Following the success of their critically acclaimed production of Jesus Hopped the A Train (2012 Gregory Award and Gypsy Lee Rose Award winners), Seattle theatre company Azeotrope has announced the Northwest premiere of Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph, directed by Desdemona Chiang. Gruesome Playground Injuries opens Friday, July 19, 2013 at The Little Theatre in Capitol Hill and performs through Sunday, August 11, 2013. Scroll down for a first look at the lead actors!
Gruesome Playground Injuries follows the decades-spanning relationship of an accident-prone daredevil and a corrosive masochist who navigate friendship, love, and the wounds created in between. Doug (Richard Nguyen Sloniker) and Kayleen (Amanda Zarr) first meet in the nurse’s office at the age of eight: Doug rode his bike off the roof and Kayleen can’t stop throwing up. Over the course of the next 30 years, their lives continue to intersect at the most bizarre intervals and places, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.
Gruesome Playground Injuries features performances by Richard Nguyen Sloniker (Jesus Hopped the A Train, Boeing Boeing, Red Light Winter, The Cider House Rules) and visiting artist Amanda Zarr (Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night [at Shakespeare Orange County]). The creative team includes scenic design by Deanna Zibello (Jesus Hopped the A Train, Artifacts of Consequence), lighting design by Jessica Trundy (Taming of the Shrew, Jesus Hopped the A Train), costume design by Christine Tschirgi (Pirates of Penzance, Red Light Winter), and sound design by Evan Mosher (The Bells, This Land|Woody Guthrie, Cryptogram).
Co-founded by Seattle actor Richard Nguyen Sloniker and director Desdemona Chiang, Azeotrope’s mission is to create a space where audiences confront the marginalized and obscured, bringing visibility to the invisible. We hope to broaden Seattle’s cultural and artistic environment with vital, urgent, and exciting projects that would otherwise be underrepresented. Recipient of the 2012 Gregory Award for Outstanding Production and the Gypsy Lee Rose Award for Excellence in Production of a Play for Jesus Hopped the A Train. For more information, visit www.azotheatre.org. Azeotrope can also be found on Facebook and Twitter (@AZOtheatre).
Performances will run in The Little Theatre, 608 19th Avenue East, Seattle July 19 – August 11, 2013. Tickets: $25, online at http://azo-gpi.brownpapertickets.com.
