Another Roadside Performance Company
Eric
Bogosian's
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Another Roadside Performance Company
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About The Play
First presented as part of Lincoln Center Theatre Company's Festival of New American Plays, subUrbia is "...one of those rare must-sees.... Bogosian's themes cover escape and re-invention, the American Dream...and the American Nightmare" (NY Post).
The parking lot of a convenience store is the private domain of three men in
their very early twenties. JEFF is a sometime student, BUFF an easy-going
party animal, and Tim an alcoholic Air Force vet. They talk trash, harass
the Middle Eastern owner of the store, and revel in their high school glory
days. They drink beer, get high, eat Oreos. JEFF deals with his girl
friend SOOZE, BUFF tries to make it with her friend BEE-BEE. The focal
point of this evening is the appearance in town of PONY, once the class joke,
now with a band that has a video on MTV, a black limo, and a hot PR rep named
ERICA. Fascination with his success soon transforms into jealousy, then
flowers into bitter anger as the building tension among friends turns into
violence. As the next day dawns, some in the group have found their way
out of suburbia while the rest are left to deal with a tragedy that could have
been any of them.
The Players
Another Roadside
Performance Company (ARPC) is a brand new, highly motivated company of very
young (20-25) artists and technicians working together, with unbridled passion,
pride, and honesty, to produce a play that challenges the impossible dreams and
hopeless realities of their discounted generation.
The producer is Robert Lee Simmons, a 20-year-old midwestern transplant who,
appalledby the paucity of opportunity for Charlotte's young adult performers,
decided to provide one. By early August he had picked the script, gathered
a small core of talented friends (Corrie Throckmorton, Ben Hutchins, Joe Smith,
Ryan Miller, Robin Russo), and launched a campaign to develop awarenesss and
support. Since then, the troupe has expanded to more than twenty
members--not counting the nine bands that have volunteered performances to raise
funds--and word has spread throughout the under-thirty world. (You may
have seen their innovative and disquieting flyers or the in-your-face yellow '86
Crown Victoria with "Follow Me to subUrbia" on the trunk.)
They've also created their own "black box" rehearsal/office space
above two storefronts on North Davidson Street, and earned the respect and
admiration of both the business and the arts communities. Not bad at all
for a generation of "slackers."
The stage director is Michael Simmons (yes, Rob's dad), a screenwriter,
producer, ex-airline pilot, and one-time theatre owner. Under his
experienced leadership the troupe has built the entire production, from casting
to box office, and is prepared to knock the socks off audiences in
November.