“Cold Sweat” Comes to Atwater Village

LOS ANGELES - June 3, 2015 - PRLog -- Uranium Madhouse, LA’s most fissionable theater cabal will present “Cold Sweat,” a play by Neal Bell at Atwater Village Theatre, June 12 to June 28.

Loosely based on events in the life of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer in near-death studies, “Cold Sweat” explores end-of-life issues from the point-of-view of those who are in the process of dying as well as the point-of-view of their survivors.

The play follows the journey of physician Alice Franklin, from her experience in a Field Surgical Unit in Vietnam to her rise as best-selling author advocating truthfulness in doctor/patient relations to her reunion with deceased loved ones.

Though written nearly 30 years ago, the play’s themes remain topical. Legislation for end-of-life options, inspired by the Brittany Maynard case, has recently received greater public support, while high-profile debates of spirituality vs. scientific reasoning increasingly influence public policy. Uranium Madhouse Artistic Director, Andrew Wood, who is also the play’s director, believes that, with the recent media attention, audiences will be ready for the subject matter, especially with the leavening raw humor and wit that author Neal Bell brings to bear on the proceedings. Wood says, “The characters bring their acerbic wits with them as they constantly scramble to contend with changed realities.  It's a play in which the ground beneath your feet dissolves with alarming frequency.”

Wood also says of the material, “Bell’s remarkable play finds humor in the unlikeliest places, even as it pitches our modern scientific skepticism against its eternal nemesis —  faith. The play is a veritable cabinet of curiosities, complete with a rogue eyeball, a lifesaving dummy, a toe-tagged body covered in a sheet that startles by sitting up, and a jar of malodorous flesh of indeterminate provenance. All of this makes the play a far different kind of experience than a summary of its plot points might suggest — it's more than meets the eyeball.”

Alice Franklin will be played by Eve Danzeisen.  Also in the cast are Renee Buck, Durant Fowler, David Fruechting, Natasha Malinsky, John Moskal, Christopher Reiling, Ryan Shogren, Grant Smith, and Perry Smith.

Commissioned in 1987 by South Coast Repertory, the Uranium Madhouse production will be the first time “Cold Sweat” will be performed for Los Angeles audiences.

“Cold Sweat” opens June 12 and will be performed Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm, until June 28th at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. Los Angeles, 90039 in Atwater Village. Tickets are now available through Brown Paper Tickets at ColdSweat.BrownPaperTickets.com or UraniumMadhouse.org/tickets. Tickets are $20 when purchased online. Tickets will be $25 at the door, cash only. In addition to plentiful street parking, free parking is available in a lot on the site.

Uranium Madhouse is a Los Angeles-based theater company founded in 2011 as a place for “madness – for passionate vitality and radical freedom from constraint.” For more information about the company as well as a complete list of the company’s Advisory Board and Associate Artists, visit www.uraniummadhouse.org