QUICK SERVICE

by MAY TREUHAFT-ALI
Directed by CRISTINA ANGELES

FRIDAY, MAR 3 | 2 PM 
Reception to follow

QUICK SERVICE is a play about the precarities of food service, set in an empanada shop in Chicago. Four employees try to make it through the dinner rush as something sinister rises up from the basement, ex-coworkers enact their revenge, and the oven has a mind of its own.

MCC Theater’s development programs, PlayLabs and the recently announced SongLabs, help foster the MCC artistic community by providing writers intensive dramaturgical support, as well as the opportunity to work alongside professional directors and actors to engage public audiences in the development of new work. The series incorporates informal post-show gatherings for conversation between artists and audiences that enliven and stimulate the often solitary and insular writing and development process.

New work developed as part of PlayLabs have gone on to full productions at MCC, as well as at other nonprofit theaters in New York and overseas, adding vibrant new works to the contemporary theatrical canon.

We are excited to embark on this partnership with THE MOVEMENT THEATRE COMPANY this year, including a developmental workshop and staged reading to lift up this work and this phenomenal team of artists.

CAST

ANGELA: Yadira Guevara-Prip
PETEY: Booker Vance
GREG: Nate Miller
VASH: Nikita Tewani

Stage Directions: Gina Fonseca
 
Stage Manager: Kyra Button

BIOS

MAY TREUHAFT-ALI (PLAYWRIGHT) is a playwright, director, and dramaturg. Her play ABCD had its world premiere at Barrington Stage Company in July, and her play Escapegoat had a workshop production at Boston Court Pasadena in November. She is the 22-23 Van Lier New Voices Fellow at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a member of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and an alumna of Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group and The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship. She is under commission at Barrington Stage Company and South Coast Repertory. She also served as Associate Director on the world premiere of SHHHH by Clare Barron at Atlantic Theater Company. May is the Literary and Community Engagement Assistant at Playwrights Horizons, and a former server at an empanada restaurant.

CRISTINA ANGELES (DIRECTOR) is an Afrolatina director, writer, and theater maker who develops new plays, musicals, and socially conscious adaptations of classics that place women of color at the forefront. She has been awarded the 20-21 Drama League Directing Fellowship, the 19-20 Roundabout Directing Fellowship, and has associate directed on and off Broadway. 

Today, Cristina is an Associate Artist at Roundabout Theatre Company and the Founding Artistic Director of Checkmark Productions, an NYC based company dedicated to artists of color and their stories. Recent credits include QUEEN OF BASEL (Theaterworks Hartford), and INTO THE WOODS (Pace University).

Up next, Cristina will be directing Sophocles’s ANTIGONE, translated by Anne Carson, at Pace University and overseeing the national tour of Charles Fuller’s A SOLDIER’S PLAY directed by Kenny Leon. More at www.cristinaangeles.com

THE MOVEMENT THEATRE COMPANY creates an artistic social movement by developing and producing herculean new works by artists of color. Under the leadership of David Mendizábal, Deadria Harrington, Eric Lockley, and Ryan Dobrin, our work engages a multicultural audience in a rich theatrical dialogue, enlightens communities to the important issues affecting our world, and empowers artists to celebrate the many sides of their unique voice. Founded in 2007, The Movement has established itself as an artistic staple in the NYC theatre community and was awarded a 2019 Obie Award Grant. Our 2018 production of What to Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White, received critical praise and recognition (2019 Drama Desk Award nomination), increased the visibility of those affected by racially-motivated violence, and challenged the limitations of a theatrical experience. What to Send Up When It Goes Down recently completed a tour to Woolly Mammoth Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, and The Public’s Under The Radar Festival. Additional past production successes include Harrison David Rivers’ And She Would Stand Like This, choreographed by Kia LaBeija, and Look Upon Our Lowliness, both directed by David Mendizábal, and breakout NYTimes lauded production of Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé, translated by Chantal Bilodeau, directed by David Mendizábal. Past programming successes included the Ladder Series touring production of Hope Speaks as well as numerous Harlem Nights events, which have featured work by playwrights Dominique Morriseau, Christina Anderson, and Colman Domingo, as well as actors Danielle Brooks, Xosha Roquemore, and Joél Pérez. Follow The Movement on Facebook at “The Movement Theatre Company” and on Twitter and Instagram @TMTCHarlem.