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Synapse Productions To Present

There Goes The Neighborhood

Written by Mari Brown

Performed by Deanna Pacelli

Directed by Mari Brown and David Travis

May 12th through May 29th

At Performance Space 122, 150 First Avenue

April 18, 2005

Synapse Productions continues their fifth season with THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD.  The one-woman play by Mari Brown will be directed by Ms. Brown and David Travis (Animal Farm, The God Botherers) and performed by Deanna Pacelli.  Performances at Performance Space 122 (P.S. 122) will begin on Thursday, May 12th and will continue through Sunday, May 29th.

Deanna Pacelli and Mari Brown moved to Smith Street the year it became known as "Brooklyn's Restaurant Row."  Being starving artists, they naturally started bartending on the Row to make ends meet.  They soon realized there was more to the Row – and the rapidly gentrifying Carroll Gardens – than met the eye.  Customers and neighbors gave them earfuls of opinions: many were vehemently against the change, many were passionately for the change; everyone had something to say.  Mari and Deanna knew they had a play on their hands.

Four years, dozens of interviews, and hundreds of conversations later, THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD emerged – a one-woman show based on the words and views of the people of Carroll Gardens, who offer an insider's look at the phenomenon of gentrification in New York City.

In the play, a diverse array of residents – including an Italian deli owner, a Latina teenager, a gay yuppie activist, a hip-hop Deejay and an Asian nightclub owner – explain how a once Italian working-class community went from “crack to baguettes” in less than a decade.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD was produced in 2003 at Quench, a Carroll Gardens bar.  Featured on the cover of the Metro section of The New York Times on November 14th, 2003, the first engagement of this show led Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to declare December 13 “There Goes the Neighborhood Day!”

Deanna Pacelli (performer) is a graduate of New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing. She has performed in various theatres in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as in Chicago and San Francisco.  Mari Brown (playwright and co-director) is the founder of Little Red Writing Group, a writers' collective which was recently featured on ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and written about in the New York Observer and Forbes magazine.  David Travis (co-director) has directed several shows for Synapse Productions, including the American Premiere of The God Botherers by Richard Bean, the Drama Desk Award-nominated Animal Farm (the Puppet Musical), The Chicago Conspiracy Trial at the Culture Project and his own multi-media retranslation of Euripides’ The Phoenician Women at the Ohio Theater.

Synapse Productions, now in its fifth season, has gained a reputation for producing challenging and provocative plays that address contemporary cultural issues and get people talking. The New York Times said of the Drama Desk Award-nominated Orwell Project: “There is nothing more socially relevant on the boards in New York.”

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD will begin performances on Thursday, May 12th and will continue through Sunday, May 29th.  Performances will be Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 5:00pm.  Tickets will be $15, $12 tickets for students and seniors are available at the box office.  Tickets may be purchased by calling 212–477–5288, or online at www.synapseproductions.org.  Photos will be available for download at www.brettsinger.com/clients/synapse05.html.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Written by Mari Brown

Performed by Deanna Pacelli

Directed by Mari Brown and David Travis

At P.S. 122, 150 First Avenue (at East 9th Street)

SCHEDULE: Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00pm, Sundays at 5:00pm

Thursday, May 12th through Sunday, May 29th

TICKETS: $15, $12 for students and seniors; Call 212–477–5288 or visit www.synapseproductions.org

 

311 West 43rd Street, Suite #1107                                                                          phone:             (212)307-7181

New York, NY 10036                                                                                                        Fax:               (212)307-7178