Comedy Play "Fearless Moral Inventory" Re-Opens to Critical Demand

Oct. 27, 2011 - PRLog -- FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY:  12-step Walk Up
OPENS NOVEMBER 20, 2011
AT STAGE LEFT STUDIO, 214 W. 30th Street, 6th Floor

Written and performed by FRANK BLOCKER
Directed by KATHY KELLY CHRISTOS
Set Design by EDWARD MORRIS
Coaching by AMY JONES
Produced by CHERYL KING PRODUCTIONS and E-MERGING WRITERS

FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY, starring Drama Desk Award-nominee and celebrated monologist Frank Blocker, begins performances November 6 for (at least) a month of Sundays at Stage Left Studio (214 W 30th St., 6th Floor), 5:00 pm curtain.  The play ran for 15 performances earlier this year while still in the final phases of development where New York Press declared that “Anyone who hasn’t seen one of Blocker’s multi-character solo shows should buy tickets now.”  The Examiner went as far as to say that Blocker is an “actor/writer extraordinaire” and that the play “should be nominated for a Pulitzer for the unique way it views life.”
The play features 23 characters centering on a 5-floor walk-up apartment building in New York City, ruled by a vindictive landlord.  Next door to a church (“for Christ’s sake”) where 12-step programs are a regular occurrence, each character must face change in a changing world.  Blocker formulated the show from actual conversations and overheard diatribes from around New York City—from the Biblically-challenged Baptist preacher screaming from the radio of a babbling Jewish cab driver with a Russian accent, to the septuagenarian sex addict in recovery and her murderous landlord on a crusade.  “Sometimes I think my job as a playwright is to be a recorder.  Whether I agree with them or not, I should report what was said.  When in doubt, stay closest to the truth.”  Blocker says the intention of the play was to introduce the likeable along with the most irritating of City characters so that audiences might return home from the theatre with more empathy for their fellow man, having walked in their shoes and listened to their agendas.
“What it became is an in-depth look at issues we face in a world that’s constantly in flux.  But as much fun as character-driven stand-up comedy.”  Says director Kathy Kelly Christos.
“I used characters I knew and met to create the cast, but the plotline is based on my own nightmare with a typical City landlord.  When I found out just how un-unique this is here, I realized, ‘I have something universal!’”
Producer Cheryl King snatched up the property for a run in her edgy, up-and-coming theatre, “Frank did more than 30 performances of his last show, Southern Gothic Novel.  I never missed a show.”  King directed Blocker and hopes to bring Novel back for special performances.  “I would like to see Fearless sprout legs, and I hope to keep Frank on my stage as much as possible.  He’s one of New York’s best kept secrets.”  King’s Stage Left Studio, one block south of Penn Station, has been garnering substantial critical praise as well.  The New York Theatre Experience stated, “On view at Stage Left is the very best New York theater has to offer.”
Blocker first came to New York in 2001 with an off-Broadway show he co-wrote— crowd-pleaser and a critical darling Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle—and has been working with playwrights and creating new work ever since.  Helming the E-Merging Writers collective, the group created three volumes of work by new playwrights called Stage THIS!  As an actor, he won a 2009 Drama Desk Award nomination for his Solo Performance in Southern Gothic Novel: The Aberdeen-Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident, which he also penned.  More recently, he appeared off-Broadway in last year’s Deep Throat Sex Scandal, lauded for his dynamic portrayals of multiple characters and his monologue skills.
“And now I have four women ruling over me in a one-man show.”  Blocker eludes to the coincidence of being produced, directed, and coached by four different women for his solo show.  In addition to King as producer and Christos in the directing chair, FEARLESS has the assistance of acting coach Amy Jones for help with vocal stress and characterization, and director and dramaturge Helena Gleissner worked through the initial development process.  “I turn down no help.  Especially quality like these ladies bring.  Besides, no one does a solo show alone.”
Set design is by Edward Morris, costume design by Murray Scott Changar, and sound design by Elizabeth Barudin.  
FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY is produced by Cheryl King Productions in association with E-Merging Writers.  Press previews begin Nov 6, and OPENING NIGHT is Nov 20.  SUNDAYS at 5:00 pm.  
SHOWS:  Nov 6@5 pm   -   Nov 13@5pm   -   Nov 20@5pm is Opening Night

BIOGRAPHIES
FRANK BLOCKER (playwright, actor) Plays include Southern Gothic Novel (Drama Desk Award nomination), Good Jew (with M.S. Changar), off-Broadway hit Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait & Tackle (Quintero Theatre), The Wisconsinners (Dubuque Fine Arts Center), Patient Number (Inner Voices Social Issues Play Winner), Suite Atlanta (Fn Productions/78th Street Studio Theatre), Kiss and Fade (Short Attention Span Play Festival, Boston), Air Marshals (in development with co-author Captain James Blocker, Oklahoma City Fire Dept), and Alice with composer William Wade (York Theatre Development Series, Emerging Artists). Frank has edited five books in print including Tatyana Nazarenko: Family Portrait (A. Gertsman) exploring the Russian Jewish experience, sci-fi novel The Slaves of Votarus (Changar), and the three volume series Stage THIS! He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America and a member of Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and AFTRA.  As an actor, he appeared on Law & Order:SVU and in the off-Broadway hit The Deep Throat Sex Scandal (“Blocker delivers.” – Backstage Magazine) most recently.  Short films include Lester and Maryam, Red Moonflower Blooming, and The Anniversary.  NY stage roles include Mortimer in Brecht's Edward II, Roderick Usher in Steven Berkoff's Fall of the House of Usher, the "last Don" in The Don Quixote Project, Mr. Peachum in The Beggar's Opera, and as a prisoner on the streets in the Obie-winning West Village/East Village Fragments.  

KATHY KELLY CHRISTOS (director) began her professional theatrical career on-stage in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She took a turn as a professor in the Theatre Arts Department at Cameron University, teaching stage movement and dance to actors, choreographing and performing. The recurring dream of being on stage led Kathy to leave the world of academia and return professionally in numerous regional theatres as an actress, dancer, and choreographer in Anything Goes (Reno Sweeney), Sugar Babies, Of Thee I Sing (Mary Turner) , The Man Who Came to Dinner (Maggie Cutler) and many others.  Since coming to New York, she has appeared in, co-produced and directed several Off-Broadway productions by The Infinite Space Theatre Company and others, and has worked in TV and film. Most recently, she co-directed and choreographed the Rock Garden production of Below the Belt with Larry Preston, appeared as Brona in Eugene Grygo’s Brona and Alberto at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and performed the role of Queen Isolde of Ireland in the world premier of Tristan & Isolde in the 2010 International Fringe Festival.  Kathy is a movement and acting teacher specializing in whole-body characterization.

CHERYL KING PRODUCTIONS (producer) was formed in 2000 by Cheryl King, working out of Stage Left Studio, a boutique theatre for solo performance.

E-MERGING WRITERS (producer) is  a NYC-based theatre collective.

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FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY – http://www.fearlessmoralinventory.com
STAGE LEFT STUDIO – http://www.stageleftstudio.net
PUBLICIST – Ken Allen Publicity – kenallenpublicity@gmail.com
PROMO VIDEOS on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/emergingwriters

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E-Merging Writers is a collective of theatre artists seeking to promote playwrights and new works. Artists include playwrights, writers, composers, directors, producers and actors. Founded in 1994, the group publishes and produces new plays.