Soho Rep to Present World Premiere of WHILE YOU WERE PARTYING
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 11, 2020
Soho Rep. will present while you were partying (June 9-July 5), a show by Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey with Brian Fiddyment-a bombastic, comedic, and fantastical exploration of impotence, trauma, and the true cost of healing. The piece takes its name from a popular internet meme, depicting a young, pale, and thin white teen holding a large sword.
Mounsey and Weiss create work with their collaborators, who are asked to play versions of themselves that blur the themes of the piece with their own personal stories. They begin with improvisation, write in rehearsals, and work closely with designers across the entirety of their process. Mounsey and Weiss devised the work in Soho Rep.'s 2017-2019 Writer/Director Lab with Brian Fiddyment, a comedian whose work, they describe, "touches on toxic masculinity, suburban despair, and the disorienting world of new media." The Writer/Director Lab, currently co-chaired by Jackie Sibblies Drury and William Burke, is one of the signature programs of the theater in which four pairs of early career artists generate new plays over an 18-month period under the guidance of established mentors. The theater has a strong history of producing the work of many artists that they first get to know in the Lab including and Annie Baker, Will Davis, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Anne Washburn and David Adjmi, whose Marie Antoinette was also written in the Lab.
Mounsey and Weiss' recent work, [50/50] Old School Animation, written with Mo Fry Pasic and Sophie Weisskoff and performed at Under the Radar at The Public Theater in 2019, was an introduction, for audiences, to their work that "flirts with the outer limits of autofiction" (The New York Times). The New Yorker wrote, "If it's invigoration you crave, if you want your distracted mind to snap to attention, if you want to freak out a little, keep your eyes peeled for a remount of [50/50] Old School Animation."
Sarah Benson (Director, Artistic) and Meropi Peponides (Director, Artistic Development and Producing) say, "We could not be more excited to be sharing the full version of Julia and Peter's show that they created in the Soho Rep. Writer/ Director Lab. We both came out of their Lab presentation blown away by the part-exhilarating, part-terrifying experience they created in the room with comedian Brian Fiddyment. They harness subversive delight, discomfort, and everything in between to create a show that will generate a different response for each person seeing the work-our dream at Soho Rep.!"
Soho Rep.'s first three-production season in five years-concluding with while you were partying-represents an important step in executing a three-year strategic plan, developed by the staff and Board. Over the next three years, the company's expanded seasons will provide more meaningful opportunities for artists. Soho Rep. will simultaneously grow their public profile and outreach, and build strong infrastructure and resources for staff behind the scenes.
while you were partying will be performed June 9-July 5 at Soho Rep., located at 46 Walker Street in Manhattan.
The production opens officially on the night of June 17. There will be no performance Saturday, July 4.
Videos
