Happy New Year!

All of us at MRTC would just like to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to support us in 2011. It's been a big year for us, and we're looking forward to exciting things in 2o12. May the new year bring you wonderful things, and may it bring you out to see more Man Research productions. (Which, we'd like to point out, are good things :)

Happy New Year everyone!

Hustlin for the Holidays

We hope you get a chance to see Stephen Elliot Kaiser, our very own Artistic Director, starring in Mad Cat's latest, Macbeth and the Monster! Should be a great time for all!

Welcome aboard!

Man Research Theatre Company is proud to announce our newest company member ART GARCIA!

COUCH PLAY review by Roger Martin

Click on the link below and read the COUCH PLAY review by Roger Martin at miamiartzine.com

http://www.miamiartzine.com/issue_main.cfm?btitle=hope+despair+and+a+fking+lion&issuecatid=1007

SLEEPLESS NIGHT 2011

Miss COUCH PLAY at The SandBox? No worries, catch the show during Sleepless Night, November 5th at 11pm @ The Colony Theatre!

p.s. IT'S FREE


Click on the link below for more info:
http://sleeplessnight.org/?p=450

Less Than A Week

Sharks. There were sharks all around me, giant sharks, and rows and rows of teeth. The shore was crowded with lions and bears, driving a pod of angry crocodiles back into the underwater frenzy. Overhead, pterodactyls, those ancient flying beasts I know too well, screeched and swirled in the mad October wind. Then the skies opened up, and I couldn’t see anything anymore.

That’s when it hit me. Less than one week until COUCH PLAY by Theo Reyna. I wouldn't miss the US premiere, even if it meant my life.

I was over 300 miles from THE SANDBOX in Miami Shores, and I was going to have to think fast. I dodged the advances of several great whites with the agility of a synchronized swimmer and grabbed a smaller one by the nostrils as it tried to clamp down on my arm. I mounted it, took its fins in my hands, and wrenched it, belly up, to the surface. As a pterodactyl swooped in, unable to resist the easy kill, I looped the end of a shoelace around its beak, hopped on its back, and named him Larry under my breath. Things were looking up.

I nosed Larry into the clouds to try to rise above the storm. We had nearly made it out when Larry was struck by lightning and completely disoriented. We plummeted to the beach. I wrestled his neck as we dove and managed to come down inland of the bears and lions. I'm not sure exactly how close I was. Before Larry had come to a stop, I leapt away and was running. I’ve been running ever since.

Whatever it takes, no matter what comes, on Friday October 21, I’ll be where the art is. I will see COUCH PLAY by Theo Reyna. I'll sip a glass of wine, relaxed on a couch as the smooth sounds of CILICA remind me that the past is only a dream.

I won’t lose hope. I am the master of my destiny.

Couch Play Promo

Check it out! Huge thank you to Carrie Martinez for making this video happen. Don't forget, COUCH PLAY happens one week from today!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3jmWkzKVY

It's ALIVE!!! Cast of COUCH PLAY kick things off.

COUCH PLAY October 21st & 22nd!

COUCH PLAY

What happens when you mix courage with vision? Hope. At least, that’s the idea. But things do go wrong. Join the Man Research Theatre at its US premiere of COUCH PLAY, by Theo Reyna.

Thebes entices his roommate Mac into a mountainous desert in search of a free couch, but fails to tell him of the more subtle forces at play. With little food or water, surrounded by despair—literally—besieged by a lion, and with only the aid of a mad scientist and a bucket of sand, will Thebes and Mac escape to their once normal lives? Will they get the couch home or forever lose their deposit? Will they survive? When the abstract becomes real, what can be trusted? Stephen Elliot Kaiser directs this dramatic farce which explores the consequences of trying to manufacture hope. Find out what ensues when salvaging the experiment—and their lives—requires risking the life of one of their own.

And fear not, while Thebes and Mac worry about bringing their couch home, Man Research will have brought the couches to you. Lean back and enjoy the show in audience seating made up entirely of couches! Limited engagement, October 21st and 22nd at 8pm at the SANDBOX, 9806 NE 2nd Ave in Miami Shores. Entry by donation, $5-$25, cash only. For more information call (305) 527-8561.

A Fateful Encounter

Hello there.

I know we haven’t met—not yet—but I got a strong feeling about you, mama. I think we could have some real good times together.

“Excuse me? I’m just waiting here for the bus. Please leave me alone.”

No, no. Don’t say a word. Just relax. Let me do the talking while you rest those honey lips.

You’re probably wondering who I am. I bet you are, I saw you making eyes at me as I was locking my bike to that disabled parking space sign a minute ago. Let me tell you up front—I got nothing to hide—I’m a new local theatre, sweet thing. The name’s MAN RESEARCH THEATRE.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I used to work up in North Miami, at the Luna Star Café. I read some plays up there. First I read the all-original COUCH PLAY, a little something a friend of mine put together. Maybe you know him, Theo Reyna?

“You’re making me very uncomfortable.”

Shhh, shh, sh. It wasn’t long after that I read a little something called SPELLBOUND, another original work by Jeremiah Musgrove.

That felt so good I produced another play of Jeremiah’s, AN EXPERIMENT, last fall. I previewed it at ArtWalk, putting up a free scene on the sidewalk, before premiering the full production at a studio in Wynwood.

Since then, I’ve been working on a lot of things to sweeten you up with. I got this real nice spot up in Miami Shores called the Sandbox. It’s real cozy, just right for an intimate little get-together. I’m going to be doing a play up there,

COUCH PLAY by Theo Reyna on October 21^st and 22^nd at 8pm.

The reading last year was good. It was real good. And when something feels good, I just want to keep doing it, you feel me? O, I think you do, mama. Maybe you want to come. We could get to know each other a little bit.

What do you say, sweetheart?

“Oh. You want… You just want me to come to your play?”

O, I would love for you to come.

“How much does it cost to get in?”

You just bring your sexy self, sweet mama, and I’ll take care of the rest.

“You’re putting up a free play?”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody knows, when you’re feeling the love, nothing could be more right than giving a little love in return. $5 would be nice. $25 would be sweet ecstasy.

“Are you crazy or something?”

I’m crazy for something, mama. Crazy for you.

“This is my bus. I have to go.”

Have a sexy day, sweetheart. I’ll be seeing you.

To our neighbor, Kat:

Kat, haven’t seen you in a while. Hope everything is okay.

We spoke, I don’t know, maybe it was a month ago, and you asked, “What you been into, J?”

I told you I hadn’t been up to much, but that I was getting ready to perform a play.

“Okay. Okay.” You responded. “What play you fixin to do, J?”

I said we were going to do COUCH PLAY, by our friend Theo Reyna, who’s from just over there, across Biscayne.

“COUCH PLAY, huh?”

“Yeah,” I responded.

“Is that play about a couch or something?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll be seeing you J, let me know when you fixin to put up that play.”

“Yeah, man, I will.”

Well, Kat, like I said, we haven’t seen you in a while. We’re doing that play, COUCH PLAY, by our friend Theo Reyna, on the 21^st and 22^nd of October at 8pm. That’s two days only, Kat. It’s going to be at the SANDBOX in Miami Shores at 9806 NE 2^nd Ave.

It would be really nice to see you there, Kat. Hope everything is okay.

Man Research Theatre Company

Exploring our collective consciousness. Me and you, your mama and your cousin too.

ON A MISSION

Mankind is not merely a concept, but a living reality that moves and breathes. We are connected by more than our words, our relationships, our history or ideas. We are the same stuff.

Man Research seeks to know this stuff: bare, honest, in its fundamental state.

There is no place where humans are that this stuff does not exist. There is no situation in which we cannot find it, and there is no person alive who does not know it. Thus, there is no limit to our scope in seeking it out, and there is no one who is incapable of contributing to our understanding of it.

We believe this stuff, as a thread, strings together every living human on the planet. It stretches from the core of our individual beings to create a web of commonality among our species.

Our aim is to illuminate the existence of this thread. Through research and experimentation, we find new work and new methods to bring that which is common to every living human to the forefront of a collective consciousness.