What is THE BOYS ARE ANGRY?
AJ’s angry. Quinn’s in love. And The Girl might just be perfect. From a small, dark corner of a large, run-down compound, three young millennials try to make a connection. Through conversations both real and imagined, they confront on- and off-line communication; present-day American masculinity; and the violent hatred of women at the dark heart of the 'Manosphere'—all without ever leaving the living room.
The Boys are Angry is a warning against a growing and too often underestimated hate group. We are in the midst of an ongoing epidemic of violence against women. On average, three American women are murdered by an intimate partner every day. One in four American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime—some studies say more. Women’s bodies are treated as public property, and romantic movies (and songs and TV shows and plays) teach us that tirelessly persisting against a woman’s expressed lack of interest is admirable and charming. Right now, the Men’s Rights Movement (and its myriad offshoots) might feel like a drop in an endless sea of symptomatic problems, but if we continue to ignore it, if we continue to think of the movement’s leaders and followers exclusively as trolls, teenagers, and lonely dudes living in Mom’s basement—what might the movement become?
Still want to know more? Check out the show's official promo video, but be warned: it's not safe for work.
What is FringeNYC?
200-plus companies. 20-plus venues. 2 weeks and change. The New York International Fringe Festival is the largest multi-arts festival in North America, and
The Boys Are Angry team is thrilled to be a part of its nineteenth season.
Tickets are available here, and seating is limited so we recommend you buy early!
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The Boys Are Angry will be playing at The Steve & Marie Sgouros Theatre at The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal Street in the West Village on:
Friday, August 14 @ 5PM
Tuesday, August 18 @ 7PM
Friday, August 21 @ 2:30PM
Sunday, August 23 @ 3PM
Friday, August 28 @ 9:15PM
Where's the money going?
Staging a production at the fringe is no small feat, and we need your help to make it happen. If you choose to donate to
The Boys Are Angry, your contribution will go directly towards supporting the show.
Who's on the Team?
words & one original song by Jillie Mae Eddy
directed by Sam Plattus
produced by Maridee Slater for Maineland Productions
featuring the talents of Jillie Mae Eddy, Nate Houran, and Xander Johnson
production design by Lily Prentice
choreography by Sammi Katz
stage management & dramaturgy by Jolene Noelle
lighting design by Katy Atwell
general management by Matthew Wright at Good People Management
publicity by Lanie Zipoy
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JILLIE MAE EDDY (Playwright, ‘The Girl’) is a musician, actress, playwright, and composer. She earned her BA from Bowdoin College in Stage & Screen Studies (self-designed) with a minor in Gender & Women’s Studies, and she earned her MA in Music Theatre from The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in London. Her work has been performed at Royal Festival Hall, 54 Below, The Alchemical Theater Lab, Columbia Stages, The Cell, and Portland Stage. Her original ballad play, Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy, was mounted at New Haven’s Lyric Hall in December 2014. Most recently, she appeared as Crow in Maridee Slater’s production of The Tooth of Crime at the Connelly Theater in New York City; she also contributed one original song and three further compositions set to Sam Shepard’s lyrics. You can find her at jilliemae.com and on Twitter @missbogencounty.
SAM PLATTUS (Director) is a director, actor, and producer from New Haven, Connecticut. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College with a BA in English & Theater, and was a member of the Advanced Directing semester with the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in the fall of 2012. Sam has directed shows at the Portland Stage Company with the PortFringe Theater Festival and has worked with Elm Shakespeare Company (New Haven), the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Acadia Reperatory Theater (Mount Desert Island, ME), (dream)play, FullStop Collective, and Acteurs Sans Limites. He recently directed Jillie Mae Eddy’s Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy at Lyric Hall in New Haven. You can find him at samplattus.com.
MARIDEE SLATER (Producer) is a director, performer, and writer with a penchant for live music and an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. She comes from the desert. Her name means “of the sea.” That irony is not lost on her. or wasted. Recent project run the gamut in terms of genre: The Tooth of Crime by Sam Shepard, with original music by Jillie Mae Eddy and Sam Gelband, You’ve Been Tartuffed (Lickety Split, Off-Broadway), Song of the Sea ((dream)play, Jillie Mae Eddy), SIRENS (devised with writings from Tabia Lau, Matthew Minnicino, Diane Nora, and Laura Zlatos, music by Jillie Mae Eddy), A Sea Gull (adapted from Chekov’s classic by Matthew Minnicino), Select Selections From The Heart: A Word Cycle (Tabia Lau), Twelfth Night (adapted by Matthew Minnicino), A Separate Thing From Earth (Matthew Minnicino), The Girl from Bare Cove (Jillie Mae Eddy), and a solo spin on Chekov’s Cherry Orchard, titled Drop It (Maridee Slater- Writer/Performer, Edinburgh Fringe). She holds degrees in Acting and Scenic Design from Colorado Mesa University. You can find her at marideeslater.com.
MAINELAND PRODUCTIONS is a collective of artists from away making plays, movies, and music in Bar Harbor, ME (and sometimes bringing our plays, movies, and music elsewhere). We believe in risk but also in accessibility. We believe in self-reliance but also in community involvement. We believe in the enduring relevance of Shakespeare and the classics but also in the cultivation of new work by women, artists of color, and all Others underrepresented in the canon. Our second home is in Brooklyn, NY.
NATE HOURAN (‘Quinn’) is a Brooklyn-based actor with deep New England roots. He earned his BA in English & Theater from Bowdoin College and is a graduate of The National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. He has previously collaborated with Sam and Jillie Mae on the PortFringe production of Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy, and with Sam and Xander on American Buffalo and Hamlet. He is overjoyed to be working with them again. Other credits include Romeo and Juliet with Fenix Theatre and The Elephant in the Room at FringeNYC 2014. He can currently be found performing around the city in a Commedia mask with the Platea Theater Project.
XANDER JOHNSON (‘AJ’) is very excited to be working on his second stage show with Maineland Productions. Xander has previously worked with director Sam Plattus on productions on American Buffalo, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and the original show Jacob by Nati Avni-Singer. Xander most recently appeared in Maineland’s Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy at Lyric Hall in New Haven, CT and in Capital Classics’ summer production of All’s Well That Ends Well. Other credits include Salamanticus (an original play by Stephen Legaweic), End of Summer, Den of Thieves, Holiday, The Imaginary Invalid, and Rhinocerous. Xander attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, where he studied theater. Xander has also studied at the Atlantic Theater Acting School in New York. You can find him at xanderj.wix.com/xanderjohnson.
Praise for Maineland
On Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy (Original Workshop Recording):
“It’s a joy to listen to…beautifully arranged and performed by talented players. The string work is diverse and works together well to set a scaffold over which vocals and less prominent instruments fill out a beautiful tapestry of sound…You’re in for a delight.”
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Lisa Regula Meyer for Ear to the Ground Music
On Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy at Lyric Hall, New Haven, CT:
“Following in the vein of A Thousand Acres or Ran, Holler makes a fleet and strong argument for Shakespeare’s enduring relevance: Even when you do away with the timeless language and change the setting completely, the story itself can shock, affect, and linger. And it resonates with our own time, as veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan return to their homes in the rural South. Some do all right. Others don’t. Holler compels us to pay attention–to the past and the present.”
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Brian Slattery for The New Haven Independent
Praise for Our Team
On Jillie Mae Eddy (Playwright, ‘The Girl’):
“Eddy plays Little Lady almost as a vampire, and the old-school kind: seductive, frightening, and probably crazy…Eddy has undeniable stage presence and a startlingly elastic voice, able to coo and screech, howl and sing.”
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Brian Slattery for The New Haven Independent, review for Eddy’s Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy
“Sheer powerhouse bravado, impressive singing prowess.”
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Thomas Burns Scully for OnStage, review for The Tooth of Crime
“Somewhat startlingly talented…Eddy takes over the sonic volume of the space with her huge voice. Her all-too-real cries for help are as unsettling as they should be…It’s a powerful reminder of the dynamic range possible with an ensemble of voices utterly unlike the vast majority of pre-packaged pop.”
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Jeff Smith for Medium, review for Eddy’s The Girl from Bare Cove
“But the true ringer in this…show is the one female lead, Jillie Mae Eddy, who plays the Lady of the Lake…She is spectacular. A vision in shimmering blue with a voice that fills the auditorium (without amplification) and manages to make the one serious song in the play ‘Find Your Grail’ moving and memorable.”
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Nan Lincoln for The Ellsworth American, review for Spamalot
“Eddy brings a dynamic presence and a powerful voice to her portrayal of the Lady of the Lake; her combination of vocal range and comedic timing is a rare one.”
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Allen Adams for The Maine Edge, review for Spamalot
“The lyrics are some of the cleverest and best written I have heard in a long time…The music is deeply interesting…[Jillie Mae’s] voice also has great range doing all the styles perfectly and hitting all the emotional notes just right.”
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Gail Rybak for Marc Gunn’s Celtic Music Magazine, review for Eddy’s The Bare Cove Demos
On Nate Houran (‘Quinn’):
“Nate Houran plays The Elephant, a sort of free floating embodiment of anxiety, and also Peter, a 30 year old accountant who comes over to use the internet. Houran switches between appearing to be a well-meaning young Ed Begley Jr. and a poetic device, deftly. No small feat.”
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Matthew Freeman for nytheater now, review for The Elephant in the Room
“Houran’s take on Romeo got at the lovesick puppy whose maturation comes at a terrible cost. His voice…played into Romeo’s consuming fervor.”
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Steve Feeney for Portland Press Herald, review for Romeo & Juliet
On Xander Johnson (‘AJ’):
“As MacCoy, Xander Johnson stalks the stage with a barely contained rage that keeps boiling over into desire and confusion.”
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Brian Slattery for The New Haven Independent, review for Eddy’s Holler, An Appalachian Tragedy
“The guiding ethos is one of a sincere fairy tale, and the actors embody contrasting classical types without irony or winks…reedy Johnson as the Hoop Seller hops like a gentle grasshopper.”
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Megan Grumbling for The Phoenix, review for Salamanticus
How Can You Help?
The easiest way to help right now is to make a donation. We've offered some suggested donation levels and 'perks' to the right, but remember: you can donate any amount you'd like (no amount is too small, and, of course, no amount is too generous either). Please also remember that the perks are our way of thanking you for supporting the show. We're not selling something, we're asking you to support artists in the making of live theater. And if you're able to give, we are incredibly grateful.
If you can't give, you can still share our campaign and spread the word about our show. Tell your friends and coworkers and family members about The Boys Are Angry by email, on Facebook, on Twitter, or in person. Word of mouth is enormously helpful in getting people interested in shows at the Fringe (and in getting people interested in fundraising). We're just starting up a Twitter account for the show, and you can follow us @mainelandprods. We'll also be posting loads of updates here, so stay tuned!
Thank you for stopping by our campaign, and we hope to see you at the show!
