PRESS RELEASE February 2010
For Immediate Release Contact Angelo Ragaza
angeloragaza@gmail.com
917-705-9572
 

***Whore Works to be presented at the

FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL

 

Sugar Valley Theatricals 
presents
Whore Works
a play by Juan Michael Porter II, directed by Patricia R. Floyd
with Bryan Webster & Juan Michael Porter II

The Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street New York NY, 10014

4 Performances Only!

Saturday, July 17 at 5:30pm

Sunday, July 18 at 9:00pm

Friday, July 23 at 10:00pm

Sunday, July 24 at 6:30pm 

 



Tickets $18.00 available online at  THEATERMANIA



This is my first time doing this...........
I've NEVER paid anyone for sex before.........

WHORING IS HARD WORK. And now the competition is about to get stiffer with the influx of the newly jobless. Whore Works takes a sharp, witty, balls-out look at a black male hooker's day-to-night struggle with hating and sometimes loving men who are paying him to, well.........you know.


WHORE WORKS features a male prostitute (played by Juan Michael Porter II, near left) servicing several clients, (all played by Bryan Webster, far left) over the course of several vignettes that are by turns pulse-quickening, thought-provoking, hilarious and surreal. Whore Works presents a new benchmark in theater, an unflinching, stereotype-exploding exploration of black male sexuality.

jmp hshotRAVES

 Director and screenwriter Stephen Winter (New York, Je t'aime, 2009, starring Kevin Bacon and Julie Christie; producer, Tarnation, 2003): "What really took my breath away was the bold force and brilliance of the performances. This is some of the most shockingly fresh and lacerating theater I've seen."
jmp hshot

Everett Quinton, actor, member, Ridiculous Theatrical Company: “Bryan Webster is absolutely brilliant. Every one of the people he created was so complete; none were caricatures. And what a smart writer Juan Michael Porter II is. After a point, you don’t know who to trust when you live in that world. Porter has an incredible sense of what that life is.”

Charles Rice-Gonzalez, artistic director, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!): "Whore Works is daring, fun, sexy and impeccably acted. The play ignites the current LGBT theater scene with its brave and challenging portrayal of Black men. Bryan Webster gives a tour-de-force performance that should not be missed.

"Darian Aaron, top-ranked blogger (Living Out Loud with Darian):"These two fine actors are so committed, they allow themselves to be completely exposed. And I mean that literally. It might not be a good idea to attend this show with your mother. There's something powerful about black gay love onstage, or, in the case of Whore Works, lust. I couldn't help but revel in the fact that for once there was a relationship presented in the theater that reflected the lives of two black gay men in all its complexity."
Bios
jmp hshotJuan Michael Porter II (playwright) spent two years researching this play. In lieu of attending college, Juan Michael learned the art of writing under the tutelage of his younger sister, the genius Lauren Kinsey.





Bryan Webster* (the Johns) most recently appeared as Bruce Nugent in the SVT production of Passing Ceremonies directed by Sue Lawless and as Cornwall in the Take Wing and Soar production of King Lear. He has performed with the Public Theater in Everybody's Ruby, directed by Kenny Leon; Theater For a New Audience in As You Like It, directed by Mark Rylance; and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in Big Hotel, directed by Everett Quinton. In addition, he's worked at several Shakespeare festivals including those in Boston, North Carolina and Camden, Maine. His voiceover work has been heard on national commercials for Prilosec. He is the recipient of the 2008 Earl Hyman Award.

Patricia R. Floyd (director) is a proud native of the "Motor City," Detroit, Michigan. A recipient of two AUDELCO awards and three Audiophile Golden Earphones awards, she has also appeared in films such as Thirty Years to Life and Indelible and has television credits which include Law & Order and two of its franchise dramas, as well as Rescue Me, The Chris Rock Show, and Reading Rainbow. Cutting her directing teeth in Detroit on such projects as for colored girls..., the one-man show Brother Malcom X: Reminiscences of a Black Revolutionary and The Mighty Gents, she slid into the director's chair at STW in Stamford, Connecticut on A Lesson Before Dying (which won two Connecticut Critics Circle Awards). She has also helmed Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Medal of Honor Rag, Blood Knot, A Walk in the Woods and Intimate Apparel. Some of her favorite New York directing credits include We Are Your Sisters for the Blue Heron Theatre, We Beat Whitey Ford for PSNBC, and The Second Coming and Nobody Was Supposed to Survive: The MOVE Massacre for The Open Eye: Eye on Directors Festival. A guest director at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and a part-time scene study instructor at the New York Film Academy, she has also written, produced and directed a short film and is currently negotiating production of stage and film projects.

*appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association

For more information, tickets and to read "the whore's" blog, visit www.whoreworks.com

PRESS: Angelo Ragaza, angeloragaza@gmail.com, 917-705-9572

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