(via Bruce Cohen)
Ensemble Studio Theatre World Premiere Hit by 25-year-old Youngblood playwright Eric Dufault
directed by John Giampietro
NEW YORK — Year of the Rooster by a 25-year-old Youngblood playwright Eric Dufault, directed by John Giampietro and featuring Denny Dale Bess, Delphi Harrington, Thomas Lyons, Bobby Moreno, and Megan Tusing playing characters both human and/or animal, will return to the Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 West 52nd Street, Thursday, January 9, for a four-week run through February 2, Artistic Director William Carden announced.
Year of the Rooster opened October 24 to critical raves and over-the-top audience response. The New York Times made it a "Critic's Pick", saying "…it isn't merely entertaining. It's astonishingly entertaining." The month-long run sold out long before its original November 24 closing date.
Year of the Rooster is a comic, mythic elevation of the gritty subculture of American cockfighting that opened the Ensemble Studio Theatre's 46th season in October.
Year of the Rooster at the Ensemble Studio Theater isn't merely entertaining. It’s astonishingly entertaining," …"dazzling comic fury."
- The New York Times
"Eric Dufault's comical cockfight thriller Year of the Rooster, written for Youngblood, brims with that group's ferocious, under-30 pep.."
– Time Out New York
Eric Dufault developed the play in the Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood program for playwrights under 30-years of age. "Eric Dufault is a daring, original voice writing in a comic, mythic and scintillating vein. He takes us into the peculiar sub-culture of cock fighting and finds in that fierce and funny world dark resonances of ambition, winning and losing that reach us all. We knew then this was a voice to be heard," said Mr. Carden.
Year of the Rooster is a combination of lowbrow, foul-mouthed humor and hyper-articulate references to Greek myths and legends. The play centers on the regularly ridiculed Gil (Thomas Lyons) who now, with his new rooster, a fearsome killing machine named Odysseus Rex (Bobby Moreno), is experiencing things he’s never had in his life — hope, victory, and revenge.