1786: Mary Lamb commits a horrifying act of bloodshed and her brother Charles learns to forgive.

2013: A man refuses to change and his lover learns to evolve.

This summer, two-time New York Innovative Theatre Award-winning playwright Nat Cassidy brings us a heartbreaking new drama about four lives, bound by obsession, rocked by madness, and saved by blank verse. Based on true events.

"THERE IS A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF INDIES/
WHICH TAKEN AT THE FLOOD LEADS ON TO GOGO."

Hi friends! It's festival time again and you know what that means: TIME TO FUNDRAISE! 

Wait! Don't go!

I'm super thrilled to be participating once more in the NY International Fringe Festival. This is my third year in a row writing/directing a show in the festival and I couldn't be more excited about this particular project.

Excited and terrified, actually. But more on that in a mo'.

The show is called Old Familiar Faces. It's an interweaving of two stories: the first details the lives of Charles and Mary Lamb, the brother/sister team who wrote the 1807 children's classic Tales from Shakespeare and who dealt with, among other things, Mary's severe bouts of madness which culminated in her murdering their mother with a kitchen knife. The second story is a contemporary American "adaptation" of the difficult romance between Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, themselves no strangers to mental anguish.

Basically, it's an examination of four broken people and why it is that they were able to find solace in the works of William Shakespeare. It's about the nature of love and obsession and guilt, the whys and the hows, as well as a really heartfelt homage to the Lambs, whose story has fascinated me for years. The idea of two people who literally give up everything else in their lives to see each other through mental institutions, breakdowns, resentments, fame and infamy, to me gets to the heart of what love really is about.

Old Familiar Faces is a bit of a departure from anything I've written thus far. It's also the most personal. I found myself dealing with, among other things, my own lifelong obsession with the works of Shakespeare, my experiences dealing with a loved one with a severe mental disorder, even my own war stories from the Benatarrian battlefield. In short, I've written about zombies, mutants, demons, serial killers, ghosts, cannibals, antebellum Democrats ... but there were times when writing this felt like the scariest thing I'd ever attempted. However, I think you're really going to like the end results (and don't worry if you're not a Shakespeare person - at our developmental readings I had plenty of people who don't care one bit about the works of ol' Bill tell me afterwards how surprised they were to relate to the material).

The past couple of years have been banner ones for me as a writer - I've been lucky enough to get some nice commissions and awards and produce some things I'm deeply proud of. I hope to make Old Familiar Faces a culmination of everything I've learned thus far.

"ALL THE WORLD'S A FRIGGIN' COST-PROHIBITIVE STAGE."

I know all too well what it's like to get a plea for funds when you yourself aren't in the position to give. If you're unable to contribute any money, I completely understand. However, there are still ways to help if you are so inclined.

This is going to be a very tiiiiny crew and we will need all the help we can get, so if there are any other ways you want to lend a hand, please don't hesistate to get in touch.  We'll certainly be needing at least one stagehand/ASM, as well as someone to help with publicity, and if you have any other skills you think might be useful, we are all ears, believe me. And we will have other perks at our disposal to offer, as well, like festival participation badges and ad space and whatnot.

Heck, even just helping us spread the word about this campaign would be hugely appreciated. If you wouldn't mind sharing this with anyone you think would be interested, it would be a gigantic blessing.

"WE KNOW WHO WE ARE, BUT NOT WHO WE MAY BE SOLICITING FOR FUNDRAISING PURPOSES."

Oh, right - hopefully not everyone seeing this is already a friend of mine. Perhaps I should introduce myself official-like?

NAT CASSIDY (director/playwright) is an award-winning playwright, actor, director, and a sandwich-winning musician. He has been seen onstage at venues such as Lincoln Center, The Public, Classic Stage, Theatre Row, SoHo Playhouse, The Players Theatre, P.S. 122, Manhattan Theatre Source, 59E59, The Gallery Players, and many others. Nat's published works include ANY DAY NOW ("Genius ... a great play for a myriad of reasons," The Fab Marquee), THE RECKONING OF KIT & LITTLE BOOTS (Winner, NY Innovative Theatre Award for Full-Length Script), THE ETERNAL HUSBAND ("Amazing, unforgettable, absolutely electrifying. Generates heat that is pure brilliance," Joe Franklin, Bloomberg Radio), SONGS OF LOVE: A THEATRICAL MIXTAPE ("This restored my faith in theatre," The Happiest Medium), and I AM PROVIDENCE ("The most delightful thing we have ever seen anyone pull off on a stage, anywhere, ever," Tor; Winner, NYIT Award for Solo Performance; directed by DeLisa White). In 2012, Nat was commissioned by the Washington National Opera at The Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a world premiere opera, which debuted to much acclaim this past November. Nat was named one of nytheatre's 2011 People of the Year for his contribution to the NY independent theatre scene. www.natcassidy.com