January 10, 2017
For immediate release:
The Catastrophic Theatre
presents
Trevor
by Nick Jones
February 10th – March 4th, 2017
Presented @
The MATCH, 3400 Main Street
Thursday, Friday and Saturday @ 8 pm
Starring
Kyle Sturdivant &
Carolyn Johnson
with
Elizabeth Marshall Black, Ronnie Blaine, Jeanne Harris, Jeff Miller and Charlie Scott.
Directed by Tamarie Cooper
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“Plays like Sylvia and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo have found humor in animals speaking like humans. But in Trevor, the laughs (and there are many) have an edge. Imagine the frustration of not being able to accurately communicate with the person closest to you, the one you depend on most. It’s the kind of thing that happens on an emotional level in human relationships all the time, but by using this theatrical conceit, the stakes heighten.” —Jason Zinoman, The New York Times
Inspired by the true story of a woman attacked by a 200-pound pet chimpanzee, Trevor finds pathos, poignancy and, perhaps surprisingly, riotous humor by seeing the world through the animal’s eyes. The play is also a biting satire of show business since Trevor, the chimpanzee, once starred on stage and screen (including a commercial with ’80s icon Morgan Fairchild) and now overestimates how much the human world might be clamoring for his comeback. Trevor is a startlingly original comic creation: a moody jerk of an ape who’s lovable mostly because he’s so misunderstood but who can also be alternately ominous and heartbreaking. We all misunderstand the world around us in various ways, and the world often misunderstands us. Trevor goes beyond the simple humor of “monkeys don’t understand—haha!” and offers real insight into the ways we all get confused in life: about love, about success, about what matters.
By making a humanized animal the center of the play, Nick Jones—a writer for the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black—raises fascinating questions about what it means to be human, how much of ourselves we need to continually repress in order to live among other people, and what mortality means to us. In the relationship between Trevor and his “mom,” Sandra, we experience the pure and potentially devastating love that a person can feel for an animal and vice versa. Trevor manages a unique balancing act between the comedy of miscommunication and self-delusion on the one hand and the tension created by a frustrated and potentially dangerous animal living among humans on the other. The result is something quite uncommon: a laugh-out-loud comedy that is also genuinely suspenseful and deeply sad.
Directed by The Catastrophic Theatre’s associate director Tamarie Cooper, Trevor features Catastrophic veteran Kyle Sturdivant in the title role, Houston favorite Carolyn Johnson as Trevor’s “mom” Sandra, plus Jeff Miller, Charlie Scott, Jeanne Harris, Ronnie Blaine, and Elizabeth Marshall Black as Morgan Fairchild.
As with every Catastrophic Theatre production all tickets are available on a sliding scale according to what each audience member can afford. As it has been for years now, everyone is welcome regardless of ability to pay and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
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About the Playwright
Nick Jones is a performer and writer for theater, television and film. His most recent play is the critically acclaimed Trevor. His previous play The Coward was produced at Lincoln Center/LTC3, where it was nominated for 4 Lortel Awards (winning two) and is now being made into a motion picture. His show Jollyship the Whiz-Bang at Ars Nova, a puppet rock musical about pirates, also received an extended critically acclaimed run, and was subsequently revived for the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater.
Other plays include: Salome of the Moon (PPAS Performing Arts High School), The Wundelsteipen (the Flea), Little Building (Galapagos Art Space), Straight Up Vampire: A History of Vampires in Colonial Pennsylvania as Performed to the Music of Paula Abdul (Philladelphia Fringe Festival, Joe’s Pub), The Nosemaker’s Apprentice (The Brick, with Rachel Shukert), The Sporting Life (Studio 42 at the Vineyard Theater, also with Shukert), and The Colonists, a puppet work for children.
Mr. Jones was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He earned his Literature/Creative Writing BA from Bard College and a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting degree from Juilliard, where he was a two-time winner of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize. He has received theater commissions from Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, The Old Globe, Manhattan Theater Club, The Huntington Theatre Company, Center Theater Group, and South Coast Repertory.
Mr. Jones currently lives in Los Angeles, where he is a writer and co-producer for the critically-acclaimed Netflix series Orange is the New Black, which has garnered numerous accolades, including Writer’s Guild Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy nominations.
More at nickjonesland.com
Contact:
For more information about the production, visit catastrophictheatre.com or contact Paul Brockman at 713-522-2723 or paul.brockman@catastrophictheatre.com
For tickets and venue information, visit matchouston.org or call The MATCH’s box office at 713-521-4533
Tickets to all performances are: Pay-What-You-Can • We Suggest $35 • More If You Have It • Less If You Don’t