiere productions; play and artist development programs (such as the New Georges Jam and the Audrey Residencies); and The Room, our permanent workspace and the year-round hub of our activities. Our 22-year commitment to providing our artists with free or low-cost workspace in The Room is unique among small theaters and has incubated thousands of new plays.
Honors for New Georges, our plays and our people include 3 Obie Awards, the Lilly Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn and Kesselring Prizes. And the influx of New Georges artists into the field over the last 25 years has had marked impact on the representation of women nationwide in theater, film, television and arts education.
