Threefold Productions announces first two shows of 2012-13 season

YPSILANTI - After successfully opening its inaugural production of "A Body of Water" last winter and finding its footing in the Michigan theater scene, Ypsilanti's newest theater company, Threefold Productions, is ready to announce the first two shows of its 2012/2013 season.

"Pretty Fire," written by Tony nominee Charlayne Woodard, follows one woman's struggle to find her voice in a small suburb of New York during the Civil Rights era. Threefold Productions has brought on local artist Lynch R. Travis to direct this production, who notes of the endeavor, "I share the playwright's ability to recall and find importance in the events that occurred within her family when she was a very small child. Some of those stories are warm and happy memories, while others are terrifying and mysterious, and in many ways, I believe our childhoods can be both the best and worst times of our lives."

Woodard's one-woman show is an untraditional theatrical piece, separated into a series of short vignettes that transports audiences back home, wherever that may be, and through the Pretty Fire.

Threefold Productions has also decided to undertake "The Pillowman," a technically daunting and unrelenting script by Martin McDonagh that follows an unsuccessful author and his emotionally stunted younger brother as they are interrogated by two bulldog policemen about their potential involvement in a recent string of child murders.

Director Sarah Lucas says of the decision to produce this work, "I have always loved taking challenging, big shows and finding a way to make them work in small spaces. I think the intimacy that the Mix Studio Theater offers will only enhance the general uncomfortably of the piece and force myself, my designers, and my cast to find a new way to tell this story."

"Pretty Fire," starring Qamara Black-directed by Lynch Travis, is scheduled to run July 20-21, 25, 27-28 and Aug. 3-4. All performances begin at 8 p.m.

"The Pillowman," starring Evan Mann, Brooklyn Dimitri, Sean Sabo, Jon Ager, Monica Kozakiewicz, Julia Garlotte and Zac Hendrickson and directed by Sarah Lucas, will run Sept. 21-22, 26, 28-29, Oct. 5-6 and 12-13. All performances begin at 8 p.m.

Both productions will be held at The Mix Studio Theatre, 8 N. Washington St., Ypsilanti. Tickets can reserved on online at www.threefoldproductions.org.

For more information about Threefold Productions, please visit www.threefoldproductions.org or e-mail info@threefoldproductions.org.