“YOUR BEST FRIEND”

The staged reading of a NEW PLAY from the creator of the cult hit MONO

Written by STEVEN TANENBAUM (to premiere in spring, 2003)

Featuring 7 current cast members from MONO

8:00pm, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 / @ Musical Theatre Works, 440 Lafayette Street

Invitation only; to reserve, call 212-358-3447 / Download Press @ www.catchmono.com

Performed in two locations (an apartment and a roof), YOUR BEST FRIEND takes place on the night of a meteor shower. Five friends, a pot delivery guy making his last run before retiring to Brooklyn, and an uninvited ganja connoisseur from Japan all gather to smoke and watch the meteor shower.

Tanenbaum's interactive play, MONO, has been acclaimed for its innovative format. YOUR BEST FRIEND continues this trend. Upon entrance, the audience is split into 2 groups. After the first act, one group is directed to stay in the apartment with some of the cast members--while the other group follows the rest of the cast up to the roof. Then, each act is performed simultaneously in the 2 settings. When these separate acts conclude, both groups switch locations.

The actors reading YOUR BEST FRIEND (Sera Demira, Yasu Ikeda, Lawrence Jansen, Tricia McAlpin, Nick Paglino, Kerri Tucker and Donan Whelan) have been working on MONO during its 300-plus performances. This core group of actors, that Show Business Weekly called the leaders of a “new generation of cutting edge theatre,”--along with MONO playwright Steven Tanenbaum, wanted to take advantage of their collective experience and forge an ensemble company. That company, ANOTHER URBAN RIFF, continues to produce what the NYC media praises as “shocking, engaging” work, “the kind of off-the-beaten-track theatre for which New York is notorious.”

MONO, Tanenbaum's current production (which recently had its 300th performance), continues its open-ended run---playing every Thursday, Friday & Saturday, 8pm at SURF REALITY (172 Allen St.). The interactive play, set in a typical Lower East Side Bar, features a rotating cast of international actors portraying a cross-section of drunks, schemers and losers who capture the essence of downtown Manhattan's hip, multi-cultural microcosm. The MONO audience become “patrons” in a bar where management invites you to turn your cell phones on, open a tab and tap into the rhythm of a nightly ritual.

STEVEN TANENBAUM (Writer/Director) is an accomplished storyteller, published monologist and playwright. His screenplay SUPERBAD is currently in pre-production. The critically acclaimed one-man show Q101, first performed in June 1999, documented his experience as a teacher on Riker's Island in a maxi-maxi security facility and in the prison's AIDS ward. The Village Voice raved, “Tanenbaum's sincerity is thorough and powerful, his simple, good intentions showing through with remarkable clarity.”