Unicorn slates comedy for holiday season

Chaos calling, please hold!

Application Pending

Bob Evans

By Greg Edwards & Andy Sandberg

Directed by Ian R. Crawford

Featuring Jennifer Mays as Christine

In the first production since it closed Off-Broadway, Jennifer Mays plays Christine and over forty wild characters in this side-splitting tour de force: Application Pending. Christine is swamped with one hell of a first day as a kindergarten admissions officer for a prestigious Manhattan prep school. The phone is ringing off the hook but Christine must keep her cool as parents will stop at nothing to get their little angels admitted.

Critics have praised this hilarious one-woman comedy from Greg Edwards and Andy Sandberg as “A deliciously twisted solo vehicle… a symphony of hilariously harmonious voices!” — Diane Snyder, Time Out New York. In the New York Daily News, Joe Dziemianowicz called it “Like recess for grownups! … Whether you’re inside the cutthroat world of New York parenting or are blissfully unaware of what some moms and dads will do to get their kids into elite private schools,Application Pending will make you laugh.”

Application Pending is on Unicorn Theatre’s Jerome Stage located at 3828 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111. The show runs December 7th – 26th, 2016. Previews are December 7th, 8th and 9th. Playwright Greg Edwards will be in attendance as our special guest for Opening Night on December 10th. Playwright Andy Sandberg will share his insights into the show at a Featured Friday talkback after the performance on December 16th with free coffee and dessert.

Performances run Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 3:30 p.m. If you are unable to afford a ticket, you may Pay What U Can at performances on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, because we believe art is for everyone. The week of Christmas, there will be a Monday performance on December 19th at 8:00 p.m. There will be no performances on December 24th and 25th. The closing performance will be on Monday, December 26th at 8:00 p.m.

Tickets are now on sale. Call 816-531-PLAY (7529) EXT. 10, go online at www.UnicornTheatre.org or buy in person at the box office located at 3828 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111. Special discounts are available for seniors (65+), students, and patrons under age 30.

About the Director, Cast and Creative Team:

Ian R. Crawford (DIRECTOR/CO-COSTUME DESIGNER) is a director and designer from San Francisco by way of New York City who is proud to now call Kansas City home. At the Unicorn, Ian has directed The Ghosts of Lote Bravo (world premiere) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Other favorite directing credits include The Importance of Being Earnest (for which he also designed the set, props, and costumes), Dada is Dead/Long Live DADA! (which he conceived and co-created for the KC Fringe Festival), The Baltimore Waltz, Life of Galileo, Far Away, and Quartett. At the Unicorn, Ian has designed costumes for The Way We Get By, Buyer & Cellar, The Oldest Boy, Bad Jews, and Water by the Spoonful, and the set for Women Playing Hamlet. Ian directed staged readings of The House on the Hill, How to Steal a Picasso, Women Playing Hamlet, and Barbecue Apocalypsefor the Unicorn’s In-Progress New Play Reading series. Ian is an alum of the La Mama Umbria Directors’ Symposium, a graduate of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and proud to be the Director of Development at Unicorn Theatre.

Jennifer Mays (CHRISTINE et al.) wants to thank the Unicorn for this amazing challenge! A graduate of UMKC, Jen is a proud member of SAG/AFTRA and Actors’ Equity Association and has been a professional actress in and out of KC for 20 years. Her favorite local theatre credits include August: Osage County, A Christmas Carol, Guys and Dolls, and Les Liaisons Dangereusesat KC Rep; On Golden Pond, Gypsy, Beau Jest, Barefoot in the Park, and Leading Ladies at New Theatre; The Nerd, Swingtime Canteen, and Bingo at The Heartland; Miracle Worker and Seussical at The Coterie; Picnic with KCAT; and the KC debut of MotherFreakingHood: The Musical. You can find Jen next spring in New Theatre’s Dixie Swim Club and in the locally produced film The Matchbreaker, available now on iTunes. Thank you for supporting local live theatre! www.jenmays.com.

The creative team for Application Pending is Kelsey Brennan York (stage manager), Gary Mosby (scenic designer), Alex Perry (lighting designer), David Kiehl (sound designer), Ian R. Crawford (co-costume designer),Elizabeth McManus (co-costume designer), Bret Engle (properties designer), Gregory Chafin (technical director), Nicole Jaja (master electrician), Alyson Germinder (dramaturg), Hannah Rogg (dramaturg intern), and Margot Adolphe (board operator).

About the Playwright:

Greg Edwards (PLAYWRIGHT) wrote the scripts for Application Pending and Craving for Travel (Off-Broadway, co-written with Andy Sandberg), lyrics for Neurosis: A New Musical (Merry-Go- Round Playhouse, SALT Award for Best New Musical), and book and lyrics for Taking the Plunge (NYMF, Samuel French OOB Festival) and Evelyn Shaffer and the Chance of a Lifetime (Samuel French OOB Festival). He has collaborated with Marvin Hamlisch (White House Governors’ Dinner, Mr. Hamlisch’s holiday tour) and Arthur Laurents Love( Affair). Greg’s essays are published in Avidly (Los Angeles Review of Books) and McSweeney’s, and his game Jessica Plunkenstein and the Dusseldorf Conspiracy (NYT “Best Adventure Game of the Year”) was published by PC Gamer UK. Honors and approximations thereof include the BMI Harrington Award, Fred Ebb Award (two- time finalist), and Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship (top-12 semifinalist). Greg graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, belongs to the BMI Workshop, and can be stalked most effectively at www.GregEd.com.

Andy Sandberg (PLAYWRIGHT) is a writer, director, actor, and Tony Award-winning producer. He has written the scripts for Application Pending and Craving for Travel (co-authored with Greg Edwards), and he directed their world premieres off- Broadway. Application Pending received the BroadwayWorld Award for Best Off-Broadway Play and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Show. Other directing credits include the world premieres of Operation Epsilon (Four IRNE Awards, including Best Play, Best Director), Shida (AUDELCO nominations, Best Director and Best Musical; Ars Nova / A.R.T.), The Last Smoker in America (Westside Theatre), Zelda at the Oasis (St. Luke’s), R.R.R.E.D. and Bernice Bobs Her Mullet (NYMF). He has been represented on Broadway as a producer of HAIR (2009 Tony Award; also London’s West End), The Best Man (2012 Tony nomination), and The Realistic Joneses. Also as producer: A Perfect Future (Cherry Lane); Paradise Found(Menier Chocolate Factory, London; dir. Hal Prince/); Pageant (Drama Desk nomination – Best Revival); and Vigil (DR2). B.A. Yale University. www.AndySandberg.com / @Andy_Sandberg

About Unicorn Theatre

Founded in 1974, Unicorn Theatre enhances Kansas City by developing and producing professional, provocative new plays. We create opportunities for the advancement of emerging and established actors, directors, playwrights, designers, technicians and administrative staff. Unicorn Theatre is under the artistic and executive leadership of Producing Artistic Director Cynthia Levin, who joined the company in 1979. From a newly expanded home in the Midtown neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, the Unicorn houses two stages—The Levin Stage (formerly The Main Stage) and The Jerome Stage (added in 2008). A fully professional not-for-profit theatre, the theatre operates under agreement with Actor’s Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. The Unicorn is a founding member of the National New Play Network, an alliance of not- for-profit professional theatres that champions the development, production and continued life of new plays for the American theatre; and is a constituent member of Theatre Communications Group, Inc., the national service organization for the not-for-profit professional theatre. Financial assistance for this theatre has been provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; corporate and foundation gifts; and the generous individuals throughout the community we serve.

Unicorn Theatre / 3828 Main Street / Kansas City, MO 64111

TAGS: Theater, Performing Arts, Arts & Entertainment, The Unicorn Theatre, “Application Pending”, Kansas City, Kansas City Theater, Comedy